76 Rev. H. B, Tristram on the Ornithology of Palestine. 



same place ; and while climbing up to a cave, the resort of 

 Hirundo rufula, I struck with my head a little ball of straw and 

 leaves attached to the extremity of a castor-oil plant, not two yards 

 from the spot where Mr. Cochrane had found his nest. It con- 

 tained three eggs, quite fresh, and was beautifully shaded both 

 from the sun and from observation. This nest is the one figured 

 in the plate. I was fortunate enough to secure the male bird in 

 full plumage. Close by was another nest, from which the young 

 had been reared ; and we watched the female feeding her young 

 family of three, in the hyssop overhead, I am inclined to 

 believe that they had bred twice ; for we could not make out a 

 third pair. 



Meanwhile I had returned, in April, to our old quarters 

 at Ain Sultan, near Jericho, accompanied only by a single 

 muleteer and one guard. On the afternoon of my arrival, on 

 the 13th of April, I discovered by myself no less than seven 

 nests — one with three eggs, one with two hard set, one building, 

 and four with young. All were in precisely similar situations, 

 suspended from the extremity of a small twig hanging down in 

 the centre of a " nubk " tree, whose thorny branches spread in a 

 circle so close to the ground that I had in every instance to 

 creep on all fours till I could get under the trees. The nests 

 in these places were perfectly inaccessible to the attacks of the 

 serpents and lizards which abound there. The nests are at first 

 very neat and compact, long straws and fibres being attached to 

 the extremity of the drooping bough, and on these the bag is 

 woven. When finished, a few loose leaves and straggling straws 

 are loosely fastened all round, to elude observation and remove 

 the appearance of art. I kept three young birds for ten days in 

 a box, and fed them with bunches of the blossom of a jasmine and 

 convolvulus. The hen bird lingered always in the neighbourhood 

 of the tent, attracted doubtless by their cries ; and when we were 

 about to leave, I turned out the two surviving captives, and was 

 glad to see the parent take to them at once, and attend to them 

 in an adjoining tree. 



Another characteristic bird of the Jordan valley is the Gali- 

 lean Swift [Cypselus galilaensis, Antinori). Unlike its congeners, 

 this Swift is a permanent resident in the district it inhabits. In 



