Rev. H. B. Tristram on the Ornithologij uf Palestine. 77 



ahead, secreting itself in the line of brown bushes which fringed 

 the ravine. We afterwards found it in more exposed situations. 

 The Rev. F. W. Holland has since brought home a specimen 

 from Wady Fciran, near ]\Iount Sinai. Riippell has named 

 another Arabian species " D. inquieta" an epithet which none can 

 so well deserve as this little solitary hermit. We did not obtain 

 its eggs; but those of D. striaticeps, which have not been de- 

 scribed, are white, thickly powdered with pink spots. The note 

 of D. eremita, by which we were at first attracted to it, and by the 

 sound of which alone we were able to pursue it, has five syllables, 

 much softer and mellifluous than the cheery and almost startling 

 tones of D. (jracilis. I sliould mention that all these species of 

 Drymoeca have the obsolete barring of the tail, so characteristic of 

 Pseudoluscinia lusciniuides and P. jluviatilis. 



Cisticola schoenicola, a bird of wide range, extending from 

 North-west Africa to India, China, and Formosa, rejoices in the 

 moist maritime plains of Palestine, where we found it all the 

 year round, starting up from the long grass in front of our horses, 

 jerking up in the air for a few seconds as it rapidly repeated its 

 single note '^ pink, pink," and then dropping suddenly again, 

 when it was very difficult to put it up a second time. Its nest 

 is a beautiful cabinet edition of the Reed- Warbler's transferred 

 to terra firma, and formed of the finest cotton and spiders' webs 

 among grass-stems. In this respect it differs much from the 

 architecture of Drymceca. 



The localities suitable for the Marsh-Warblers are few and far 

 between in the Holy Land; and consequently, though the number 

 of species is very large, they are for the most part but scantily 

 represented in individuals. Without exception, so far as we 

 could discover, they are all migrants, returning earlier or later in 

 spring. On most of them we had not many opportunities of 

 making observations. Calamoherpe j}alustris, Calumodyta mela- 

 nopogon, and Pseudoluscinia luscinioides we identified but by 

 single specimens, though the latter we often heard. It is not 

 the first time that I have found " heard not seen " to be the 

 motto both of Savi's and Cetti's Warblers. Pseudoluscinia fiu- 

 viatilis was not much more abundant ; yet we several times met 

 with a pair evidently engaged in domestic duties, but searched in 



