prove our best guide in this search. Hark! a sound like that of a tiny trumpet is ringing through the air; it swells and trembles, and if our ear is acute enough we shall find that this strange clang is preluded or followed by a few light silvery tones, which fall, bell-like, upon the desert silence, much resembling almost inaudible notes struck upon a musical glass by an invisible hand. At other times the sound it produces is extraordinarily deep, and not unlike that made by the tree-frog of the Canary Islands, consisting of a few harsh notes rapidly repeated, and which, strangely enough, are answered by the little creature itself, the second sound being produced by a sort of ventriloquism, and appearing to come from some distance. Few things are more difficult than to attempt to render the note of a bird through the medium of our alphabet, and in this case it would be particularly so, for the voice of the Desert Trumpeter consists of tones entirely different from those to which we are accustomed, and must be heard before it can be imagined. No one would expect to find a singing bird in such localities as those above described, and the fantastic voice of this creature appears well suited to the places it inhabits. The cry mentioned above is often followed by a succession of crowing, rattling sounds, which, like its trumpet-call, seem by their strangeness so completely in unison with the surrounding scenery, that we always stood to listen to them with pleasure, and wished to hear them recommence. In such places as are entirely covered with moving sands the Desert Trumpeter is never met with, as it is not fitted like a Curlew or Courser to run with ease over loose ground; it frequents the barren lava streams upon which not a blade of grass could grow, and in such fissures and holes as these places offer it finds a hiding or resting place, but is never seen upon a shrub or tree. In inhabited districts the Desert Trumpeter is very shy, only seeming to have full confidence when surrounded by silence and solitude; but in its native haunts the young may be often seen perched close beside their parents, and when a traveller approaches them they only acknowledge his presence by staring calmly in his face with their bright little black eyes. These birds may generally be met with all along the rocky shores of the Nile, and from the valley of that river as far as the desert. In the northern and middle parts of Nubia they alight upon the ground in parties consisting of fifty to sixty, or fly over and about the rocks; indeed, the steeper and more rugged these latter are the more attractive they appear to be.