Atkinson : Fauna and Floea of Lebanon and Syeia. IG5 



a mile, abound in small species — e.g. two Cyprinoids (C. cypris and 

 C. sophia), a Cobitis, and one species which attains a length of six 

 inches — the Chromis nilotica of Hasselqnist. Thus all departments 

 of nature bear testimony to the tropical character of this little-known 

 but most interesting region — a startling contrast to all around it. 



If we now retrace our steps northwards to the Lebanon and Mount 

 Hermon, passing by the highlands of Central Palestine, where the 

 fauna and flora are of an intermediate type — where the intervening 

 valleys wave with crops of barley, wheat, millet, sesame, pulse, and 

 tobacco — and where the terraced limestone hills are covered with 

 vineyards, oliveyards, and fig-gardens — where the fauna is intermediate 

 between that of South Europe and Western Asia, and includes the 

 fox, jackal, Egyptian lynx {Felis Chaus), and, in the forest of Carmel, 

 the chetah (F. juhata) — we come to a climate of a totally different 

 character, and conditions which favour strikingly different products 



" At Rasheiya," says Tristram — which is on the shoulder of Hermon 

 (about 5000ft.) — in Junt^ " the morning air was keen and frosty. We 

 were now, for the first time since we had been in the country, above , 

 the line of the olive : whose place was supplied by the walnut, apricot, 

 fig, and almond. The dew of Hermon was more copious than we had 

 ever experienced, everything was drenched, and our tents were small 

 protection. Explanation : Hot air coming up from the Ghor is 

 arrested by Hermon and condensed." 



From the commencement of the real ascent, vineyards take the 

 place of cornfields, and the pear-tree of the fig. 



Here Tristram collected three new birds : a beautiful little finch 

 allied to our canary (Himalayan species) — the Serinus aurijrons ; a 

 new warbler {Hippolais upcheri) ; and a beautiful and remarkable bird 

 (Bessonornis albigula). Higher up, above the vineyards, are moraines — 

 large heaps of rocky fragments, not waterworn or rounded, which 

 occur at the mouths of nullahs or short ravines, and which are like 

 the moraines- in Switzerland, — probably the deposits of ancient 

 glaciers. These dwindled to a bare rocky ravine, whose sides bore 

 clear evidence of glacial action, for the ice-scratches could be plainly 

 traced on the rounded face of many a rock shoulder. Here the surface 

 was dotted by dwarf shrubs of liosa spinosissima, Prunus syriacus — a 

 most exquisite little shrub — and a lovely pink Astragalus, all cropped 

 short by the goats. The ascent became more steep. The hard 

 crystalline limestone much upheaved, and dipped almost vertically S. W. 

 Glacial action was visible everywhere. The summit was reached 



