
; 




BIRDS OF PALESTINE AND PANAMA COMPARED. 353 
nearest Icteride by the starlings, we have thirteen species 
against five in our district of the United States, and not less 
thin seven of the type-genus Corvus, to one common and 
two rare. Two of the larger species, the ravens, gather 
with the vultures in the valleys of Hinnom and Jordan, and 
make the rocks of Zion resound with their coarse cries. If 
we turn to the cheerful larks, we find the proportion again 
the same; fifteen species for Palestine, and one for the whole 
United States. One congener of our species occurs there ; 
the other genera call to mind the African deserts and Russian 
steppes. The Motacillide, again, are ten to one against our 
fauna, enlivening every run and puddle with their wagging 
tails and prying ways. - We have two Tanagride to imitate 
them, besides the one true relative. In swallows we are about 
equal, and in the forest-hunting Paridee—titmice and wrens 
—we exceed a little; but the comparison of Sylviide and 
Turdide is most striking. - These highest of the bird series, 
especially made to gladden man’s haunts, and cheer wild 
nature as well, with song, exceed in number all the other 
ten-quilled Oscines together inhabiting Palestine, amount- 
ing to seventy-five species. In our corresponding region of 
the United States, there are nineteen species. It is true 
no mocking-bird or wood-robin is known away from our 
shores, but Palestine has the nightingale, the black-cap, and 
the true warblers, or Sylvias, which, while they glean from 
b and tree their smallest insect enemies, as do our 
equally numerous small Tanagride, have much louder and 
eer Voices. But the balance of distribution of organized 
types has more developmental and geological, than any other 
Kind of significance. 
a Our solitary bluebird represents the long-winged Turdide ; 
by the Holy Land there are twenty species corresponding, 
ugh none are of our genus. There are, indeed, but three 
Senera of these two families common to both countries. One 
0 
Species > Lanius, the butcher-bird, occurs here in one rare 
es, m Palestine in six. | 
AMER. NATURALIST, VOL. I. 45 
