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



Palestine specimens are decidedly smaller than C. livia ; and so 

 are all those of this species I have seen from Egypt, and they 

 are not a few. Perhaps C. turricola and C. schimperi are after 

 all identical. Bonaparte lays the greatest stress upon the 

 character and wildness of the former as separating it from 

 C. livia. There is, however, no doubt of the distinctness of the 

 bird of the Jordan valley from our common Rock-Dove. Its 

 ashy rump and the lighter hue of the lower parts separate it 

 at a glance. The myriads of these birds are beyond computation, 

 far exceeding even the clouds of domestic Pigeons. The wadys, 

 with precipitous cliflfs of soft limestone, honeycombed in all 

 directions by caves and fissures, are admirably adapted for 

 them. Several of these gorges are named from them "Wady 

 Haraam,^^ i. e. Ravine of Pigeons. One of the most remarkable 

 is the Wady Hamam opening on the plain of Gennesaret, 

 where are the famed robbers' caves, the scene of our principal 

 bird-nesting exploits, inhabited by thousands of C. schimperi, 

 whose swift flight and roosting-places far in the fissures 

 secure them from the attacks of the many Hawks which share 

 the caverns with them. They likewise swarm in the ravine of 

 the Kelt, in the sides of Mount Quarantania, by Jericho, and, 

 above all, in the clifi's which shut in the Arnon and the Zerka, 

 in Moab, where their abundance is alluded to by the prophet 

 Jeremiah. So secure are their nesting-places, that we never 

 took more than half a dozen sittings of eggs, though we saw 

 hundreds of nesting-holes; but their turns and twistings ren- 

 dered even the device of a stick and a spoon unavailing. 



No birds better illustrate the geographical position of Palestine 

 than theTurtle-Doves. Here we find three species — one Euro- 

 pean, one Ethiopian, and one Indian [Turtur auritus, T. sene- 

 galensis, and T. risorius) — all meeting and living together. Of 

 these, T. auritus is by far the most abundant, but only in 

 spring and summer, returning about the end of March, and 

 suddenly overspreading every part of the country, highland and 

 lowland alike. T. senegalensis, on the contrary, is a permanent 

 resident, not increasing its number by migration, confined 

 chiefly to the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea and the lower 

 Jordan, but residing throughout the year even in the court- 



