Others diversify the scene with the graceful form of the gazelle, with the ungainly body, immensely long neck, and spotted hide of the giraffe; or with the ostrich, the camel of the bird-world, spreading his plumes to the wind, and flying with swift feet from the hunter or the wild beast that pursues him. But, in truth, these are bold fancies, artistic or poetic licenses, rather than exact representations of what one really sees in the Desert; and most of the animals with which we people, at our pleasure, the immense solitudes of Africa and Asia actually belong to neighbouring regions of a less arid character. And, in the first place, the lion of the Desert is a myth, or nearly so. "When you speak," says Carrette, "to the inhabitants of the Desert of these ferocious beasts which Europeans give them as companions, they reply with imperturbable coolness, 'You have, then, in your own country, lions which drink air and browse on leaves? But, among us, lions must have running water and live flesh. Therefore they only appear in those parts of the Sahara where are wooded hills and an abundance of water. We dread nothing but the viper (_lefa_) and the innumerable swarms of mosquitoes; the latter being found wherever any humidity prevails.'"[74] [Illustration: 1. Gypaëtos, or Bearded Vulture. 2. Sociable Vulture. 3. Cathartes Percnopterus.] What Carrette relates of the lion is also true of the other carnivora, of the panther and the leopard, as well as of the hyæna and the jackal. It is surely easy to understand that these animals greatly prefer to sojourn in fertile and well-watered countries, where they enjoy freshness, shelter, copious supplies of water, and abundant prey, than in hot glaring plains of sand, which offer them no asylum, and where they run the risk of perishing of hunger and thirst. It is, then, only on exceptional occasions that the lions and other large _felidæ_ of Africa issue from their caverns or their lairs, and wander into the Desert (properly so called) in pursuit of prey. The hyæna and the jackal venture there more willingly. We know that these carnivora only attack living animals at the last extremity; their food is the dead and even putrid flesh; it is a nutriment which costs them less trouble to obtain, and probably, also, most pleases their taste. Thus, it is by no means an uncommon occurrence to see them in the towns and _q'sours_, devouring the carrion, or in the cemeteries disinterring the corpses; they follow also in the Desert the caravans and detachments of troops on the march, and at night prowl around their encampments, in the hope of some windfall, which they seldom expect in vain, but which the dogs, the vultures (_Cathartes percnopterus_ and _vultur fulvus_), the _gypaëtos_, and the crows rarely fail to dispute with them.