Rev. H. B. Tristram on the Omitholof/ij of Palestine. 369 



right in removing Euspiza from the Buntings and classing it 

 with the subfamily Spizinas. 



We now come to the Finches, represented in Palestine by 

 eighteen species, two if not three of these peculiar to the country. 

 The common Hawfinch [Coccothraustcs vulgaris) was only once 

 noticed by us, and that in Gilead, the woods and glades of 

 which are admirably adapted for its habits. The Chaffinch, Frin- 

 gilla ccplebs, is very common in winter on the maritime plains 

 and among the southern hills, congregating in flocks, the sexes 

 apart, the male flocks appearing greatly to exceed the female in 

 number. Early in spring they all disappear, and return to the 

 highest parts of Lebanon, where they breed abundantly in May 

 and June, among the mulberry-groves of Hazrun and Ehden. 

 We found them very plentiful as high as the Cedars, and in 

 the trees of the famous grove we took several nests. The 

 Chaffinch of Syria is identical with our own, and shows no 

 modification of plumage whatever ; nor does it at all approach the 

 Algerian Chaffinch, Fringilla spodiogena. The common Chaffinch 

 also extends to Persia, according to De Filippi. Thus the modifi- 

 cations of the form are all westward and southward, not eastward. 



The Sparrow of the Syrian cities is our own Passer domesticus, 

 which in his westward migrations has acquired neither additional 

 impudence, assurance, nor voracity. All these qualities are pos- 

 sessed in their pristine perfection by the Syrian, which has also 

 the same ash-coloured head. But in the interior, in certain 

 wooded and country districts, not in the cities, he has adopted 

 a chestnut turban, and become P. cisalpinus ; and who shall say 

 that this is not a good specific diff'erence in a land where Jew, 

 Turk, and Christian, are always discriminated by the colour of 

 their head-dresses ? May not the chestnut-headed Sparrows be 

 the relics of aboriginal orthodoxy expelled to nooks and corners ? 

 I am, however, sceptic enough to doubt this plausible argument, 

 and I hope in some future number of ' The Ibis ' to give my 

 reasons for uniting these Sparrows, or ascribing a dash of im- 

 pure blood to the Cisalpine variety. 



I have no such doubts about Passer salicainus, a bird clearly 

 distinct in its habits, as well as in the invariable chestnut head 

 and spotted flanks. The Marsh-Sparrow is in Palestine con- 



N. S. VOL. Ill, 2 c 



