The Oologisis' Record, March i, 1921. 17 



The climate is cold in winter, snow being common in the hills of 

 the north, these being not many miles south of Mount Hermon 

 which is snow-capped almost the whole year, and even Jerusalem is 

 €very few years visited by severe snowstorms. 



The rainfall is confined to the coastal area and hills, and only 

 reaches the Jordan Valley in the vicinity of the Sea of Galilee and 

 to the north, while it is practically unknown in the Jordan depression 

 near Jericho and the Dead Sea. 



The rainy season, generally speaking, commences in November 

 and lasts till the end of March. It is heaviest from mid-December 

 to mid-February, when it sometimes rains almost in lumps for days 

 on end, while violent hailstorms with hailstones as big as cherries 

 may be expected at the end of February or in early March. 



As far as the breeding was concerned, I derived but little help 

 from text books — and articles written during the War were often 

 misleading — consequently I wasted much time in finding out the 

 typical haunts (and then the specific localities) of the various 

 species, and also missed much owing to inadequate knowledge of the 

 dates of the actual seasons. In my notes, therefore, I have endea- 

 voured to give an accurate and detailed account of the breeding 

 habits of all the birds with which I became familiar ; and if any of 

 my readers should ever contemplate an oological trip to Palestine, 

 and care to enlist my help, I wiU send them such information as to 

 localities and seasons as will mateiially save a tremendous amount of 

 time, trouble and expenditure. I found that all attempts to enlist 

 outside aid from the inhabitants of the country invariably ended in 

 iailure. 



Each type of country has its own breeding species of birds — 

 T might perhaps broadly divide them into six classes as follows : — 

 The seashore, the coastal plain, the hills, Mount Carmel and its 

 spurs, the Jordan Valley depression, and Lake Huleh and its marshes. 



The breeding avifauna is principally Palaearctic — though one 

 semi-tropical form, Cinnyris osea, has been attracted by the orange 

 groves from the Jordan depression and is reported to breed — 

 while Hagiopsttr tristrami is pecuhar to the Jordan depression and 

 breeds in cUffs in the gorges of the eastern slopes of the hills in the 

 vicinity of the Dead Sea, and Cercomela melanura is also peculiar 

 to this locality though not found lower than the bottom of the hill 

 slopes. 



