74 Rev. H. B. Tristram on the Ornithology of Palestine. 
tributed along the whole ridge. They spent the day in gently 
skimming along the edge of the ridge for some miles, and 
then, sweeping round to the other side, doubled through a 
gap in the range, and retraced again and again their former 
course. We succeeded in securing two or three adult spe¬ 
cimens, identical with the Swiss birds. This species seems 
to have a wide range, extending on mountain-tops, but only 
near the snow-line, from the Pyrenees, Alps, and Apennines 
to the Caucasus, Lebanon, Ararat, and the Himalayahs. Its 
existence on these isolated spots, with many hundred miles of 
intervening land on which it never occurs, is a curious illustration 
of the distribution of species. It certainly does not appear to 
have varied anywhere in the slightest degree from its original 
type. I do not think that any of its family can approach it in 
elegance of shape or in gracefulness of flight. We never met 
with Fregilus graculus , the Cornish Chough. Yet surely it ought 
to exist in the Lebanon (perhaps it does on the more secluded 
ledges on the western or seaward face), since its range is so much 
wider east and west, north and south, than that of its congener. 
We have shot it on the southern side of the Atlas range; and Mr. 
Swinhoe obtained it as far east as Tientsin in North China, while 
it is found in Egypt and in the Caucasus. With this exception it 
seems scarcely probable that further research will add to our 
list of Palestine Corvidae. 
The Eissirostral Ornis of Palestine is more limited in numbers 
than most of the other classes of its avifauna, and is very far 
from possessing the rich variety of the Indian and Ethiopian 
lists.* There are, nevertheless, a few very interesting species,— 
for instance, Cypselus galilaeensis, before spoken of by me (Ibis, 
1865, pp. 76-79), which, as has been pointed out by Mr. Sclater 
(Ibis, 1865, p. 235), must now be united with C. affinis ) J. E. 
Gray, from India, and C. abyssinicus , Ehrenberg, from East 
Africa, the latter name claiming priority; and Halcyon smyrnensis , 
perhaps the most showy bird in the Holy Land. Most of the 
Fissirostres are summer-visitants only, but the most remarkable 
of them are permanent residents in the warm recesses of the 
Jordan valley. 
Of these the first which came under our notice was the beautiful 
