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



Goldfinch, but slightly larger. We afterwards met with this 

 Serin breeding in June at the Cedars. The birds of the year 

 have a rich russet hue, instead of yellow. The plate (Plate VII.) 

 shows an adult male and a young bird. 



In the same narrow limits occurs also Carpodacus phceni- 

 copterus, Bp. It is not only local, but very scarce, yet un- 

 questionably sedentary, concealing itself after the manner of 

 our Bullfinch. We never could detect its nest, and very rarely 

 caught a glimpse of it. It does not appear to descend as low 

 as the villages of Lebanon, excepting in winter. Its desert-ally 

 Carpodacus githagineus (Licht.) is not iincommon in the deserts 

 near Beersheba; and in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea 

 I am certain I several times saw Carpodacus sinaiticus (Licht.), 

 though I did not succeed in procuring it; nor have I any 

 information to give respecting the nidification of either species, 

 although I took the nest of the former in the Algerian Sahara. 



Isolated and sedentary, a few pairs of the Snow-Finch, 

 Montifringilla nivalis (L.), may always be seen on the snowy 

 peaks of Hermon and Lebanon, never leaving the wintry 

 heights, — a stranded relic, perhaps, of the glacial epoch, clinging 

 to these southern mountain-tops, as it does, throughout the 

 Old World, identical in species from the Pyrenees to the 

 volcanos of Japan. 



Lastly the Common Linnet, Linota cannabina (L.), consorts 

 with the Snow-Finch in great numbers, in summer, building 

 its nest on the ground in tufts of alpine plants on Herraon, 

 where we found its eggs in June, but descending in winter to 

 the hills of central Palestine, where it roams through the open 

 country in large flocks as in England. 



Before concluding these notes on the Passerine birds of 

 Palestine, I must state that, on going through my collection 

 recently in company with the Editor of this Journal, we were 

 satisfied that the Calandra-Lark of Mount Hermon and Lebanon 

 must be distinguished from the common Calandra of the Plains 

 and of Southern Europe. It is smaller and more slender, with 

 a very decided rufous tint on the whole of its plumage; but 

 especially the outer rectrices are without any white, while in 

 the true Melanocorypha calandra (L.) the outer tail-feathers are 



