viii PREFACE. 



is different in the form of its skull from either the European or the Syrian 

 species, the back edge of the orbit in the former having a deep notch, 

 while the edge of the orbit in L. judece is continuous, with an oval per- 

 foration, caused by the process of the notch being united to the skull at 

 the end. The notch, if open, would be more than double the depth of 

 that of the other species. 



The last peculiar species is Hyrax syriaciis, a member of a strictly 

 Ethiopian genus, of which Dr. Gray enumerates 8 species, several of 

 them merely local races. The other species extend from Abyssinia to the 

 Cape. The Palestine coney, confined to the gorges of the Dead Sea and 

 Arabia Petrcea, must not be confounded with Hyrax bmcei from 

 Abyssinia = Zr. syriacus. Sch. Here we have one of the most peculiar 

 and isolated forms of the mammalian class, exclusively confined to the 

 Ethiopian region ; but with this representative extending beyond that 

 region, yet specifically differing from all its congeners. No theory of 

 immigration or dispersion can account for its presence, especially when 

 we bear in mind the sedentary character of the group. 



The Avifauna of Palestine is, like the mammalian, unusually rich in 

 number of species for so small an area, covering not more than 5,600 

 square miles. It consists of 348 known species, which may be thus 

 classified. Palsearctic species, most of which occur elsewhere, 271 ; 

 Ethiopian, 40, inclusive of 10 which are also Indian ; Indian, but not 

 Ethiopian, 7 ; and species so far as is yet known peculiar to Syria, 30. But 

 the Avifauna is by no means equally diffused over the whole area. Of the 

 Palaearctic species, almost every one (with the exception of the Accipitres, 

 which are indifferently ubiquitous, and some Natatores, which are winter 

 visitants) belongs to the coast area, and the highlands east and west of 

 Jordan. The Ethiopian and Indian types are almost exclusively confined 

 to the deep depression of the Dead Sea basin, which, with the exception 

 of some winter migrants, affords us very few Palaearctic species. 



Of the 30 birds pertaining to the Ethiopian Fauna, iS species have not 

 been found in Palestine out of the Dead Sea basin. The most remarkable 

 of these are the sedentary Cypselus affinis, Merops viridis, Cotyle obsoleta, 

 Corvus affinis, Saxicola monacha. Ten others are desert forms, probably 

 common to Arabia, and reaching here their northern limits, as Calandrella 

 deserti, Certhilauda alaudipcs, Pterocles exustus, Houbara tmdulata, and 



