BlKD.
1. Numerous Species. — It was reserved for later natu- ralists to discriminate the immense variety of the small- er birds of the passerine order. Excepting in the cases of the thrushes and the larks, the natural history of Aristotle scarcely comprehends a longer catalogue than that of Moses,
Yet in few parts of the world are the kinds of pas- serine birds more numerous or more abundant than in Palestine. A very cursorj' survey has supplied a list of above one hundred different species of this order (see Ibis, i, 26 sq., and iv, 277 sq.). But although so numer- ous, they are not generally noticeable for any peculiar brilliancy of plumage beyond the birds of our own cli- mate. In fact, with the exception of the denizens of the mighty forests and fertile alluvial plains of the trop- ics, it is a popular error to suppose that the nearer we approach the equator, the more gorgeous necessarily is the coloration of the birds. There are certain tropical families with a brilliancy of plumage which is unri- valled elsewhere ; but any outlying members of these groups — as, for instance, the kingfisher of Britain, or the bee-eater and roller of Europe — are not surpassed in brightness of dress by any of their Southern relations. Ordinarily in the warmer temperate regions, especially in those which, like Palestine, possess neither dense for- ests nor morasses, there is nothing in the brilliancy of plumage which especially arrests the attention of^ the unobservant. It is therefore no matter for surprise if, in an unscientific age, the smaller birds were generally grouped indiscriminately under the term tsippor, dpvi- Cioi; or passer. The proportion of bright to obscure colored birds is not greater in Palestine than in Eiig- lan<l ; and this is especially true of the southern por- tion, ■Iii(l:ea, where the wilderness, with its bare bills and arid ravines, affords a home chiefly to those species which rely for .safety and concealment on the modesty- and inconspicuousness of their plumage.
Although the common sjiarrow of England (Passer domesticus, Linn.) does not occur in the Holy Land, its place is abundantly siqijilied (see Thomson, J.diid iiiid Book, i, 53, 397) by two very closely allied southern species (Passer salirirola, Yieill., and Passer cisalpina, Tem.). The English tree-sparrow (Passer montanus, Linn.) is also very common, and may be seen in num- bers on !Mount Oliver, and also about the sacred enclos- ure of the iMos(pie of Omar. This is perhaps the exact species referred to in Psa. Ixxxiv. 3," Yea, the sfiarrow bath found a house." Though in Britain it seldom frequents houses, yet in ("liiiia, to which country its eastward range extends. Mr. Swinhoe, in his Orvitlml- '"jy ']f ■'^'uoij, informs us its habits are precisely those
SPARROW
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SPARROW
of our familiar house -sparrow. Its shyness may bo the result of persecutiou ; but in the East the-Mussul- mans hold in respect any bird which resorts to their houses, and in reverence such as build in or about the mosques, considering thera to be under the Divine pro- tection. This natural veneration has doubtless been inherited from antiquity. We learn from ^lian {Vur. Hist. V, 17) that the Athenians condemned a man to death for molesting a sparrow in the Temple of /Escu- lapius. The story of Aristodicus of Cyme, who rebuked the cowardly advice of the oracle of Branchid:c to sur- render a suppliant by his symbolical act of driving the sparrows out of the temple, illustrates the same senti- ment (Herod, i, 159), which was probably shared by Da- vid and the Israelites, and is alluded to in the psalm. There can be no difficulty in interpreting nnsTT:, not as the altar of sacrifice exclusivelj^ but as the place of sacrifice, the sacred enclosure generally, to rt^nvoc, " fanum." The interpretation of some commentators, who would explain TIDII in this passage of certain sa- cred birds, kept and preserved by the priests in the Temple like the sacred ibis of the Egyptians, seems to be wholly without warrant (see Bochart, iii, 21, 22).
Most of the commoner small birds are found in Pal- estine. The starling, chaffinch, greenfinch, linnet, gohl- tinch, corn-bunting, pipits, blackbird, song-thrush, and the various species of wagtail aboinid. The woodlark (Alaudd arhorea, Linn.), crested lark (^Galerida crisiata, Boie.), Calandra lark {Melanncorypha calandra, Bp.), short-toed lark {Cahindrella hrachydaclijla, Kaup.), Is- abel lark {A lamia deserti, Liclit.), and various other des- ert species, which are snared in great numbers for the markets, are far more numerous on the Southern plains than the skjdark in England. In the olive-yards, and among the brushwood of the hills, the Ortolan bunting {Eiiiberlza hortulann, Linn.), and especially Cretzsch- niaer's hunting {Emheriza ccesia, Cretz.), take the place of tlie common yellow-hammer, an exclusively N(jrthern species. Indeed, the second is seldom out of the trav- eller's sight, hopping before him from bough to bough with its simple but not unpleasing note. As most of the warblers {Sj/h'iudce) are summer migrants, and have a wide eastern range, it was to be expected that the}' should occur in Syria; and accordingly upwards of twen- ty of those on the British list have been noted there, in- cluding the robin, redstart, whitethroat, blackcap, night- ingale, willow - wren, Dartford warbler, whinchat, and stonechat. Besides these, the Palestine lists contain fourteen others, more southern species, of which the most interesting are perhaps the little fantail (Cisticola schanicola, Bp.), the orphean (Curruca orphcen, Boie.), and the Sardinian warbler {S//lvia melanocephala,\jAth.').