254 Rev. H. B. Tristram on the Ornithology of Palestine. 



coast-plains there were abundance of frogs to be found at all 

 seasons, and the Short-toed Eagle is therefore more accurately 

 described as a wanderer than as a true migrant. It prefers the 

 neighbourhood of woods near the cultivated plains to the truly 

 forest districts. In its breeding-habits it varies, choosing gene- 

 rally some low ledge in a wady, but sometimes also building a 

 great platform of sticks in the top of a large oak or terebinth. 

 The first egg we took was in a wady on Carmel, on March 23rd, 

 quite fresh ; the second in a wady near Heshbon, east of the 

 Dead Sea, on April 30th, equally fresh ; after which we obtained 

 several others, not yet incubated, so late as to the 10th of May. 

 One egg we took was prettily spotted, all the others were white. 

 On one occasion the sitting bird we shot from the nest was ascer- 

 tained by dissection to be a male. In Africa I have found two 

 eggs in the nest, but in Palestine we never found more than one. 

 The same rule seems to hold throughout all the Raptors — that 

 wherever the species is abundant, the number of young is pro- 

 portionally fewer than when the individuals are scarce. The 

 Circaetus is a fearless bird, and more easily approached than any 

 other of the large Raptors, sitting composedly on a conspicuous 

 point of rock, or on the top of an isolated tree, till the sportsman 

 is almost within gunshot. I do not know a more magnificent- 

 looking bird, as it sits with its great flat head bent down on its 

 shoulders, its huge yellow eyes glaring around, and the bright 

 spotting of its breast and abdomen as distinct as that of a 

 Missel-Thrush. It is very noisy, and always betrays the neigh- 

 bourhood of its nest by the loud harsh scream with which the 

 male and female vociferously pursue each other, rising into the 

 air and making short circling flights, after which they suddenly 

 drop down, one to the nest, the other to a post of observation 

 hard by. They will often dash down to the fields below, sweep 

 for a few minutes like a Harrier, and then seizing one of the 

 great black ground-snakes or a Tropidonotus in a ditch, sit 

 down and occupy some minutes in killing the reptile, after which 

 they carry their prize away in their claws, not, like many other 

 Eagles, devouring it on the spot. 



BuTEO VULGARIS, Bechst. The Common Buzzard was very 



