Rev. H. B. Tristram on the Ornithologii of Palestine. 81 



provoking rivals in egg-collecting. The Palestine eggs, of 

 which I have a large series, are very much more delicately and 

 sparsely spotted than those of Africa, and, arranged together with 

 them, would at first sight be pronounced to be distinct. Yet we 

 took perhaps twenty nests in each country, all of them indis- 

 putably identified, and the distinction holds uniformly true. The 

 skins are precisely alike. Lindermayer gives April 27th as the 

 date of return to Greece, where the species is identical with the 

 Palestine bird, and not A. familiar is. I found it breeding in 

 canebrakes by the shores of the Dead Sea the last day of April, 

 and in June on Lebanon at a height of 7000 feet. 



The section Hypolais is well represented by three species. Of 

 these the largest, H olivetorum, is confined to the olive-groves 

 and the oak-coppice in the north of Palestine, generally near 

 the coast. Further inland its place is taken by the nearly allied 

 //. upcheri, nob. (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1864, p. 438), which has 

 probably been confounded with its congener. The lesser spe- 

 cies, H. elaica, abounds everywhere, and, returning in the end of 

 March (our first specimen was shot March 23rd), takes the 

 place of the Willow-Wren, Phyllopneuste trochilus, which has 

 by that time moved its camp northwards. I conceive that H. 

 upcheri and H. elaica are the eastern representative species of 

 H. icterina or italica and H. polyglotta. They correspond pre- 

 cisely in measurements to these species respectively, but difier 

 similarly in the entire absence of the green and yellow hues in 

 the coloration, which is ashen on the back and ashy-white 

 below. Yet they difi'er very decidedly in their eggs from their 

 western representatives. 



The key to the specific distinctions of all the species of Hypo- 

 lais is in the relative length of the bastard primary. In H. 

 olivetorum, the largest of the genus, it is extremely small, only 

 reaching half the length of the outer tectrices. In H, icterina, 

 H. upcheri, and H. ohscura of South Africa it is the same length 

 as the tectrices. In the smaller species H. polyglotta, H. elaica, 

 and H. pallida of North Africa it is considerably longer. I may 

 here mention that I can discover no distinction whatever, after 

 the most careful comparison, between H. icterina of Italy and H. 

 ohscura from Damaraland : their coloration and measurements 



N. S. VOL. III. G 



