THE IBIS. 



NEW SERIES. 



No. III. JULY 1865. 



XXIII. — On the Ornithology of Palestine. Part II. 

 By the Rev. H. B. Tristram, M.A., F.L.S., C.M.Z.S. 



[Continued from page 83.] 



In Palestine, as in every other country, tropical^ temperate, or 

 arctic, which has not been depopulated by the mania of game 

 preserving or " la chasse " (the former gibbeting White Owls on 

 barn-doors, the latter exposing Wagtails and Titmice as ' gibier '), 

 the birds of prey form the prominent feature in the ornitholo- 

 gical landscape. Over the deep valley of the Jordan Kestrels 

 hover. Kites and Short -toed Eagles [Circaetus gallicus) soar 

 throughout the year, Harriers and Buzzards perpetually sweep 

 across the marshes and maritime plains ; the traveller can never 

 mount a hill without being watched by parties of Griffons and 

 Eagles circling far above him. The Griffons are far more nu- 

 merous than in any other country I have visited, while the larger 

 species of Eagles are certainly not less abundant than in the best 

 stocked wildernesses of Algeria or Tujiis. 



Forty-three species of raptorial birds rewarded our researches 

 during our expedition last year, and probably there were few, 

 unless rare stragglers, which escaped our notice ; since our list 

 comprises all the fifty-two birds named in Professor Blasius's 

 ' List of the Birds of Europe,' except the strictly boreal and arctic 

 forms Falco gyrfalco, Haliceetus albicilla, Buteo lag opus, five 



N. S. VOL. I. S 



