10 NOVEMBER 1944, Page 14

A True Psalm An ardent naturalist recently filled his short

leave in Palestine in paying a visit to the Cedars of Lebanon and wrote home to say that the 104th psalm is quite right: the birds do make their nest there. The whole place was noisy with the twittering of Citril Finches, which seemed to be the original birds that sing among the branches. Other birds he saw nearby were chaffinches, gold finches, meadow buntings and great tits ; and when cultivation ceased black-throated wheatears and that splendid bird, the blue rock thrush. He saw, too, the stone-chat, which the Italians called by the admirable descriptive name saltimpalo or " jump-on-to-a-post." About 300 cedars, some very large, remain, grouped in the bottom of a great bowl in the high red hills. It may interest students of birds to know that active migration was observed at 7,000 feet. " Swallows and bee-eaters were passing continuously (and one house-martin). We saw a willow-wren at 7,000 and at 7,500 a flock of about twenty blue-headed wagtails feeding among a flock of goats, catching the insects that the animals kick up from the grass "