Rev. H. B. Tristi-am on the Ornithology of Palestine. 75 



from it likewise by the greater extent of the green instead of 

 purple reflexions. 



As we crept along the western shores of the Dead Sea, we met 

 with a few pair up the different Wadys where water remained ; 

 but here, deprived of cover, they are extremely shy and wary. 

 In the Ghor es Safieh, under Kerak (the richest and the hottest 

 portion of the whole Ghor), the Sun-birds were as numerous as 

 at Jericho. On our return we found them plentiful by the 

 wooded banks of the Jordan, but never far removed from its 

 banks. In the month of March, we ascertained their summer 

 range to be more extensive than we had expected ; for one day, 

 while shooting on the south side of Mount Carmel, on the slopes 

 which run down to the Plain of Sharon, Mr. Bartlett declared 

 he had heard their note ; and after a long pursuit, I secured a pair 

 close to the edge of the plain, not far from the sea. The female, 

 when shot, dropped a soft egg. This was the only occasion on 

 which the bird ever occurred to us away from the Jordan valley ; 

 but I have reason to believe it has been obtained in Asia Minor, 

 as a French collector at Smyrna described to me a bird he had 

 once received from the interior, which could only, I think, have 

 been a female Sun-bird. He stated that, unfortunately, it was 

 too badly shot for preservation. 



A few days after our visit to Carmel, we again met with 

 the Sun-bird in a deep gorge, the Wady Hamam, opening on 

 to the Plain of Gennesaret. Mr. Cochrane and I pursued 

 it in vain ; but, while searching among the cliffs for Vultures^ 

 nests, Mr. Cochrane pulled down from the extremity of the 

 twig of a hyssop-plant what he imagined to be an old nest 

 of Drymoica gracilis. It had the external appearance of a 

 loose ball of rubbish, such as might have been floated down by 

 a sudden flood and caught in the branch of a tree. After 

 tossing it about for some time, he threw it towards me ; and on 

 examining it, I was dismayed to find it a fresh nest, very firm and 

 compact inside, with a small hole in the side, and containing two 

 broken fresh eggs, elongated, of a greenish white, with a zone of 

 darker green-grey spots near the larger end. We searched in 

 vain for another, and, mourning our ill-luck, left the neighbour- 

 hood the next day. On the 23rd of May I returned to the 



