The Persians never reduce the amount of fruit or vegetable crop to produce a _fine_ product; all things being sold by weight and at a standard price, quantity, not quality, is what is aimed at. The narcissus and cyclamen grow wild; huge bouquets of the blooms of the former are brought in in early spring, and sold for a few farthings: every room at this time, even that of the poorest labourer, is decorated with this flower. The moss-rose and common pink are also everywhere sold; most of the stalls of the bazaar-men are decorated at least with one, sometimes with many, bouquets of common flowers. These men, too, have talking larks, nightingales, or parrots hung in cages over their shops, or, at times, turtle-doves. A favourite pet among the Persians is the red-vented date nightingale. This bird lives on dates alone, and is brought from Southern Persia, below Kazerān. The owner places a date and water in the cage, and after a day or two leaves the door open. The bird flies away, but returns several times in the day, and always sleeps in his cage, for nowhere else will he find his food of dates. Rats, save the Jerboa rat of the desert, are unknown; the arid plains probably preventing their immigration. Mice, of course, swarm, and the many ruins which appear all over the country are full of owls, ravens, and foxes. Choughs abound in certain places, notably on a high rock near Sivend, between Shiraz and Ispahan, on the high-road. Each town has its special bird that teems there, as in Ispahan, magpies, and in Hamadan, doves. Fly-catchers of many hues are seen hanging on the telegraph wires in hundreds, and the oriole is common in Shiraz; the nightingale in the gardens of Shiraz is literally as frequent as the sparrow in a London street. The marshes teem with water-fowl—grebe, mallard, ducks, snipe, snippets, cranes, some very large, herons, flamingo, cormorants, geese, and teal, are common; while eagles of various kinds, hawks, some of immense size, and vultures are seen on every march.