Recent Ornithological Publications. 335 



by migration or general dispersion before the surrounding region 

 presented the existing obstacles to their transport. 



This must at least have been after the close of the Eocene 

 period, to which belong all the most superficial deposits of 

 southern Palestine. It must have been before the Glacial epoch, 

 which has left traces of its effects over the whole country. Before 

 this period we have reason to believe a warm period occurred. 

 The fauna and flora of Palestine would then be East-African, 

 either identical or representative. Afterwards, in the period of 

 cold, those species which were most tenacious of life, retiring to 

 the depression of the Jordan valley, then, as now, proportionally 

 warmer than the surrounding land, contrived to maintain the 

 struggle for existence, and have survived to the present day to 

 form " a tropical outlier,^' of which we have no other terrestrial 

 instances, but parallel with the northern outliers of marine life 

 which occur in the British seas. 



In like manner the supervening Glacial period has left its 

 mark in the avifauna of Hermon and Lebanon. It is needless 

 to enter further on this subject, as the question becomes one 

 of geology rather than of ornithology, and I have already 

 treated of it elsewhere. But it is a fair illustration of the way 

 in which the various branches of natural science are interwoven, 

 and of the value of the examination of even a limited geogra- 

 phical area. To me, and to all of us, the great attraction of Pales- 

 tine-natural exploration must be its connexion with Sacred His- 

 tory, and its bearing on the minor elucidations of Scriptural 

 allusions. But apart from the connexion of the subject with 

 that of the language and expressions of the inspired writers, I 

 venture to hope the readers of ' The Ibis ' may have found enough 

 of ornithological illustration in the investigation to excuse the 

 length to which during four years these papers have run on, 



XXVI II. — Notices of Recent Ornithological Publications : — 



1. English. 



Since our last notice of their work* (Ibis, 1867, p. 372) our 



friends the authors of ' Exotic Ornithology' have issued their 



* Exotic Omitholog}'. Ey Philip Lutley Sclater, M.A. «S:c., and 

 OsBERT Salvin, M.A. &e. Parts iv., v. & vi. London. Imp. 4to. 



2 a2 



