60 Rev. H. B. Tristram on the Ornithology of Palestine. 
It is only when we penetrate with our Editor to the frozen 
rocks of Spitsbergen that we miss the hoarse croak of the Raven 
or the sombre-clad flocks of the Rook or Jackdaw. There is 
certainly a lugubrious sameness in the plumage, which makes 
one’s box of Corvids skins resemble the stores of a mourning- 
warehouse, with a slight admixture of the “ mitigated-affliction 
department ” in the corner where the Magpies are stowed. But 
how varied, in life, are the actions, and, above all, the voices of 
those dark-clad groups ! Who that has heard the notes of Corvus 
umbrinus and C. affinis can ever again confuse them either with 
each other, or with our old friend Corvus corax ? And then the 
skins of the Crow-tribe are so tough, so impossible to soil, and 
they keep so well, that I never could neglect the chance of skin¬ 
ning a well-shot specimen since the time when, thirty years ago, I 
tried my ’prentice hand on a Jackdaw, my first schoolboy trophy, 
in William Proctor’s workshop, over the old Durham Museum. 
But their eggs are most provokingly alike; and Palestine, 
though it added many specimens and several species to our 
cabinets, scarcely afforded a new variety or form which could 
not be exactly matched in the products of our home rookeries 
or church-towers. To find novelties we must turn to the aber¬ 
rant members of the group—to the tantalizing and mysterious 
Nutcracker, so unwilling to be identified, or to the gorgeous- 
plumaged Jays of Tropical America. 
Our acquaintance with the Corvidae of Palestine was formed 
by slow degrees, although at last we had become thoroughly 
conversant with all the species and their various haunts. Con¬ 
spicuous by his absence was the Magpie. Nowhere could we 
meet with or hear of Pica caudata. He may exist in Northern 
Syria; for Russell, in his f Natural History of Aleppo/ com¬ 
piled more than one hundred years ago, mentions it in his 
scanty catalogue, though without further remark, as inhabiting 
the environs of that town. It is abundant in Asia Minor, and 
especially in the island of Cyprus, within sight of the coast of 
Syria; and we shot several specimens close to the town of 
Larnaka, on our way to Beyrout. But we did not meet with 
a trace of it in the Lebanon, or in any other apparently pro¬ 
mising district. Its absence cannot be accounted for by the 
