6 T HE, AU D-UxBtO°N © BU Lihat ie 
more of these great black and white birds while in the Rhineland of 
Germany. In the rather arid land between Aleppo and Homs we saw many 
beautiful birds. Most of them were perched on the telephone wires that 
followed the highway. There were blue rock thrushes, birds the color of a 
bluebird but blue on the breast, too, and much larger. Another interesting 
bird was the hoopoe or hood-hood. It is about the size of a large thrush. 
It has an erectile semi-circular crest and with its reddish brown and black 
plumage mixed with white and buff is a very handsome bird. The hoopoe is 
related to the hornbill. Again we saw the European bee-eaters which we 
had seen in the mountain villages. They fly like swallows. With their 
greenish blue breasts, yellow and brown backs, yellow throats and greenish 
blue and brown wings they are beautiful birds, but birds that are looked 
upon as pests. They are said to eat bees and to wait near bee hives for 
their prey to appear. 
Identifying the hawks on this route proved too much for us. There 
were large ones and there were small ones but they remained just hawks 
to us. Crested larks were scattered through this area too. 
Getting farther out into the desert where only a few kinds of dry land 
thorny bushes, there called billann, grew we still saw partridges, beautiful 
gray birds slightly variegated in color. But at last all bird life disappeared 
and only big droves of camels, an occasional fox and three gazelles added 
interest to our dusty journey. 
Other birds that we saw at various places in Lebanon and Syria were: 
the Egyptian vultures, large light-gray birds with black wings; rooks; a 
pair of falcons which we believed to be the Lanner falcons, nesting in the 
huge old Greco-Roman ruins at Baalbek; yellow-vented bulbuls or nightin- 
gales; red breasts or European robins; European goldfinches; hooded crows; 
European blackbirds; and European rollers, rather showy birds with blue 
green wings and brown backs and a peculiar tumbling’ flight. 
We also saw a few migrating birds but they were difficult to identify. 
One flock we missed by arriving in Beirut just one day too late. This was 
the annual migration of the bajah. Every spring they say flocks of these 
very large, dark, stork-like birds numbering thousands migrate from Africa 
northward, crossing Lebanon. In the fall they return to Africa by a different 
route. 
The people of the Near East have little of the interest in birds of the 
sort that Audubon societies seek to foster. Bulbuls and finches are far too 
common in cages. Quails, partridges, doves, and even larks and thrushes 
are hunted for food. We saw boys carrying strings of birds as we might 
carry fish. They catch them by means of bird lime. Let me digress to say 
that in Alexandria, Egypt, the waiter brought us whole roast thrushes for 
dinner. Needless to say he took them away untouched. The ibis seems to 
be safe in Egypt as they are regarded as sacred and are to be seen in the 
fields in great numbers. We watched one picking food from the mouth of a 
water buffalo which was lying near the roadway. 
In Syria wild doves are looked upon with disfavor by the Syrian 
farmers who complain that they eat grain, especially that which has been 
sowed. All in all it is surprising that so many birds remain. There are 
