82 Rev. H. B. Tristram on the Ornithology of Palestine. 
what after the fashion of Tumbler-Pigeons. In a moment or two 
they would be followed by the whole flock, and these gambols 
would be repeated for a dozen times or more. In about a week 
the immigrants dispersed ; but a large number, some twenty or 
thirty pairs, took up their abode in the mouth of the gorge of 
theWady Kelt, where they began at once to excavate the bank for 
their nests. After this dispersal not a Roller ever came back 
to the dom trees where they had roosted at first, though scarcely 
more than a mile distant from the new settlement. TheWady 
Kelt was the only place where I met with what could strictly be 
termed a colony; elsewhere the Roller was distributed in pairs, 
but not restricted to any one character of country, nor to any 
special breeding-places. The neighbourhood of villages, espe¬ 
cially where there were ruined churches and mosques, were sure 
to be enlivened by its brilliant plumage and sprightly presence. 
It frequents the whole extent of the Ghor, where the Scar a - 
hcei and other sand-beetles supply it with abundance of food; 
it is scattered through the whole of the wooded country and 
forests of Galilee and Eastern Gilead, and especially abounds in 
open plains with a few clumps of trees, like that of Gennesaret. 
Everywhere it takes its perch on some conspicuous outstanding 
branch, or on the top of a rock where it can see and be seen. 
The bare tops of the fig-trees, before they put forth their leaves, 
are, in the cultivated terraces, a particularly favourite resort. 
In the barren Ghor I have often watched it perched uncon¬ 
cernedly on a knob of gravel or marl in the plain, watching 
apparently for the emergence of beetles from the sand. Else¬ 
where I have not seen it settle on the ground. Like Europeans 
in the East, it can make itself happy without chairs and tables 
in the Desert, but prefers a comfortable easy chair when it is to 
be found. Its nest I have seen in ruins, in holes in rocks, in 
burrows in steep sand cliff’s, but far more generally in hollow 
trees. The colony in the Wady Kelt used burrows excavated by 
themselves; and many a hole did they relinquish, owing to the 
difficulty of working it. But so cunningly were the nests placed 
under a crumbling treacherous ledge, overhanging a chasm of 
perhaps one or two hundred feet, that we were completely foiled 
in our siege. We obtained a nest of six eggs, quite fresh, in a 
