ajer_,
who spend the greater part of the year with their flocks in the
Syrtis. A few miles eastward of the town, there is a chain of
mountains, which, as well as the town itself, derives its name from a
species of buffalo called _wadan_, immense herds of which are found
there. The wadan is of the size of an ass, having a very large head
and horns, a short reddish hide, and large bunches of hair hanging
from each shoulder, to the length of eighteen inches or two feet;
they are very fierce. There are two other specimens found here, the
_bogra el weish_, evidently the _bekker el wash_ of Shaw, a red
buffalo, slow in its motions, having large horns, and of the size of
a cow; and the white buffalo, of a lighter and more active make, very
shy and swift, and not easily procured. The wadan seems best to
answer to the oryx.

There are great numbers of ostriches in these mountains, by hunting
of which, many of the natives subsist. At all the three towns,
Sockna, Hoon, and Wadan, it is the practice to keep tame ostriches in
a stable, and in two years to take three cullings of the feathers.

Captain Lyon supposes that all the fine _white_ ostrich feathers sent
to Europe are from tame birds, the wild ones being in general so
ragged and torn, that not above half a dozen perfect ones can be
found. The black, being shorter and more flexible, are generally
good. All the Arabs agree in stating, that the ostrich does not leave
its eggs to be hatched by the heat of the sun. The parent bird forms
a rough nest, in which she covers from fourteen to eighteen eggs, and
regularly sits on them, in the same manner as the common fowl does on
her chickens, the male occasionally relieving the female.[Footnote]
It is during the breeding season that the greatest numbers are
procured, the Arabs shooting the old ones on their nests.

[Footnote: There is one peculiarity attending the ostrich, which is,
that although the female lays from about twenty-five to thirty eggs,
yet she only sits upon about fifteen, throwing the remainder outside
the nest, where they remain until the young ones are hatched, and
these eggs form the first food of the young birds.--EDITOR.]

On the 22d April, Captain Lyon and his companions left Sockna, in
company with Sultan Mukni, for Mourzouk, which they entered upon the
4th May. The whole way is an almost uninterrupted succession of stony
plains and gloomy wadys, with no water but that of wells, generally
muddy, brackish, or