74 FAUNA AND FLORA OF PALESTINE. 



The Rose-coloured Pastor appears to range from India, east of which 

 it is never found, through Persia, never going north of the Himalayas, 

 to Syria, Asia Minor, Turkey, and Southern Russia. Westward of these 

 regions and in North Africa it is only an occasional straggler. 



139. Amydrics tristramii Sclater. Ann. and Mag. N. H., 1858, vol. ii., 

 p. 465. Tristram's Grakle. 



Plate XI. 



The discovery of this bird in the desolate ravines opening on the 

 Dead Sea is one of especial interest, as it belongs to a group exclusively 

 Ethiopian. This Grakle, known to the visitors to Mar Saba as the 

 Orange-winged Blackbird, appears to be confined to the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood of the Dead Sea, where it resides throughout the year in small 

 bands, feeding at dawn and sunset. 1 1 has no varied notes, but a rich musical 

 roll of two or three notes of amazing power and sweetness, which makes 

 the cliffs ring again with its music. The Grakles are the wildest and shyest 

 of the denizens of these desolate gorges, yet the monks of Mar Saba have 

 succeeded in bringing them into a state of semi-domestication, while 

 enjoying unrestrained liberty. I have never seen this bird elsewhere than 

 round the Dead Sea. In the ravines of the Arnon and Callirrhoe it is 

 more numerous than elsewhere. 



Four other species of Ainydrus are known from East Africa, one of 

 which {^A. blythii) has also recently been found by Professor Is. Balfour 

 in the island of Socotra. 



FAMILY, CORVID^. 



140. Fyrrhocorax alpinus. Koch. Salig. u. Vog. Baierns. i., p. 90. 

 Alpine Chough. 



The Alpine Chough inhabits in small parties the higher grounds of 

 Hermon and Lebanon, always keeping close to the snow. The Red- 

 billed or Cornish Chough we never observed. 



The range of the Alpine Chough is restricted to the highest moun- 

 tains of Southern Europe and Asia, the Pyrenees, Alps, Apennines, Greek 

 Mountains ; rarely in the Caucasus, the Persian Demavend, and the 

 Himalayas, beyond which it has not been traced. 



