Rev. H. B. Tristram on the Orniihology of Palestine, 333 



basin. As to the occurrence of desert species, no difficulty can 

 arise, especially in the case of such as extend through the whole 

 belt of sandy waste which girdles the Old World from Scinde to 

 the Atlantic coast of Africa. 



The most interesting of the Indian non-Ethiopian species 

 is Ketwpa ceylonensis ; and the occurrence of this great fish- 

 eating Owl is the more exceptional, as there are no Strigid(E in 

 Africa bearing the least affinity to this well-marked genus, and 

 since it has not yet been found in the Jordan valley, but only se- 

 dentary by the streams of the coast. Alcyon smyrnensis and 

 Turtur risorius, which are both sedentary in the Jordan valley, 

 are the only other instances of so great a westward extension 

 of purely Indian forms ; but both have appeared as stragglers in 

 Asia Minor, whence the former was known to Linnseus, but lost 

 to science till recently rediscovered there by Capt. Graves, H.N. 



Of the 27 species classed as new or peculiar to Palestine, 

 11 are merely modifications or representative forms of familiar 

 types, and are all found in the upper country or on the coast. 

 Such are Garrulm melanocephalus, Picus syriacus, Cettia orien- 

 talis, Saxicola eurymelana, and S. amphileuca. Several of the 

 other new species are closely allied to known desert or oriental 

 forms, and are found beyond the limits of the Dead- Sea basin. 

 Such are Hypolais upcheri, Petronia brachydactyla, and others. 

 One, Ruticilla semirufa, inhabiting the hill country, is clearly 

 an affine of the Indian Ruticillina, and not of the Ethiopian or 

 Palsearctic members of the genus. But there are 11 species, 

 belonging to as many different genera, peculiar to the Dead-Sea 

 basin, and not yet traced beyond its limits. Some of these 

 belong to genera exclusively Ethiopian, most of them to genera 

 common to the Ethiopian and Indian regions; but the affinities 

 of two at least are Indian and not African. Caprimulgus tama- 

 ricis is, perhaps, most closely related to C. asiaticus of India, 

 but with the characteristic plumage of C. isabellinus of Africa. 

 Passer moabiticus, another well-marked species, strictly confined 

 to the lower end of the Dead-Sea basin, though it belongs to a 

 genus equally Ethiopian and Indian, yet must undoubtedly 

 be included among the Indian portion of that group. The 

 smallest species known of its genus, in its coloration and other 



N. S. — VOL. IV. 2 A 



