Notes of a Journey through Syria ^c. 405 



spread the hilly regions in scattered pairs, seldom many- 

 together, on 19th March. But we never noticed the Ortolan 

 until the 5th April, when it covered the country, plain and hill 

 alike, in small flocks, restless and wild, in numbers far exceed- 

 ing those of its congener ; nor did the Ortolans pair till a fort- 

 night later, when E. ctssia was already sitting. Later still 

 came the INIeadow-Bunting {E. cia), which I noted for the 

 first time on 28th April. But this bird I have never found 

 breeding, except in the mountains, while the Ortolan haunts 

 the oliveyards and cultivated lands, and E. ccBsia affects only 

 the scrubby and rocky hill-sides. Long after these arrived 

 the black-headed Euspiza melanocephala, on the 7th May, 

 when it, in its turn, appeared to be the most abundant of its 

 genus, and to be making itself at home in any variety of 

 terrain. 



The Stork kept its appointed time, and stalked solemnly 

 over the plains from the 10th April. I never saw one after the 

 22nd April. Up to that date there was a constant succession 

 of arrivals from the south and departures for the north. The 

 most wonderful flight of Storks was one which passed over us 

 in the plain of the Upper Jordan on 19th April, steering due 

 north, in the long V-like wedges with which we are so fami- 

 liar in the flight of wild Geese. Party after party passed, 

 perpetually changing their leader, .and the hindmost of the 

 longest limb frequently crossing over to take the rear of the 

 other limb ; but never, countless though their numbers were, 

 did they fly in a mass, or in any other order than that of 

 the wedge. 



On the 16th April the House-Martin, a much later arrival 

 than most of its congeners, passed northwards in flocks of 

 many thousands ; and the same day a vast cloud of Swifts 

 (C apus), quite apart from those which had already overspread 

 the land, dashed in the same direction up the valleys between 

 the Lebanon and Antilebanon. One or two birds which 

 I have mentioned rather doubtfully in previous papers oc- 

 curred to us very abundantly in this expedition. Among 

 these I may mention Lanius minor, which I obtained once in 

 1858, but never saw in 1863, 1864, or 1872. This year it 



