Chapter VII: Introduction (6)

I suppose him to be not only the largest of the eagle kind, but surely one of the largest birds that flies. From wing to wing he was 8 feet 4 inches. From the tip of his tail to the point of his beak when dead, 4 feet 7 inches. He weighed 22 pounds, was very full of flesh. He seemed remarkably short in the legs, being only four inches from the joining of the foot to where the leg joins the thigh, and from the joint of the thigh to the joining of his body 6 inches. The thickness of his thigh was little less than 4 inches; it was extremely muscular, and covered with flesh. His middle claw was about 2 inches and a half long, not very sharp at the point, but extremely strong. From the root of the bill, to the point, was 3 inches and a quarter, and one inch and three quarters in breadth at the root. A forked brush of strong hair, divided at the point into two, proceeded from the cavity of his lower jaw at the beginning of his throat. He had the smallest eye I ever remember to have seen in a large bird, the aperture being scarcely half an inch. The crown of his head was bare or bald, so was the front where the bill and scull joined.

This noble bird was not an object of any chace or pursuit, nor stood in need of any stratagem to bring him within our reach. Upon the highest top of the mountain Lamalmon, while my servants were refreshing themselves from that toilsome rugged ascent, and enjoying the pleasure of a most delightful climate, eating their dinner in the outer air with several large dishes of boiled goats flesh before them, this enemy, as he turned out to be to them, appeared suddenly; he did not stoop rapidly from a height, but came flying slowly along the ground, and sat down close to the meat within the ring the men had made round it. A great shout, or rather cry of distress, called me to the place. I saw the eagle stand for a minute as if to recollect himself, while the servants ran for their lances and shields. I walked up as nearly to him as I had time to do. His attention was fully fixed upon the flesh. I saw him put his foot into the pan where was a large piece in water prepared for boiling, but finding the smart which he had not expected, he withdrew it, and forsook the piece which he held.

There were two large pieces, a leg and a shoulder, lying upon a wooden platter, into these he trussed both his claws, and carried them off, but I thought he looked wistfully at the large piece which remained in the warm water. Away he went slowly along the ground as he had come. The face of the cliff over which criminals are thrown took him from our sight. The Mahometans that drove the asses, who had, as we have already observed in the course of the journey, suffered from the hyæna, were much alarmed, and assured me of his return. My servants, on the other hand, very unwillingly expected him, and thought he had already more than his share.

As I had myself a desire of more intimate acquaintance with him, I loaded a rifle-gun with ball, and sat down close to the platter by the meat. It was not many minutes before he came, and a prodigious shout was raised by my attendants, He is coming, he is coming, enough to have discouraged a less courageous animal. Whether he was not quite so hungry as at the first visit, or suspected something from my appearance, I know not, but he made a small turn, and sat down about ten yards from me, the pan with the meat being between me and him. As the field was clear before me, and I did not know but his next move might bring him opposite to some of my people, and so that he might actually get the rest of the meat and make off, I shot him with the ball through the middle of his body about two inches below the wing, so that he lay down upon the grass without a single flutter. Upon laying hold of his monstrous carcase, I was not a little surprised at seeing my hands covered and tinged with yellow powder or dust. Upon turning him upon his belly, and examining the feathers of his back, they produced a brown dust, the colour of the feathers there. This dust was not in small quantities, for, upon striking his breast, the yellow powder flew in fully greater quantity than from a hair-dresser’s powderpuff. The feathers of the belly and breast, which were of a gold colour, did not appear to have any thing extraordinary in their formation, but the large feathers in the shoulder and wings seemed apparently to be fine tubes, which upon pressure scattered this dust upon the finer part of the feather, but this was brown, the colour of the feathers of the back. Upon the side of the wing, the ribs, or hard part of the feather, seemed to be bare as if worn, or, I rather think, were renewing themselves, having before failed in their function.

What is the reason of this extraordinary provision of nature is not in my power to determine. As it is an unusual one, it is probably meant for a defence against the climate in favour of those birds which live in those almost inaccessible heights of a country, doomed, even in its lower parts, to several months of excessive rain. The pigeons we saw upon Lamalmon, had not this dust in their feathers, nor had the quails; from which I guess these to be strangers, or birds of passage, that had no need of this provision, created for the wants of the indigenous, such as this eagle is, for he is unknown in the low country. That same day I shot a heron, in nothing different from ours, only that he was smaller, who had upon his breast and back a blue powder, in full as great quantity as that of the eagle.

_London Publish’d De.^r 1.^{st} 1789. by G. Robinson & Co._]

BLACK EAGLE.

This beautiful bird was the first subject that suffered the loss of liberty, after the king and whole army had vindicated theirs, had passed the Nile in circumstances scarcely within the bounds of credibility, had escaped all the deep-laid schemes of Fasil, and by a train of accidents almost miraculous, passed triumphantly on before him after the battle of Limjour, having joined Kefla Yasous, advanced and encamped at Dingleber the 28th of May 1770.

This bird, who from the nobleness of his kind was appositely enough thought to be a type of the king, fell by a fate, in which he still more resembled him, overpowered by the strength and number of a species of birds in character infinitely below him. It has been repeatedly observed in the course of my narrative, that an inconceivable number of birds and beasts of prey, especially the former, follow an Abyssinian army pace by pace, from the first day of its march till its return, increasing always in prodigious proportion the more it advances into the country. An army there leaves nothing living behind, not the vestige of habitation, but the fire and the sword reduces everything to a wilderness and solitude.

The beasts and birds unmolested have the country to themselves, and increase beyond all possible conception. The slovenly manner of this savage people, who after a battle neither bury friends nor enemies, the quantity of beasts of burden that die perpetually under the load of baggage, and variety of mismanagement, the quantity of offal and half-eaten carcases of cows, goats, and sheep, which they consume in their march for their sustenance, all furnish a flock of carrion sufficient to occasion contagious distempers, were there not such a prodigious number of voracious attendants, who consume them almost before putrefaction. In their voracious stomachs lies the grave of the bravest soldier, unless very high birth or office, or very extraordinary affection in their attendants, procure them a more decent, though more uncommon fate, a sepulchre in a neighbouring church-yard. There is no giving the reader any idea of their number, unless by comparing them to the sand of the sea. While the army is in motion they are a black canopy, which extend over it for leagues. When encamped, the ground is discoloured with them beyond the sight of the eye, all the trees are loaded with them. I need not say that these are all carrion birds, such as the vulture, kite, and raven, that is a species to which nature has refused both the inclination and the power of feeding upon living subjects.

By what accident this small eagle, who was not a carrion bird, came among these cowardly and unclean feeders, is more than I can say; but it met the fate very common to those who assort with bad company, and those of sentiments and manners inferior to their own. One of these, a kite, vulture, or raven, I know not which, struck the poor eagle down to the ground just before the door of the king’s tent, and hurt him so violently, that he had scarcely strength to flutter under the canopy where the king was sitting; pages and officers of the bed-chamber soon seized him. It was not long before they made the application that the king was to be dethroned by a subject, and Fasil was in everybody’s mouth. The omen was of the kind too unpleasant to be dwelt upon; the sensible people of the attendants hurried it away, and it of course came to me with all the circumstances of the accident, the moral of that tale, and twenty prophecies that were current to confirm it. I confess my own weakness; at first it made a strong impression upon me. In the moment the passage of Shakespeare came into my mind,

------“On Tuesday last,
“A falcon tow’ring in his pride of place,
“Was by a mousing owl hawk’d at and kill’d.”

And this recollection occupied my mind so forcibly, that I stood for a moment speechless, and as it were rivetted to the ground. This behaviour, unusual in me, who used always to laugh at their presages, and prophecies, was observed by the page that brought me the bird, and was reported to the king; and though he did not speak of it that time, yet some days after, when I was taking my leave of him on his retreat from Gondar to Tigré, he mentioned it to me: said we were mistaken, for the omen referred to Powussen’ of Begemder, and not to Waragna Fasil.

After sketching his genteel and noble manner while alive, our unfortunate prisoner found his death by the needle, was put out of sight, and carried to Gondar, where the drawing was finished. He was altogether of a dark brown, or chesnut, leading to black. The whole length, from the extremity of the tail to the nose, was two feet four inches. The breadth, from wing to wing, four feet six inches. He was very lean, and weighed something less than five pounds. The fourth feather of his wing after the three largest, was white. The feathers of the lower side of his tail were of a bluish brown, checkered with white, and those of the upper side of the tail were black and white alternately. His thighs were thick-covered with feathers, and so were his legs, down to the joining of the foot. His feet were yellow, with strong black claws. The inside of his wings was white, with a mixture of brown. His leg, from the joining of the foot, was three inches. His beak, from the point to where the feathers reached, was two inches and a quarter. The length of his crest from the head to the longest feather, five inches. The eye was black, with a cast of fire colour in it, the iris yellow, and the whole eye exceedingly beautiful. He seemed wonderfully tame, or rather sluggish, but whether that was from his nature or misfortune I cannot be a judge, never having seen another.

_London Publish’d Feb.^y 10.^{th} 1790 by G. Robinson & Co._]

RACHAMAH.

This bird is met with in some places in the south of Syria and in Barbary, but is no where so frequent as in Egypt and about Cairo. It is called, by the Europeans, Poule de Faraone, the hen or bird of Pharaoh. It is a vulture of the lesser kind, not being much larger than our rook or crow, though, by the length of its wings, and the erect manner in which it carries its head, it appears considerably larger. In Egypt and all over Barbary it is called Rachamah, and yet it has been very much doubted what bird this was, as well as what was the origin of that name. Some of the Arabs will have it derived from Archam, which signifies variegated, or of different colours. It has been answered, that this is not the derivation, as archam in Arabic signifies variegated, or of more colours than two or three blended together, whereas this is in its feathers only black and white, separate from one another, and cannot be called variegated. But I must here observe, that this is by no means a proper interpretation of the Arabic word. Among many examples I could give, I shall adduce but one. There is a particular kind of sheep in Arabia Felix, whose head and part of the neck are black, and the rest of the beast white; it is chiefly found between Mocha and the Straits of Babelmandeb. This in Arabic is called Rachama, for no other reason but because it is marked black and white, which are precisely the two colours which distinguish the bird before us.

But I still am induced to believe the origin of this bird’s name has an older and more classical derivation than that which we have just spoken of. We know from Horus Apollo, in his book upon Hieroglyphics, that the Rachma, or she-vulture, was sacred to Isis, and that its feathers adorned the statue of that goddess. He says it was the emblem of parental affection, and that the Egyptians, about to write an affectionate mother, painted a she-vulture. He says further, that this female vulture, having hatched its young ones, continues with them one hundred and twenty days, providing them with all necessaries; and, when the stock of food fails them, she tears off the fleshy part of her thigh, and feeds them with that and the blood which flows from the wound. Rachama, then, is good Hebrew, it is from Rechem, female love, or attachment, from an origin which it cannot have in men. In this sense we see it used with great propriety in the first book of Kings[66], in Isaiah[67], and in Lamentations[68], and it seems particularly to mean what the Egyptians made it a hieroglyphic of in very ancient ages, and before the time of Moses, maternal affection towards their progeny. No mention is here made of the male Rachama, nor was he celebrated for any particular quality.

From this silence, or negative personage in him, arose a fable that there was no male in this species. Horus Apollo[69], after naming this bird always in the feminine gender, tells us roundly, that there is no male of the kind, but that the female conceives from the south wind. Plutarch[70], Ammianus[71], and all the Greeks, say the same thing; and Tzetzes[72], after having repeated the same story at large, tells us that he took it all from the Egyptians, so there seems to be little doubt either of the origin or meaning of the name.

The fathers in the first ages, after the death of Christ, seem to have been wonderfully pressed in point of argument before they could have recourse to a fable like this to vindicate the possibility of the Virgin Mary’s conception without human means. Tertullian[73], Orgines[74], Bazil[75], and Ambrosius[76], are all wild enough to found upon this ridiculous argument, and little was wanting for some of these learned ones to land this fable upon Moses, who probably knew it as a vulgar error before his time, but was very far from paying any regard to it; on the contrary, it is with the utmost propriety and precision, that, speaking to the people, he calls it Rachama in the feminine, because he was then giving them a list of birds forbidden to be ate[77], among which he selected the female vulture, as that was best known, and the great object of idolatry and superstition; and the male, and all the lesser abominations of that species, he included together in the word that followed _his_ kind; though the English translator, by calling the female vulture _him_, has introduced an impropriety that there was not the least foundation for. That Moses was not the author of or believer in this Egyptian fable, is plain from a verse in Exodus, where, at another time, he speaks of this bird, as a male, and calls him Racham, and not Rachama.

It will not be improper that I here take notice, that the English translator, by his ignorance of language, has lost all the beauty and even the sense of the Hebrew original. He makes God say, “Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles wings, and brought you unto myself[78]”. Now, if the expression had been really Eagle, the word would have been Nisr, and would have signified nothing; but, in place of eagle, God says Vulture, the emblem of maternal affection and maternal tenderness towards his children, which has a particular connection with, “brought you unto myself;” so that the passage will run thus, Say to the children of Israel, See how I have punished the Egyptians, while I bore you up on the wings of the Rachama, that is, of parental tenderness and affection, and brought you home to myself. It is our part to be thankful that the truths of Holy Scripture are preserved to us entire, but still it is a rational regret that great part of the beauty of the original is lost.

Notwithstanding all that has been said, this bird has been mistaken nearly by all the interpreters Hebrews, Syrians, and Samaritans; the Greeks, from imaginations of their own, have thought it to be the pelican, the stork, the swan, and the merops. Bochart, after a variety of guesses, acknowledges his own ignorance, and excuses it by laying equal blame upon others. Hitherto, says he, we have not been able to condescend upon what bird this was, because those that have wrote concerning it were as ignorant in the natural history of things as they were skilful in the interpretation of words.

The point of the beak of this bird is black, very sharp and strong for about three quarters of an inch, it is then covered by a yellow, fleshy membrane, which clothes it as it were both above and below, as likewise the forepart of the head and throat, and ends in a sharp point before, nearly opposite to where the neck joins the breast; this membrane is wrinkled, and has a few hairs growing thinly scattered upon the lower part of it. It has large, open nostrils, and prodigious large ears, which are not covered by any feathers whatever. The body is perfect white from the middle of the head, where it joins the yellow membrane, down to the tail. The large feathers of its wing are black; they are six in number. The lesser feathers are three, of an iron-grey, lighter towards the middle, and these are covered with three others lesser still, but of the same form, of an iron rusty colour; those feathers that cover the large wing-feathers are at the top for about an inch and a quarter of an iron-grey, but the bottom is pure white. The tail is broad and thick above, and draws to a point at the bottom. It is not composed of large feathers, and is not half an inch longer than the point of its wings. Its thighs are cloathed with a soft down-like feather, as far as the joint. Its legs are of a dirty white, inclining to flesh colour, rough, with small tubercules which are soft and fleshy. It has three toes before and one behind; the middle of these is considerably the longest; they are armed with black claws, rather strong than pointed, or much crooked. It has no voice that ever I heard, generally goes single, and oftener sits and walks upon the ground than upon trees. It delights in the most putrid and slinking kind of carrion, has itself a very strong smell, and putrifies very speedily.

It is a very great breach of order, or police, to kill any one of these birds near Cairo. But as there are few of its species in Egypt, and its name is the same all over Africa and Arabia, it seems to me strange that the Arabian or Hebrew writers should have found so much difficulty in discovering what was the bird. It lays but two eggs, and builds its nest in the most desert parts of the country. More of its history or manners I do not know. The books are full of fanciful stories concerning it, which the instructed reader at first sight will know to be but fable.

_Heath. Sc._

_London Publish’d Dec.^r 1.^{st} 1789. by G. Robinson & Co._]

ERKOOM.

It would appear that this bird is part of a large tribe, the greatest variety in which lies in his beak and horn. The horn he wears sometimes upon the beak, and sometimes upon the forehead above the root of the beak. These are the only parts that appear in collections. I gave to the cabinet of the king of France the first bird of this kind seen entire, and I have here exhibited the first figure and description of it that ever was seen in natural history, drawn from the life. In the east part of Abyssinia it is called Abba Gumba, in the language of Tigré; on the western side of the Tacazzè it is called Erkoom; the first of its names is apparently from the groaning noise it makes, the second has no signification in any language that I know.

At Ras el Feel, in my return through Sennaar, I made this drawing from a very entire bird, but slightly wounded; it was in that country called Teir el Naciba, the bird of destiny. This bird, or the kind of it, is by naturalists called the Indian crow, or raven; for what reason it is thus classed is more than I can tell. The reader will see, when I describe his particular parts, whether they agree with those of the raven or not. There is one characteristic of the raven which he certainly has, he walks, and does not hop or jump in the manner that many others of that kind do; but then he, at times, runs with very great velocity, and, in running, very much resembles the turkey, or bustard, when his head is turned from you.

The colour of the eye of this bird is of a dark brown, or rather reddish cast; but darker still as it approaches the pupil; he has very large eye-lashes, both upper and lower, but especially his upper. From the point of the beak to the extremity of the tail is 3 feet 10 inches; the breadth from one point of the wing to the other extended, is 6 feet, and the length 22 inches. The length of the neck 10 inches, and its thickness 3 inches and a half; the length of the beak measuring the opening near the head straight to the point, 10 inches; and from the point of the beak to the root of the horn 7 inches and 3/8ths. The whole length of the horn is 3 inches and a half. The length of the horn from the foot to the extremity where it joins the beak, is 4 inches. The thickness of the beak in front of the opening is one inch and 7/8ths. The thickness of the horn in front is one inch and 5/8ths. The horn in height, taken from the upper part of the point to the beak, 2 inches. The length of the thighs 7 inches, and that of the legs 6 inches and 5/8ths. The thickness in profile 7 lines, and in front 4 lines and a half. It has three toes before and one behind, but they are not very strong, nor seemingly made to tear up carcases. The length of the foot to the hinder toe is one inch 6 lines, the innermost is one inch 7 lines, the middle 2 inches 2 lines, and the last outer one 2 inches one line.

This bird is all of a black, or rather black mixed with soot-colour; the large feathers of the wing are ten in number, milk-white both without and within. The tip of his wings reaches very nearly to his tail; his beak and head measured together are 11 inches and a half, and his head 3 inches and a quarter. At his neck he has those protuberances like the Turkey-cock, which are light-blue, but turn red upon his being chased, or in the time the hen is laying.

I have seen the Erkoom with eighteen young ones; it runs upon the ground much more willingly than it flies, but when it is raised, flies both strong and far. It has a rank smell, and is said to live in Abyssinia upon dead carcases. I never saw it approach any of these; and what convinces me this is untrue, is, that I never saw one of them follow the army, where there was always a general assembly of all the birds of prey in Abyssinia.

It was very easy to see what was its food, by its place of rendezvous, which was in the fields of teff, upon the tops of which are always a number of green beetles, these he strips off by drawing the stalk through his beak, and which operation wears his beak so that it appears to be serrated, and, often as I had occasion to open this bird, I never found in him any thing but the green scarabeus, or beetle. He has a putrid or stinking smell, which I suppose is the reason he has been imagined to feed upon carrion.

The Erkoom builds in large, thick trees, always, if he can, near churches; has a covered nest like that of a magpie, but four times as large as the eagle’s. It places its nest firm upon the trunk, without endeavouring to make it high from the ground; the entry is always on the east side. It would seem that the Indian crow of Bontius is of this kind: it is difficult, however, of belief, that his natural food is nutmegs; for there seems nothing in his structure or inclination, which is walking on the ground, that is necessary or convenient for taking such food.

ABOU HANNES.

The ancient and true name of this bird seems to be lost. The present one is fancifully given from observation of a circumstance of its œconomy; translated, it signifies, Father John, and the reason is, that it appears on St John’s day, the precise time when first the fresh water of the tropical rains is known in Egypt to have mixed with the Nile, and to have made it lighter, sweeter, and more exhaleable in dew, that is in the beginning of the season of the tropical rains, when all water-fowl, that are birds of passage, resort to Ethiopia in great numbers.

_London Publish’d Dec.^r 1.^{st} 1789. by G. Robinson & Co._]

As I have observed this bird has lost its name, so in the history of Egypt and Ethiopia we have lost a bird, once very remarkable, of which now nothing remains but the name, this is the Ibis, to which divine honours were paid, whose bodies were embalmed and preserved with the same care as those of men. There still remain many repositories full of them in Egypt, and appear everywhere in collections in the hands of the curious. Though the manner that these birds are prepared, and caustic ingredients, with which the body is injected, have greatly altered the consistency of their parts, and the colour of their plumage, yet it is from these, viewed and compared deliberately, and at leisure, that I am convinced the Abou Hannes is neither more nor less than the Ibis.

Several authors, treating of this bird, have involved it in more than Egyptian darkness. They have first said it was a stork, then the hæmatopus, or red-legged heron; they then say its colour is of a fine shining black, its beak and legs of a deep red. Some have said it was from it that men learned the way to administer clysters, others, that it conceived at the beak, and even laid eggs that way, and that its flesh is sweet and red like that of a salmon. Ail these and many more are fables. We know from Plutarch, that in the plumage, it is black and white like the pelargus. And the mummy pits, by furnishing part of the bird itself, confirm us in the opinion.

The Abou Hannes has a beak shaped like that of a curlew, two-thirds of which is straight, and the remaining third crooked; the upper part of a green, horny substance, and the lower black. From the occiput to where it joins the beak is four inches and a half. Its leg, from the lower joint of the thigh to the foot, is six inches, the bone round and strong, according to the remark of Cicero, and from the lower joint of the thigh, to where it joins the body, is five inches and a half. The height of the body as it stands, from the sole of its foot to the middle of the back, is nineteen inches. The aperture of the eye is one inch. Its feet and legs are black; has three toes before, armed with sharp, straight claws: it has a toe also behind. Its head is brown, and the same colour reaches down to the back, or where the back joins with the neck. Its throat is white, so are its breast, back, and thighs. The largest feathers of its wings are a deep black for thirteen inches from the tail, and from the extremity of the tail, six inches up the back is black likewise.

Now the measures of the beak, the tibia, the thigh-bone, and the scull, compared with the most perfect of the embalmed birds taken from the mummy pits, do agree in every thing as exactly as can be expected. The length of the beak in my drawing seems to exceed that of the embalmed bird, but I will not be positive; this small error is not in the design, though the white feathers are scorched in the embalmed birds, yet there is no difficulty in perceiving the colour distinctly; there is less in distinguishing the black upon the wings and above its rump. The measure of both so exactly agree that they can scarcely be mistaken.

The reason, we are told, why this bird was held in such veneration in Egypt, was the great enmity it had to serpents, and the use of freeing the country from them; but for my own part, I must confess, that as I know, for certain, there are no quantity of serpents in Egypt, as the reason of things is that they should be few, so I can never make myself believe they ever were in such abundance, as to need any particular agent to distinguish itself by destroying them. Egypt Proper, that is the cultivated and inhabited part of it, is overflowed for five months every year by the Nile, and it is impossible vipers can abound where there is such long and regular refrigerations. The viper casts his skin in May, and is immediately after in his renewed youth and fulness of vigour. All this time he would be doomed in Egypt to live under water, or hid in some hole, and this is the time when the Ibis is in Egypt, so that the end of his coming would be frustrated by the absence of his enemy. The vipers have their abode in the sandy desert of Libya, where even dew does not fall, where the sand is continually in motion, parched with hot winds, and glowing with the scorching rays of the sun. There the Ibis could not live ; the country is not inhabited by man, and consequently vipers there would be no nuisance. Nay, we know these vipers of Libya are an article of commerce in Egypt. The Theriac is composed of them at Venice and at Rome, and they are dispersed for the uses of medicine throughout the different parts of the world.

Now, in this light, the Ibis could not live among them, nor would he be of benefit even if he could; but as we have it from a number of credible historians that the Ibis was plentiful in Egypt, that vipers, at least, in some part of it, were so frequent as to be a nuisance, and that we know as surely two other things, that neither the vipers are a nuisance, nor is the Ibis in Egypt at this day, we must look for some change in the œconomy of the country which can account for this.

We know in a manner not to doubt, that in ancient times Egypt was inhabited, and extended to the edges of the Libyan Desert; nay, in some places, considerably into it; large lakes were dug in this country by their first kings, and these, filled in the time of the Nile’s inundation, continued immense reservoirs, which were let out by degrees to water the plantations and pleasure-ground that had been created by man, in what was formerly a desert. Nothing in fact was wanting but water, and these large lakes supplied this want abundantly, by furnishing water of the purest and most perfect kind: in the neighbourhood of these artificial plantations, there can be no doubt the viper must be a nuisance. Being indigenous in this his domicil, it is not probable he would quit it easily, and any deficiency of them in number would not have failed to be supplied from the deserts in the neighbourhood. The prodigious pools of stagnant water would bring the Ibis thither, and place him near his enemy, and after man had once discerned his use, gratitude would soon lead him to reward him.

But after, when these immense lakes, and the conduits leading to them, were neglected, and the works ruined which conducted these artificial inundations, and covered the deserts of Libya with verdure; when war and tyranny, and every sort of bad government, made people fly from the country, or live precariously and insecure in it, all this temporary paradise vanished: the land was overflowed no more; the sands of the desert resumed their ancient station; there were no inhabitants in the country, no pools of water for the Ibis, nor was the viper a nuisance. The Ibis retired to his native country Ethiopia, in the lower part of which, that is, in a hot country full of pools of stagnant water, he remains, and there I found him.

It is probable in Egypt he had increased greatly by the quantity of food and good entertainment he had. Upon these failing, he probably died and wore out of Egypt; and in the proportion in which he was at first created, which seems to have been a slender one, he remained in his native Ethiopia, for his emigration and increase in Egypt was merely accidental. This, I apprehend, is the true cause why the Ibis is now no longer known in Egypt; but I am satisfied to restore him to natural history, with at least a probable conjecture, why he is now unknown in those very regions where once he was worshipped as a god. His figure appears frequently upon the obelisks among the hieroglyphics, and further confirms my conjecture that this is the bird.

The Count de Buffon has published the bird, which he calls the white[79] Ibis of Egypt, the half of his head crimson, with a strong beak of a gold colour, liker to that of a toucan, and long, purple, weak legs, and a thick neck; in short, having none of the characters of the bird it is intended to represent.

The reader may be assured there is no such Ibis in Egypt; none ever appeared from the catacombs but what were black and white, as historians have described[80], so that this is so disguised by the drawing and colouring as not to be known, or else it came from some other country than Egypt.

MOROC.

I have already said in the introduction which immediately precedes the history of birds, that among those that live upon insects there are some that attach themselves to flies in general, and others that seem to live upon bees alone: Of this last sort is the bird now before us. I never saw him in the low country where the fly is, nor indeed anywhere but in the countries where honey is chiefly produced as revenue, such as the country of the Agow, Goutto, and in Belessen.

_London Publish’d Jan.^y 19.^{th} 1790 by G. Robinson & Co._]

He seems to pursue the bees for vengeance or diversion as well as for food, as he leaves a quantity of them scattered dead upon the ground without seeking further after them, and this pastime he unweariedly pursues without interruption all the day long; for the Abyssinians do not look so near, or consider things so much in detail, as to imagine all the waste which he commits can make any difference in their revenue.

His name is Maroc, or Moroc, I suppose from Mar, honey, though I never heard he was further concerned in the honey than destroying the bees. In shape and size he seems to be a cuckoo, but differs from him in other respects. He is drawn here of his natural size, and in all respects so minutely attended to, that I scarcely believe there is a feather amissing.

The opening of his mouth is very wide when forced open, reaching nearly to under his eyes. The inside of his mouth and throat are yellow, his tongue sharp-pointed. It can be drawn to almost half its length out of its mouth beyond the point of its beak, and is very flexible. Its head and neck are brown, without mixture. It has a number of exceeding small hairs, scarcely visible at the root of his beak. His eye-brows are black likewise. His beak is pointed, and very little crooked; the pupil of his eye is black, surrounded with an iris of a dusky dull red. The fore part of his neck is light-yellow, darker on each side than in the middle, where it is partly white; the yellow on each side reaches near the shoulder, or round part of the wing; from this his whole bread and belly is of a dirty white to under the tail; from this, too, his feathers begin to be tipt gently with white, as are all those that cover the outside of his wing; but the white here is clear, and the size increases with the breadth and length of the feathers. The large feathers of his wing are eight in number, the second in size are six. The tail consists of twelve feathers; the longest three are in the middle, they are closely placed together, and the tail is of an equal breadth from top to bottom, and the end of the feathers tipt with white. Its thighs are covered with feathers of the same colour as the belly, which reach more than half way down his leg; his legs and feet are black, marked distinctly with scales. He has two toes before and one behind, each of which have a sharp and crooked claw. I never saw his nest; but in flying, and while sitting, he perfectly resembles the cuckoo. I never heard, nor could I learn from any others, that he had any voice or song. He makes a sharp, snapping noise, as often as he catches the bees, which is plainly from closing his beak.

Jerome Lobo, whom I have often mentioned, describes this bird, and attributes to him a peculiar instinct, or faculty of discovering honey; he says, when this bird has discovered any honey he repairs to the high-way, and when he sees a traveller, he claps with his wings, sings, and by a variety of actions invites him to follow him, and flying from tree to tree before him, stops where the honey is discovered to be, and there he begins to sing most melodiously.

The ingenious Dr Sparman could not omit an opportunity of building a story upon so fair a foundation. He too gives an account of a cuckoo in size and shape resembling a sparrow, and then gives a long description of it in Latin, from which it should not resemble a sparrow. This he calls Cuculus Indicator[81]. It seems it has a partition treaty at once both with men and foxes, not a very ordinary association.

To these two partners he makes his meaning equally known by the alluring sound, as he calls it, of Tcherr Tcherr, which we may imagine, in the Hottentot language of birds, may signify Honey; but it does not sing, it seems, so melodiously as Jerome Lobo’s bird. I cannot for my own part conceive, in a country where so many thousand hives of bees are, that there was any use for giving to a bird a peculiar instinct or faculty of discovering honey, when, at the same time, nature had denied him the power of availing himself of any advantage from the discovery, for man seems in this case to be made for the service of the Moroc, which is very different from the common ordinary course of things; man certainly needs him not, for on every tree and on every hillock he may see plenty of combs at his own deliberate disposal. I cannot then but think, with all submission to these natural philosophers, that the whole of this is an improbable fiction, nor did I ever hear a single person in Abyssinia suggest, that either this, or any other bird, had such a property. Sparman says it was not known to any inhabitant of the Cape, no more than that of the Moroc was in Abyssinia; it was a secret of nature, hid from all but these two great men, and I most willingly leave it among the catalogue of their particular discoveries.

I have only to add, that though Dr Sparman and his learned associates, that feed upon the crumbs from other people’s tables, may call this bird a cuckoo, still I hope he will not insist upon correcting my mistake, as, in the article of the fennec, by ignorantly tacking to it some idle fable of his own, that he may name it Cuculus Indicator.

SHEREGRIG.

This bird is one of those called Rollier in French, and Rollier in English, without either nation being able to say what is its signification in either language. In the French it is the name of a tribe, always as ill delineated as it is described, because scarce ever seen by those that either describe, or delineate it; in Latin it is called Merops. Its true name, in its native country, is Sheregrig, and by this name it is known in Syria, and Arabia, and in the low country of Abyssinia, on the borders of Sennaar, wherever there are meadows, or long grass, interspersed with lofty or shady trees.

_London Publish’d Dec.^r 1.^{st} 1789. by G. Robinson & Co._]

There are two different kinds of this bird in Syria considerably varying in colours, the brown of the back being considerably darker in that of the Syriac, and the blue much deeper, chiefly on its wings; the back of the head, likewise brown, with very little pale-blue throughout any part of it, and wanting the two long feathers in the tail. It is a fly-catcher, or bee-eater, of which these long feathers are the mark. It is said by Dr Shaw, and writers that have described it, to be of the size of a jay, to which indeed the Syrian bird approaches, but this before us seems the least of his kind, and weighs half an ounce more than a blackbird. It is consequently true, as Dr Shaw, says, that it has a smaller bill than a jay, because the bird itself is smaller, neither is there any disproportion in the length of its legs. Shaw says, it is called Shagarag, which, he imagines, by a transmutation of letters, to be the same with Sharakrak of the Talmudists, or Shakarak of the Arabian authors, and is derived from sharak, to shriek or squall.

But all this learning is very much misplaced; for from the brightness of the colour, it is derived from a word which signifies _to shine_. Its belly and inside of its wings are of a most beautiful pale blue. The shoulder, or top of its wings, a dark blue. The middle of the wing is traversed by a band of light blue; the extremity of the wing, and the largest feathers, are of a dark-blue. The two feathers of its tail, where broad, are of a light blue, but the long sharp single ones are of a dark blue, like the tips of the wings. Its bill is strong and well made, and has a pencil of hairs as whiskers. Round where the beak joins the head, the feathers are white; the eye black, and well proportioned, surrounded by a light flame-coloured iris. The back is of a very light brown inclining to cream colour, and of a cast of red. The feet are flesh-coloured and scaly, has three toes before and one behind, each with a sharp claw.

Notwithstanding what has been said as to the derivation of its name, I never heard it scream or make any sort of noise. It has nothing of the actions of either the magpie or the jay. Buxtorf interprets the sheregrig by merops the bee-eater, and in so doing he is right, when he applies it to this bird, but then he errs in mistaking another bird for it, called Sirens, a fly-catcher, very common in the Levant, which appear in great numbers, making a shrill, squaling noise in the heat of the day; and of these I have seen, and designed many different sorts, some very beautiful, but they fly in flocks, which the sheregrig does not; he attaches himself equally to swarms of bees and flies, which he finds in the woods upon the trees, or in holes in the ground among the high grass. Of these there are great swarms of different kinds in the low part of Abyssinia.

The Count de Buffon has published two figures of this bird, one from a specimen I gave him from Abyssinia[82], the other from one stuffed, which he received from Senegal[83], so that we know the bird possesses the whole breadth of Africa nearly on a parallel. I may be allowed to say, that, when I gave him mine, I did not expect he would so far have anticipated my publication as to have exhibited it as a part of the king’s cabinet till he had heard my idea of it, and what further I could relate of its history more than he had learned from seeing the feathers of it only. When I saw the draught, it put me in mind of the witty poem of Martial: A man had stole some of his verses, but read them so ill, that the poet could not understand them well enough to know they were his own--

_Sed male dum recitas incipit esse tuum._

The bird is so ill-designed that it may pass for a different species. It is too short in the body; too thick; its neck too short and thick; its legs, the pupil and iris of the eye, of a Wrong colour; its tail affectedly spread. These are the consequences of drawing from stuffed subjects. The brown upon the back is too dark, the light-blue too pale, too much white upon the side of its head. These are the consequences of having a bad painter; and the reader, by comparing my figure with those drawn by Martinet in Buffon, may easily perceive how very little chance he has to form a true idea of any of these birds, if the difference is as great between his other drawings and the original, as between my drawing and his. De Seve would have given it a juster picture.

WAALIA.

This pigeon, called Waalia, frequents the low parts of Abyssinia, where it perches upon the highest trees, and sits quietly in the shade during the heat of the day, so that it is difficult to discover it, unless it has been seen to alight. They likewise fly extremely high, in great flocks, and for the most part affect a species of the beech-tree, upon the mast or fruit of which they seem chiefly to live for food. They are rarely seen in the mountainous part of the country unless in their passage, for in the beginning of the rainy season, in the Kolla, they emigrate to the south and S. W. In this direction they are seen flying for days together. It is supposed the high country, even in the fair season, is too cold for them; and their seeking another habitation towards the Atlantic Ocean, where it is warm, and where the rains do not fall so copiously in that season as they do in the Kolla in Abyssinia, makes this conjecture still more probable.

_London Publish’d Dec.^r 1.^{st} 1789. by G. Robinson & Co._]

They perch for most part upon the tops of trees, beyond the sphere of the action of Abyssinian powder; but they sit so close together that I have sometimes shot six or more at the discharge of a single barrel. The rest immediately plunge down almost to touch you, apparently ignorant whence so unaccustomed a sound comes; there, if you are a good marksman, and alert, you have another chance, though but a short one, for they immediately tower to an immoderate height, and never alight in sight unless they are wounded. They are exceedingly fat, and by far the best of all pigeons; when they fall from a height, without life, upon their back, I have known the flesh on each side of their breast-bone separated by the concussion, and the fat upon their rump bruised like the pulp of an orange.

Although this is undoubtedly a pigeon, the Abyssinians do not eat it; nay, after it is dead they will not touch it, for fear of defiling themselves, any more than they would do a dead horse. The waalia is less than the common blue pigeon, but larger than the turtle-dove. Its whole back, and some of the short feathers of its wings, are of a beautiful unvarnished green, lighter and livelier than an olive. Its head and neck are of a deader green, with still less lustre. Its beak is of a bluish white, with large nostrils; the eye black, with an iris of dark orange. The pinion, or top of its wing, is a beautiful pompadour. The large feathers of the wing are black; the outer edge of the wing narrowly marked with white; the tail a pale, dirty blue; below the tail it is spotted with brown and white. Its thighs are white, with small spots of brown; its belly a lively yellow. Its legs and feet are a yellowish brown. Its feet stronger and larger than is generally found in this kind of bird. I never heard it coo, or make any noise. I killed this, and many others, in our road to Tcherkin. In M. de Buffon’s collection I see a bird resembling this, coming from the west of Africa, as I remember; but his birds in general are so very ill-drawn, and his coloured ones so shamefully daubed, that nothing certain can be founded upon resemblance.

TSALTSALYA, OR FLY.