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



tributed along the whole ridge. They spent the day in gently 

 skimming along the edge of the ridge for some miles, and 

 then, sweeping round to the other side, doubled through a 

 gap in the range, and retraced again and again their former 

 course. We succeeded in securing two or three adult spe- 

 cimens, identical with the Swiss birds. This species seems 

 to have a wide range, extending on mountain-tops, but only 

 near the snow-line, from the Pyrenees, Alps, and Apennines 

 to the Caucasus, Lebanon, Ararat, and the Himalayahs. Its 

 existence on these isolated spots, with many hundred miles of 

 intervening land on which it never occurs, is a curious illustration 

 of the distribution of species. It certainly does not appear to 

 have varied anywhere in the slightest degree from its original 

 type. I do not think that any of its family can approach it in 

 elegance of shape or in gracefulness of flight. We never met 

 with Fregilus graculus, the Cornish Chough. Yet surely it ought 

 to exist in the Lebanon (perhaps it does on the more secluded 

 ledges on the western or seaward face), since its range is so much 

 wider east and west, north and south, than that of its congener. 

 We have shot it on the southern side of the Atlas range; and Mr. 

 Swinhoe obtained it as far east as Tientsin in North China, while 

 it is found in Egypt and in the Caucasus. With this exception it 

 seems scarcely probable that further research will add to our 

 list of Palestine Corvid<s. 



The Fissirostral Ornis of Palestine is more limited in numbers 

 than most of the other classes of its avifauna, and is very far 

 from possessing the rich variety of the Indian and Ethiopian 

 lists. There ai*e, nevertheless, a few very interesting species, — 

 for instance, Cypselus galilaensis, before spoken of by me (Ibis, 

 1865, pp. 76-79), which, as has been pointed out by Mr. Sclater 

 (Ibis, 1865, p. 235), must now be united with C. affinis, J. E. 

 Gray, from India, and C. ahyssinicus, Ehrenberg, from East 

 Africa, the latter name claiming priority; awA. Halcyon S7nyrnensis, 

 perhaps the most showy bird in the Holy Land. Most of the 

 Fissh-ostres are summer-visitants only, but the most remarkable 

 of them are permanent residents in the warm recesses of the 

 Jordan valley. 



Of these the first which came under our notice was the beautiful 



