138 BIRD LIFE IN PALESTINE AND SYRIA. 



tine, and is, indeed, the antelope of the country. In Arabia 

 the natives hunt it with the greyhound and falcon. Tlie 

 fallow-deer is not uncommon. 



Of domestic animals we need mention only the Arabian 

 or one-humped camel, the ass, the horse, and the mule, all 

 of which are in general use. The buffalo is generally em- 

 ployed for ploughing and draught purposes, on account of 

 its strength ; for the native cattle are small, and incapable 

 of continued exertion. 



BIRDS OF PALESTINE AND SYRIA. 



We now come to the Birds of this celebrated region. 



The Birds of Prey are represented by vultures, eagles, 

 falcons, kites, and owls of different kinds, of whose habits 

 it is superfluous to attempt a description, they are so well 

 known. Water-birds in numerous companies haunt the 

 shores of the lakes and the banks of the rivers — wild ducks, 

 swans, gulls, sea-swallows, curlews, herons, and pelicans. 



The Arabs call the pelican "mjah," and sometimes 

 "jemel el bahr," that is, "sea-camel;" a word which ad- 

 mirably describes its manner of carrying the head with the 

 neck in a kind of double arch. Mr. Macgregor, in his 

 ^^ Roh Roy on the Jordan," gives a stirring account of a 

 pelican hunt which he undertook in his famous canoe at 

 the mouth of the sacred river. 



Little covies of wild ducks, he says, bobbed about on the 

 sunny wavelets, or the shy ones dived, or the wary took 

 wing. Now and then pelicans sailed by on the air in 

 solemn silence, and sea-gulls skimmed the reedy shores of 

 scattered isles. At one pretty bay on the deep green 



