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



It is only when we penetrate with our Editor to the frozen 

 rocks of Spitsbergen that we miss the hoarse croak of the Raven 

 or the sombre-clad flocks of the Rook or Jackdaw. There is 

 certainly a lugubrious sameness in the plumage, which makes 

 one's box of Corfic?(^-skins resemble the stores of a mourning- 

 warehouse, with a slight admixture of the " mitigated-aifliction 

 department " in the corner where the Magpies are stowed. But 

 how varied, in life, are the actions, and, above all, the voices of 

 those dark-clad groups ! Who that has heard the notes of Corvus 

 umbrinus and C. affinis can ever again confuse them either with 

 each other, or with our old friend Corvus corax ? And then the 

 skins of the Crow-tribe are so tough, so impossible to soil, and 

 they keep so well, that I never could neglect the chance of skin- 

 ning a well-shot specimen since the time when, thirty years ago, I 

 tried my 'prentice hand on a Jackdaw, my first schoolboy trophy, 

 in William Proctor's workshop, over the old Durham Museum. 

 But their eggs are most provokingly alike; and Palestine, 

 though it added many specimens and several species to our 

 cabinets, scarcely afforded a new variety or form which could 

 not be exactly matched in the products of our home rookeries 

 or church-towers. To find novelties we must turn to the aber- 

 rant members of the group — to the tantalizing and mysterious 

 Nutcracker, so unwilling to be identified, or to the gorgeous- 

 plumaged Jays of Tropical America. 



Our acquaintance with the Corvidce of Palestine was formed 

 by slow degrees, although at last we had become thoroughly 

 conversant with all the species and their various haunts. Con- 

 spicuous by his absence was the Magpie. Nowhere could we 

 meet with or hear of Pica caudata. He may exist in Northern 

 Syria; for Russell, in his 'Natural History of Aleppo,' com- 

 piled more than one hundred years ago, mentions it in his 

 scanty catalogue, though without further remark, as inhabiting 

 the environs of that town. It is abundant in Asia Minor, and 

 especially in the island of Cyprus, within sight of the coast of 

 Syria; and we shot several specimens close to the town of 

 Larnaka, on our way to Beyrout. But we did not meet with 

 a trace of it in the Lebanon, or in any other apparently pro- 

 mising district. Its absence cannot be accounted for by the 



