"The Survey of Western Palestine: The Fauna and Flora of Palestine: The Fauna" by Henry Baker Tristram, translated into Hebrew and edited by Chaim Moyal, The Bialik Institute, 296 pages, NIS 135
In 1975, Henry Baker Tristram's wonderful book "The Land of Israel, a Journal of Travels with Reference to its Physical History" appeared in Hebrew, in the fine translation of Chaim Ben- Amram. This book allowed its readers a peek into Israeli nature in the days before the Zionist movement, World War I and the British Mandate.
The picture conjured up by Tristram's journal is of a virgin territory, sparsely populated and devoid of firearms except for the outdated rifles of the Turkish soldiers. In this primeval land, which had not been violated or regimented by cities, towns, kibbutzim and moshavim, nor bisected by asphalt roads that ignore nature, like Highway 6; a land without factories, modern agriculture or army bases - in this land, nature was undisturbed by man, and it flourished. Many species of fauna now extinct in Israel lived peacefully in that untroubled landscape, completing the image of a paradise that has since been lost and destroyed. Certain passages of Tristram's diary were seen as classics of nature writing in Israel's early years, and they are quoted in many books.
Advertisement
During his travels, Tristram encountered a Syrian brown bear at the Amud River in the Galilee (the last Syrian brown bear was hunted on Mt. Hermon and became extinct in Israel in 1917), a roe deer (the last of these was found at a butcher shop in the town of Ussfiyeh on Mount Carmel in 1912), a spotted cheetah, a white oryx, a Syrian wild ass, a spotted genet and several other species of mammals and birds that disappeared from Israel at the beginning of the 20th century. Other animal species have become rare since then, and local hikers no longer see them. By contrast, many kinds of water fowl have proliferated, and any visitor to one of the fisheries scattered across the country, to the Hula Valley Nature Reserve or to Lake Agmon in the Hula can see tens of thousands of ducks, coots and seagulls and thousands of herons, cranes and pelicans.
Contemporary Israel is an island of awareness of nature and its creatures in a region that neglects the natural environment; many Israelis are attuned to the importance of preserving nature's landscapes. Nevertheless, it is hard to preserve nature in Israel, because of the dense population, rapid development, aggressive real-estate moguls, military activity, mistaken decisions by the government and government agencies, and of course the daily misdeeds of Israelis who treat the law with contemptuous disregard.
Without a doubt, the establishment of the State of Israel and its development into a modern state are impressive by any historical or cultural standard. It is a thrilling fact that in the 150 years since Tristram's visit, the population of Israel has grown to 15 times its previ
ous size and the standard of living has risen by hundreds of percent. These developments, however, exacted a heavy price from the natural environment and landscape. These days, we can only reflect with nostalgic longing on the lost paradise that Tristram described in his journal.
A reliable observer
Henry Baker Tristram was a British minister who lived and worked in the town of Durham, from which he embarked on his travels in the East. During his journeys, he studied flora and fauna as well as the landscapes of the Bible and the archaeology and geology of the Land of Israel and its neighbors. He was an enormously knowledgeable man, and his accounts, based on his own observations, are considered a serious and reliable source even today.
In addition to his travelogue, Tristram, who visited this area several times in the second half of the 19th century, wrote other books that have not been translated into Hebrew, including "The Topography of the Holy Land" (1871), "The Land of Moab: Travels and Discoveries on the East Side of the Dead Sea and the Jordan" (1873), "Eastern Customs in Bible Lands" (1894) and "Pathways of Palestine" (1882).
The current book, which contains summaries of some of Tristram's observations of the Land of Israel, covers only the "Fauna" section of the volume, published in 1884 by the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF). Under the heading "Flora and Fauna of Israel," the book describes 808 different species of wildlife of several different classes: 113 species of mammals, 348 species of fowl, 91 species of reptiles and amphibians, 43 species of freshwater fish and 213 species of mollusks. The numbers are similar to the number of species known to us today, with the exception of the fowl, of which more than 500 species are currently known. On the other hand, there are far fewer kinds of freshwater fish and mollusks in Israel today, mainly because certain species that Tristram was too enthusiastic in identifying are now categorized as included within other species.
This book is not a fascinating read like Tristram's travel journal. It includes short, succinct descriptions of the species observed by the author, comments on their place in this land and in the world, and of course their scientific and English names. For zoologists and nature buffs, it is a compelling document, but the average reader will find little to enjoy in the short, dry accounts of the animals that Tristram saw on his travels.
Chaim Moyal, the translator and scientific editor, is a birdwatcher and archaeologist as well as a talented illustrator. His lexicon of Israeli vertebrates was published by Teva Hadvarim in 2004. Moyal faced a difficult task here, since the scientific and English names of the animals Tristram describes have undergone many changes. It takes considerable knowledge and quite a bit of "digging" to identify names used today. The names of many places have also changed.
Moyal did a thorough job that took many years, and the result is excellent, although occasional mistakes have occurred. For example, the scientific name of the roe deer is Capreolres capreolus; the name of the Syrian rock hyrax is Procavia capensis syriacus, and the black coluber is called Coluber yugrelaris, and not as the book claims. There are also some irregularities in the Hebrew names of species. On the whole, however, the translation is excellent and up-to-date and reflects the most current scientific knowledge.
Tristram's observations left their mark on the names of some of the animals he observed, which came to be named after him. The best-known of these is Tristram's grackle, a black bird with orange wing-patches belonging to the starling family; it is common in the Dead Sea region, and its drawing appears for the first time in Tristram's book (and on the cover of the Hebrew translation). Tristram's name was also given to two kinds of fish from the cichlid family, known as Tristramella, as well as to Tristram's jird (Meriones tristrami), a midsized rodent of the gerbil family that is common in Israel along the Mediterranean coast. Clearly, Tristram deserves this honor, as well as the epithet that has been given to him: "the father of zoology in 19th-century Israel."
The Bialik Institute should be commended for taking the trouble to publish this book in Hebrew, accompanied by Tristram's fine, timeless illustrations, even though the volume is not intended for a general audience. Nature-loving readers will rejoice in this book, which should be added to any collection of titles about the Land Israel and its wildlife and can be enjoyed at any time.
Dr. Avi Arbel is co-author (with Prof. Avinoam Danin) of "The Atlas of the Fauna and Flora of the Land of Israel" and of "Lexicon of the Fauna and Flora of the Land of Israel," published in Hebrew by Carta. His book "Lexicon of the Mammals of Israel" is forthcoming from Mapa.
Haaretz.com, the online edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, offers real-time breaking news, opinions and analysis from Israel and the Middle East. Haaretz.com provides extensive and in-depth coverage of Israel, the Jewish World and the Middle East, including defense, diplomacy, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the peace process, Israeli politics, Jerusalem affairs, international relations, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli business world and Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora.
