Rev. H. B. Tristram on the Ornithology of Palestine. 91 



same, but had only a distant glimpse of him, and it was too 

 late in the day to remain longer in pursuit. The females were, 

 no doubt, sitting not far off; but I never saw them, and a more 

 hopeless labyrinth in which to search for the nests of ground- 

 builders like the Chats cannot be conceived. The very vine- 

 yards are merely long rows of parallel ridges of loose stones, 

 six feet wide and four feet high, raised at intervals of twelve 

 paces, and on which the vines are trailed. One might have to 

 remove a whole ton-weight of stones on the chance of finding 

 a nest, even when the bird had been exactly marked in. The 

 few nests of Rock-Chats that are in my cabinet I hold to be 

 among my hardest-earned treasures. No Chat or Redstart I 

 ever heard has so clear or bell-like a note as B. albigularis ; and 

 if it were more prolonged, it might rival the Bulbul's. My 

 female specimen was procured a week or two later, among oak- 

 coppice on the eastern shoulder of Lebanon, where she was 

 incubating. Again we heard her mate among the thick foliage 

 of the evergreen oaks, but did not obtain him. The eggs are 

 very pale blue, thickly studded with brown spots, and larger than 

 those of the Wheatear. 



In the SaxicolincB, Palestine is richer than in any other sub- 

 family. No less than nineteen species enriched my collection ; 

 yet not one of these was new. Nearly the whole of the species 

 were obtained in the very narrow limits of Southern Judsea, a 

 district admirably adapted for these birds, which are in rocky 

 and saline deserts the representatives of the Sylviads of our 

 woods and glades. Many of the species are closely allied in 

 form and plumage ; yet often amongst the nearest there is some 

 very marked distinction. Thus few birds can be closer than Saxi- 

 cola lugens, Licht., and S. libanotica, H. & Ehrenb., the only 

 differences being that in the former the black extends right 

 across the back, and the feathers of the vent are faintly rufous, 

 while in the latter the black is interrupted in the centre of the 

 back, and the vent is like the belly, white. But the one is 

 a summer migrant, the other a resident. In S. lugens the 

 sexes are precisely alike in plumage ; the female of S. libanotica 

 is an ashy-brown bird, which might without comparison be 

 easily taken for S. isabellina, from which it differs only in size 

 and in the greater extent of white on the rump. 



