Vol. xli.] 54 



however, the meeting ground of East and West with a pre- 

 dominance of East. A great many of the winter visitors 

 belong to the eastern forms of European species and a few 

 to the western, and here we have them wintering side by 

 side, as Saxicola r. ruhicola and S. r. maura, Pliylloscopus 

 c. collyhita and Ph. c. tristis, etc. ; so, too, with passage 

 migrants we find Ph. t. trochilus and Ph. t. eversmanni 

 passing together, Muscicapa grisola grisola and M. g. neii- 

 manni, etc. While Mesopotamia can boast a goodly list of 

 passage migrants and winter visitors, its breeding species 

 are comparatively few. Some of these are summer visitors, 

 such as Aedon g. familiaris and Sylvia . mystacea repre- 

 senting the east and Hirundo rustica and Riparia riparia 

 representing the west ; but most species are resident, as 

 Prinia, Crateropus, MelauocorypJia, Galerida, and many 

 others. 



But it is the resident species which are, perhaps, of most 

 interest, as it can be only recently that most of Mesopotamia 

 emerged from the sea. Long ago the Tigris entered the sea 

 400 miles above where it does now, and in Assyrian times 

 the sea is supposed to have reached Ur of the Chaldees, 

 one hundred and eighty miles from Fao. So it is of 

 peculiar interest to know whence this plain has been 

 populated by its present residents. Some we find have 

 evidently come down from the Persian hills, such as Pica 

 p. hactriana., Crateropus e. huttoni, some have extended in 

 from Palestine — the Ammomanes, Passer domesticus and 

 moabiticus. Of Indo-Beluchi forms there are a few, such 

 as Sarcogrammus indicus, Prinia g. lepida, Coracias henghal- 

 ensis, Alccmon, etc., while the Ethiopian region contributes 

 Plotus rufus, Pyrrhulauda frontalis, and perhaps others. 



Comparatively few birds have segregated out into local 

 recognizable races, but amongst these are Ammoperdix, 

 FraJicolinus, Corvus c. capellaniis, Alectoris, Pycnonotus 

 leucotis, but the last two are not quite confined to Meso- 

 potamia, while the only species peculiar are Acrocephalus 

 habylonicus, Crateropus altirostris, and, more or less, the 

 Hypocolius. 



