A Year with the Birds

But he remained an ardent hunter, and has always been an excellent shot: and it was in this capacity, I believe, that he first became useful to the Professor Fatio whom I mentioned just now. He did much collecting for him, and in the course of their expeditions together, contrived to learn a great deal about plants, insects, and birds, most of which he retains in his old age. There is nothing scientific in his knowledge, unless it be a smattering of Latin names, which he brings out with great relish if with some inaccuracy; but it is of a very useful kind, and is aided by a power of eyesight which is even now astonishing in its keenness. I first made his acquaintance in 1868, and for several years he accompanied my brother and myself in glacier-expeditions in all parts of the Alps; but it has been of late years, since we have been less inclined for strenuous exertion, that I have found his knowledge of natural history more especially useful to me. He is now between sixty and seventy, but on a bracing alp, with a gun on his shoulder, his step is as firm and his enjoyment as intense, as on the day when he took us for our first walk on a glacier, eighteen years ago.

The mention of his gun reminds me, that though my old friend’s eyes and my own field-glasses were of the greatest help to me, I could not always satisfy myself as to the identity of a species; and two years ago I was forced to sacrifice the lives of some six or seven individuals. This, it is worth knowing, is illegal in all parts of Switzerland, and illegal at all times of the year; and I had to obtain a license from the Cantonal Government at Bern, kindly procured for me by another old acquaintance, Herr Immer of Meiringen and the Engstlen-alp, to shoot birds ‘in the cause of science.’ This delighted Anderegg; but at my earnest request he suppressed his sporting instincts, or only gave them rein in fruitless scrambles over rock and snow in search of Ptarmigan and Marmots.

I propose to occupy the latter part of this chapter in taking my readers a short expedition, in company with Anderegg, in search of Alpine birds; but let me first say something of the general conditions and characteristics of bird-life in Switzerland.

And first of the number of species, and abundance of individuals. People sometimes tell me that they never see any birds in the Alps. An elderly German, whose bodily exertions were limited, and whose faculties seemed to turn inwards on himself instead of radiating outwards, could not understand why I should go to Switzerland to study birds – for he could see none. And it is indeed true that they do not swarm there, as with us; in this respect Switzerland is like the rest of the Continent. It is a curious fact, that though we have only lately begun to preserve our small birds by law in the breeding-season, they are far more abundant here than they are in any part of the Continent known to me: and this is the case even with the little delicate migrants, many of which seem to have a preference for England in spite of the risk of the sea-crossing. I remember taking up a position one afternoon by the side of a rushing stream, dividing beautiful hay-meadows, and edged with dwarf willows; and during the half-hour I sat there, I neither saw nor heard a single bird. In such a spot in England there would have been plenty. But this is an exception: the rule is, that you may read wherever you run, if you will keep your eyes and ears open, and learn by experience where chiefly to be on the look-out. Variety is more interesting than numbers; the birds are more obvious from their comparative rarity; and their voices are not lost, as is sometimes the case with us, in a general and unceasing chorus. As regards the number of species in the country, I have never seen an accurate computation of it. But looking over Mr. Dresser’s very useful catalogue of the Birds of Europe, I calculate roughly that it would amount to about three hundred in all; i. e. less by some seventy or eighty than the avi-fauna of the British Islands. This is, however, a remarkably large number for a country that possesses no sea-board and very few of those sea-birds which form so large a contingent in our wonderful British list; and it suggests a few remarks on the causes which bring some birds to the Alps periodically, and have tempted others to make them their permanent home.

The greatest attractions for birds, and therefore the chief agents – as far as our present knowledge reaches – in inducing birds to move from place to place are food and variety of temperature. Now in the Alps we find these conditions of bird-life everywhere present, except, of course, in the very highest levels of snow and ice. The seed-eating birds find sufficient food in the rich hay, thick and sweet with flowers, which covers the whole of the Alpine pastures from May to July, and abundance of corn, flax, and fruit in the valleys: in the steep pine-woods that usually separate these valleys from the pastures, the larger seed-eaters enjoy an endless supply of fir-cones. The insect-eating birds are still more fortunate. Nothing is more striking in the Alps than the extraordinary abundance in the summer of insects of all kinds, as we know to our cost in the sun-baked valleys; and on the mountains it is equally wonderful though less annoying. There it is that the beetles have their paradise. In loose heaps of stone, often collected to clear a stony pasture; in the wooden palings used to separate alp from alp; in the decaying lumber of the pine-forests, beetles both small and great are absolutely swarming. A clergyman, pastor of a valley near Meiringen, who collected them, found more than eight hundred different species in his parish alone. All the birds shot for me at the Engstlen-alp had been living on a diet of minute beetles as their principal food. It is indeed wonderful to notice the strange disproportion between the abundance of food provided and the numbers of the birds who avail themselves of the repast: there is so much more to eat than can ever possibly be eaten.

But we must remember that this is the case only during the warm months. During the greater part of the year the snow is on the ground in the regions of which I am speaking, and hardly any birds are to be found there. A great and general migration takes place, either to the valleys below, or out of the mountain region altogether, southward, or in a very few cases, northward. Switzerland is, in fact, an admirable centre for the study of migration; migration, that is, on a large scale, where the birds leave the country entirely, and also on that limited scale which we call in England ‘partial’ migration. I believe that the Alps will some day win the attention of the ornithologists as being one of the best of all positions as a centre of observation. We will pause for a moment to glance at it in this light.

We need hardly look at the map to see that the huge mass of the Alps lies directly in the path of the great yearly migration of birds from south and east to northern Europe. The question arises at once, does this immense mountain-range, with its icy peaks and wind-swept passes, act as an obstacle to the travelling birds, or do they rise to it and cross it, without going round, into the plains of North Switzerland and Germany? I confess that I should like to be able to answer this question with greater certainty; but I believe the right answer, in the rough, to be as follows. In the first place, a large number of species never attempt to cross the mountains, but remain in the great basin of the Po, and in southern France, the whole summer, thus making the avi-fauna of Lombardy distinct in many points from that of Switzerland. If we look through the works of Dresser, Gould, or Bree, on European birds, with the object of learning something on this point, we find that bird after bird, especially among the tenderer kinds of warblers, gets no further than North Italy and the southern slopes of the Alps, seldom straggling into Switzerland proper. On the other hand, some migrating birds, such as the Black Redstart, the Citril Finch, and some of the hardier warblers, seem to desire a cool climate to breed in, and doubtless come across the passes to inhabit the Alpine pastures during the whole of the summer. How far this is also the case with the vast number of more delicate birds, such as the various Reed- and Willow-warblers, who live by the rivers and lakes during the summer, I cannot undertake to say; and it is a mere guess on my part if I hazard an opinion that many of these must come into Switzerland by way of France and Austria. Anderegg sent me word last autumn that he had noticed the Swallows leaving Meiringen, not southwards over the Grimsel pass towards Italy, but westwards, as if they were seeking to turn the vast mountain barrier. Yet it is a known fact that on some of the passes birds are watched and killed in their passage.

But I have still to speak of partial or internal migration in Switzerland; and this is what, if I am not mistaken, will prove a very fertile source of ornithological knowledge when thoroughly understood. As I said before, the agents which chiefly cause birds to move from one place to another (so far as we know), are food-supply and temperature. Now we have only to look at a raised map of Switzerland to see at once how subject the birds must be to such incitements towards change of place. Any one who has been to Switzerland will have noticed that the scenery falls into three great divisions – that of the lakes and valleys, that of the Alpine pastures and forests, and lastly, that of the regions on the border-line of perpetual snow, running upwards to the higher snow-fields. The professional mountaineer pays little attention to any but the last of these; the botanist and ornithologist have, fortunately, much reason to pause and reap a harvest in the lower levels, which are incomparably more beautiful. For convenience’ sake I will call the lowest, No. 1; the second – that of the Alpine pastures, No. 2; and the highest, No. 3. The distribution of birds in these three regions is continually changing. No. 3, in the winter, is entirely devoid of life and food. The Eagles and the great bearded Vultures, now very rare, can find not even a marmot to prey upon, for they are all asleep in their burrows. The Snow-finches and the Ptarmigan, which in the summer delight in the cool air of an altitude of 8000 to 10,000 feet, have descended to No. 2, or even lower, compelled by want of food and water: and so too the red-winged Rock-creeper, the Alpine-pipit and others, which may be seen in summer close to the great glaciers. In the same way the birds which haunt No. 2 in the summer – I am speaking of those which do not leave the country altogether – descend in the autumn to No. 1, and there remain till the following spring: among these are the Ring-ousel and Blackbird, the Nutcrackers, the Titmice, the Alpine Choughs, the Alpine Accentor, and others. Then in the spring the reverse process takes place. As the spring advances up the mountain-slopes, which it gains slowly, not reaching the highest region of vegetation till June or even July, the birds follow it. Region No. 1, now peopled by the immigrations from Africa and the Mediterranean, sends on large numbers of its winter birds to region No. 2, where, like the cows and the herdsmen who ascend about the same time, they enjoy cool air and abundance of food in the well-watered pastures. Meanwhile the Snow-finches, the Ptarmigan, and the birds of prey, who have been living during the winter in the lower slopes and woods of region No. 2, retire upwards to breed in the rocks and snowy crevices of No. 3. We can hardly help believing that with all these wonderful provisions of nature for their change of scene and temperature, these partial migrants of Switzerland must lead a life supremely happy. Man himself and his cattle are partial migrants in the Alps; and no day is so welcome to the herdsman as that on which the authorities of his commune fix for the first movement of the cows upwards. Bitter indeed has been the disappointment of my old guide, now the happy possessor of two cows, when he has not been able to follow them in their annual migration to the cooler pastures. He could realize the feelings of a caged bird, unable to follow its fellows in seeking the southern lands for which its heart yearns.

Before leaving this subject I should, perhaps, note that these three regions are not divided from each other by any definite line; and in respect of their bird-life I need hardly say they slide insensibly into each other. But I think it will be found that the division is a fair one for our purposes, and is a useful one to bear in mind in all dealings with the natural history of the country.

I will now ask my readers to follow me mentally in an expedition which will bring us into actual contact with many of the birds I have noticed in Switzerland. We will choose a route which from its great beauty, comparative quiet, and good inns, has always been a favourite of mine, and will carry us over parts of all the three regions I have just described, enabling us to compare their avi-fauna with that of our own country. Starting from the village of Stanz-stadt, famous in Swiss history, which stands on that arm of the lake of Lucerne which lies immediately beneath Mount Pilatus, we will pass up the luxuriant valley of the Aa, in canton Unter-walden, to Engelberg, where most of the land and forest is owned by the monks of a great monastery, whose care for their possessions has doubtless helped to make them a pleasant home for the birds; then we will mount to the pastures of the Gerstni-alp, in region No. 2, and so upwards to the Joch-pass, which in early summer is covered with snow, and introduces us to region No. 3. Descending for an hour to the Engstlen-alp, loveliest of Swiss pastures, we find ourselves here, at the excellent inn, again in No. 2, but still within very easy reach of No. 3; and then we can pass downwards through the Gentelthal, or along the pastures that look down on it from the north – for there are three different ways, all of them of the rarest beauty – to the deep valley of the Aar, or Hasli-thal, where we arrive once more in region No. 1.

On reaching Stanz-stadt, I always take a turn along the road that here forms a narrow causeway between two divisions of the lake, and is bordered on one side for some distance by a broad bed of reeds. Any ornithologist would see at once that something is in store for him here, and if I had had time or patience to stay here in the heat, I might probably have seen more than I did see. The Bittern occasionally visits these reeds, for the landlord of the inn showed me a very fine specimen which he himself had shot. They are also the summer residence of those Warblers which love reeds, and which abound much more on the reedier lakes of Biel and Neuchâtel. On my last visit to Stanz-stadt, my companion being in a hurry to get into cooler climes, I had only a quarter of an hour to spend on this bit of road; but my ear instantly caught the song of our Reed-warbler, to which I had been listening for many weeks at Oxford, while learning to distinguish it from that of its near relation the Sedge-warbler. It was pleasant to hear the familiar strain the very instant my long journey was over. The Marsh-warbler, the Aquatic-warbler, and others of their kind, are all to be seen by the rivers and lakes of our lowest region (No. 1), rarely ascending higher; and he who has the courage to spend a few days in the baking and biting valley of the Rhone, for example, will find them all among the desolate reed- and willow-beds of that, to man, most inhospitable river.

Here also, at Stanz-stadt, and all up the valley to Engelberg, and at Engelberg itself in abundance, may be seen the White Wagtail of the continent, which is as comparatively rare in England as our common Pied Wagtail is abroad. The two forms are very closely allied, our Pied Wagtail in winter very closely resembling the White bird in its summer dress. The difficulty of distinguishing the two caused me to pay great attention to these White Wagtails whenever I saw them. If you see a bird in summer which has a uniform pearl-gray back, set off sharply against a black head, the black coming no further down than the nape of the neck, it is the White Wagtail. You must look at his back chiefly; it is far the most telling character. The male Pied Wagtail has at this season a black back, and the female has hers darker and less uniform in colour than the genuine White bird. I shall have something more to say of Wagtails in the course of our walk; but let me take this opportunity of asking the special attention of travellers on the continent to these most beautiful and puzzling birds, whose varieties of plumage at different seasons of the year seem almost endless, and whose classification is still by no means finally settled.

As we travel up the valley to Engelberg, and in the higher portion of it in which Engelberg stands, a considerable variety of birds may be seen which are familiar to us as British species. The Whin-chat is nestling in the meadows, and swaying itself on the tops of the long grasses; our common English Redstart is seen here and there, but not often, on the walls and palings; the Creeper runs up the stems of the fruit-trees, and the Nuthatch has its nest in holes in the maple-trees, which in these valleys are of great size and beauty. In the woods and undergrowth you may see the Chiff-chaff, and Willow-wren, and Garden-warbler, and here and there a Buzzard: the Robin and Blackbird are about, but not nearly so common as with us, and we are at first surprised at the absence of Song-thrushes,[21 - This bird cannot really be wholly missing in summer, but it is strange how seldom I have seen or heard it. It is wanting also from a list sent me by Mr. A. H. Macpherson, of birds noticed by him in Switzerland last summer (1886). But Anderegg tells me that its song is often heard near his house at Meiringen. The Missel-thrush is certainly more abundant.] and the comparative rarity of Sparrows, Skylarks, and Yellowhammers.

The commonest bird of all in the Engelberg valley, is one which we seldom see in England, and never in the summer. This is the Black-redstart, a bird which has a wide summer distribution all over Europe, and is found in Switzerland at all altitudes, suiting itself to all temperatures. Wherever there is a chalet under the eaves of which it can build, there it is to be found as soon as spring has begun to appear, even though the snow is lying all around. I have found it myself nesting in chalets before the herdsmen and cows had arrived there, and at a height of 6000 feet or more, it has woke me at dawn with its song: yet at the same time it is abounding in the plains of France and Germany, and nowhere have I seen greater numbers than in the park at Luxembourg. It is one of the puzzles of ornithology, that in spite of this, the bird never comes to England in the summer; and that the stragglers that do visit us always appear as winter visitants; straying to our foggy shores as if by mistake, when they ought to be on their way to the sunny south.

The little ‘Röthel,’ as they call him, is a great favourite with the Swiss peasantry; he is trustful and musical, and will sing sometimes when you are within a few feet of him. They are sorry to part with him in autumn, and cannot make out what becomes of him. One of them told me that twenty-two of these birds were once found in the winter fast asleep in a cluster, like swarming bees, in the hollow-trunk of a cherry-tree; how far the story was mythical, I will not venture to say.

The Swallow tribe have been with us all the way along the valley, but they will follow us no further. Even at Engelberg (3500 feet) they seem to be a little chilly in the early summer. When I first arrived there, in cold weather, there was not a Swift to be seen; but one morning when I woke I heard them screaming, and afterwards I always knew a fine morning by the sound of their voices. Higher up, when we leave the highest limits of region No. 1, we shall see neither Swift, Martin, nor Swallow, and nothing is more striking on the ‘Alps,’ than the sense that you have left these birds of summer behind you. The highest point at which I saw a swallow last summer was at the glacier of the Rhone, where Anderegg pointed me out a single straggler as a curiosity: but later in the year they are probably bolder. Their place is taken in regions Nos. 2 and 3 by two other species, by no means common, and of great interest – the Alpine Swift and the Crag-martin. I have not found the latter in the district of which we are speaking, but he is always to be seen in a place well-known to most travellers in Switzerland – the steep descent of the Gemmi, to Leukerbad. As you wind down those tremendous precipices, you will see a little ghostly bird flitting up and down them, something after the manner of a bat, and reminding you of our Sand-martin – this is the Crag-martin, which spends the summer here, and builds in the crevices of the rocks. In the same place and others of the kind, you may see the Alpine Swift, whose flight is probably faster than that of any European bird; a splendid sight it is to watch him wheeling in the sunshine, borne along on wings that expand to a width of nearly two feet.

I have already strayed away from the valley to speak of these birds, and it is time that we should ascend to region No. 2, by the well-known path to the south of Engelberg. Just at the foot of the hill, where the path begins to mount, you may hear an unfamiliar note; it is that of the Pied Flycatcher, a bird not unfrequently seen in England, but welcome under all circumstances. As we go upwards through the wood, we hear very few birds: but as we suddenly emerge on a grassy slope between the pines, a large bird comes sailing high over us, with large brown outstretched wings, which we may believe is a Golden Eagle, so grave and silent its flight, so huge its outline against the sky. After half-an-hour’s walk we come out upon the Alps proper, i. e. the flowery pastures which form the bulk of region No. 2. Here the bird-life begins very sensibly to change. The Swallows, as I have said, do not venture so high: of the warblers, the only one left is the Chiff-chaff, which sings its familiar two notes in the underwood far up on the steep slopes above us. We are now on the ‘Pfaffenwand,’ a very steep and stony ascent separating the lower from the higher pastures; and here each year this tiny little bird seems to choose for his haunt, and perhaps for his nesting-place, the very highest bit of real cover, consisting only of stunted bushes, that he can find in all this district. Here, too, we are not unlikely to find a flock of Alpine Choughs; noisy chattering birds, with yellow beaks, strong and stout and with a downward curve; their legs are bright red and their plumage a bright and glossy black. The Cornish Chough (Pyrrhocorax graculus, Linn.), is also found in the Alps, but it is much less common; it is a larger bird, and its bill, which is long and red, is very different from the shorter and stouter yellow beak of the smaller species. The Alpine Chough is the characteristic corvus of the Alps, as it is also of the Apennines, and its lively chatter, breaking suddenly on vast and silent solitudes, recalls to memory the familiar jackdaw we left behind us in the Broad Walk at Oxford, or in the tower of our old village church.

But as I think of those delicious pastures, nestling under the solemn precipices, and studded in June with gentians, primulas, anemones, where each breath of crystal air is laden with the aromatic scent of Alpine herbage, I seem to hear one favourite song resounding far and near – a song given high in air, and often by an invisible singer; for so huge is the mass of mountain around us, that he seldom projects himself against the sky in his flight, and may well escape the quickest eye. But he is never many minutes together on the wing, and will soon descend to perch on some prominent object, the very top twig of a pine, or a bit of rock amid the Alpine roses —

Those quivering wings composed, that music still.

His nest is not far off, and may sometimes be stumbled on in the grass and fern. This blithe spirit of the flowery pastures is the Water Pipit (Anthus spinoletta, Linn.), a little gray and brown bird somewhat more distinctly marked than our English Pipits, having a lightish stripe over the eye, whitish breast, and black legs; but in other respects much like his relations, both in habits and in his song, which is a long succession of clear bell-like notes, slackening somewhat in rapidity and force as he descends. He has very rarely been found in England, but may possibly be commoner than we fancy. Should I ever meet with him, he will surely carry me back in fancy to his true home among the Alps, where in the common speech of the peasants he is no longer a prosaic Pipit, but as he may well be called, the Alpine Lark.[22 - This name (Alpenlerche) seems to be applied by the peasantry both to this species and to the Alpine Accentor. Mr. Seebohm, in his British Birds, calls the former, very appropriately, the Alpine Pipit.]

Another bird which haunts this region, though not in such numbers, and whose habits are much like those of the Water Pipit, is the Alpine Accentor. This belongs to a family (Accentoridae) which has only one other representative in Western Europe – our own familiar little Dunnock or Hedge-sparrow. In plumage and song the two are not unlike, though the Alpine bird is rather larger and of a more variegated warm brown colouring: but I cannot help pausing for one moment to point out the remarkable instance that we have here of two very closely allied birds developing habits of life so entirely distinct, – the one being stationary, the other migratory; the one breeding in the road-side hedge where it lives all the year, and the other retreating to the highest limits of the Alpine pastures and making its nest in the holes of the rocks. In the winter however the Alpine bird descends to the valleys, and there finds it convenient to associate more closely with man and his works; in the Hasli-thal it is known as the ‘Bliem-trittel,’ a term which Anderegg explained to me as meaning that it regales itself on the seeds of the flowers and grass which escape through the timbers of the chalet-built hay-barns. Thus it lives on two distinct diets in summer and winter; for in summer it feeds chiefly on the innumerable small beetles of the pastures, while in winter it is driven to become a vegetarian.

As our time is running short, we will now cross the snow-covered Joch, a pass barely high enough to bring us well into region No. 3, and drop down on the exquisite Engstlen-alp with its comfortable inn (6000 feet), whence we can climb to the highest region at any time with ease: this well-watered and well-timbered Alp being so placed that it stands nearly at the top of region No. 2, with easy access to No. 3, and affords us another glimpse at the former before we finally leave it.

As we sit at lunch after our walk, there faces us exactly opposite the window of the salle-à-manger, at a distance of a few yards, a little dark-brown hay-chalet; always a picturesque object, whether it stands out on a clear day against the mighty distant mass of the Wetterhörner, or looms huge and uncertain in the swirls of a mountain mist. This old friend of fourteen years’ standing gained a new interest for me on my last visit. Every now and then a pair of little greenish-yellow birds would come and twitter on its roof, or pick up seeds and insects from beneath its raised floor. I took these at first for the Serin-finch, the well-known favourite cage-bird of the continent, and the near relation of the Canary and of our English Siskin. I had no wish to shoot such trustful and beautiful creatures, and therefore remained in ignorance of their true nature till I returned to England, when I found from Dresser’s work that they must have been not the Serin but the Citril-finch. The two are closely allied, but the Serin seems to content itself with the valleys and plains of region No. 1, while its place is taken in the mountains by its cousin. Mr. Dresser has an interesting account of a successful search for it on the highest summit of the Black Forest. It builds its nest in the pine branches, but may always be looked out for near chalets or palings at a considerable height, which it ransacks for food; and an elaborate search for its nest which I made in the chalet was a wild-goose chase into which I find that more distinguished ornithologists have been misled before me.

If we now stroll out across this beautiful alp to the lake which bounds and waters it, we shall find it alive with birds. Besides the Pipits and the Accentors, there are families of young Ring-ousels and Missel-thrushes, which have evidently been born and brought up near at hand; Wheatears, of our English species, are perched on the big stones that lie about, and in the ancient pines above them you may now and then see a Crossbill or a Redpoll. In the broad stream that issues from the lake you will always see the Dipper, and associated with it is the Grey Wagtail, seemingly the only bird of its kind that affects the higher Alps; for the White Wagtail seems to stay in the valleys even in the summer, and to love the larger streams and the farmyard pool; and the other species which I might have expected to meet, the Blue-headed Wagtail (Motacilla flava, Linn.), did not once offer himself to my field-glass, nor did his near relative, our common Yellow Wagtail of spring and summer.

But it is time that we should leave the pastures and make an expedition into the higher region of rock and snow. There is of course but little bird-life there, but that little is interesting. The best way is to go straight up the steep grass-slopes to the north-west of the inn, which are carpeted in June with millions of fragrant pansies and gentians, until we arrive, after a climb of some 1500 feet, at a little hollow filled with snow and limestone boulders, and having on one side a precipitous wall of rock, and on the other a series of upward-sloping stretches of snow, interspersed with patches of rock and short grass. Early in the season, when this desolate region is still quite undisturbed, you may find occupation if you lie in wait awhile. In my first walk here, no sooner did I reach this hollow, than a badger got up about ten yards from me and shuffled away behind some boulders; and while following up his tracks over the snow, I found them crossing and recrossing the ‘spur’ of chamois. A little further on, I saw the Ptarmigan creeping about among the rocks, and very soon I heard the call of the Snow-finches. These birds, who thus live and breed almost within the limits of perpetual snow, might be supposed, as Gould says of them, to ‘dwell in unmolested security.’ I was soon able to judge of the accuracy of his statement, for as soon as I had caught sight of them with the field-glass, I saw that something was causing anxiety to the little family. It was their alarm-call that I had heard; and as I was cautiously watching them fluttering on or close to the ground, I suddenly saw a small red fox make a hungry dash upon them, startling me and causing me for the moment unwittingly to move the glass and lose the whole scene. When I found them again the fox was gone, the finches were greatly troubled, and I fear there is no doubt that he secured a dinner.

The Snow-finch is a beautiful bird, rather larger than a Green-finch or Sparrow, with long wings in which the primary quill-feathers are much longer than the rest, as in some other birds, of airy and graceful flight. The strong contrast of jet-black and purest white in the plumage, e. g. in the tail, which has two black feathers in the middle while the rest are as white as snow, makes the bird conspicuous at a long distance, and a more striking object than the browner Snow-bunting, which occasionally strays from the north to the Alps. Seldom have I seen a more beautiful sight, unless it be a flight of Plover on English water-meadows, than the wavings and whirlings of a flock of Snow-finches, with their white feathers glistening in the sun one moment, while the next their black ones will show clear against the snow.

One other bird, which loves these great heights in the summer, may occasionally be seen within a few minutes’ walk of the place where the Snow-finch fell a victim. This is the red-winged Rock- or Wall-creeper, a bird so beautiful and so unique that it demands at least a passing notice. Wherever there is a steep wall or rock which is in shadow during part at least of the day, this bird may be looked for and occasionally seen, even in the midst of a snow-field or a glacier;[23 - E.g. on the rocks about the Devil’s Bridge near Andermatt, or on these of the Gemmi-pass.] for when the rock is exposed to the sun, the heat generated is too great either to allow the bird to work, or the insects it seeks to remain in the crevices. To those who have not seen it, it may best be described as in shape almost exactly like our common little Tree-creeper, the only other European representative of the family, but larger, and instead of its cousin’s sober brown plumage, presenting such an exquisite contrast of colour as is hardly to be found even among the fauna of the tropics. Its head, neck, and back, are soft ash-gray, and when its wings are closed you would hardly distinguish it from the gray rock to which it clings; but in an instant, as it begins half to climb and half to flutter from crevice to crevice, you will see the brilliant crimson of its lesser quill-feathers standing out, not unlike the underwings of a well-known moth, against that delicate gray. Its bill is long and slender, but strange to say, it is without the long tongue, that wonderful far-darter, with which the wood-peckers are provided; so the insects which it seeks in the crevices have to be rummaged for with the bill itself, and conveyed in some mysterious manner to the tongue, which does not reach much more than half way down it. Perhaps this may partly account for a statement made to me by Anderegg, and positively insisted on by him, that the bird loses the end of its bill every autumn, regaining it in the course of the winter. I am not in a position either to accept or refute this story. Anderegg declared that he had sent Professor Fatio specimens in order to prove it; but the Professor, who has studied the bird carefully, has not, so far as I know, drawn attention to any such peculiarity. I am inclined to think the truth may lie in the liability of the bird to wear away or even break the tip of its bill in the course of its indefatigable efforts to obtain food, and I have seen a specimen in the Bern Museum whose broken bill may possibly be a confirmation of this explanation. The peasant mind is apt enough to elevate an accidental circumstance into a law of nature.

We must now leave region No. 3 altogether, and descend from the Engstlen-alp westwards towards the Hasli-thal, passing through long stretches of the pine-forests which so often separate the upper pastures from the valleys. There are two families of birds to be met with in these forests, of which I must say a very few words, – the Woodpeckers and the Titmice. The former are not abundant, and it needs much patience to find them. I was to have visited a nesting-place of the Great Black Woodpecker (that awe-inspiring bird, which has borne its name of Picus Martius ever since it was the prophetic bird of Mars[24 - In common with other Woodpeckers, as Mr. H. Wharton has reminded me in the Academy. It is indeed very doubtful whether this striking bird was known either to Aristotle or Pliny; it is now an uncommon bird in Italy, and is properly an inhabitant of northern Europe. But when Italy was covered with forest (cp. Theophrastus, Hist. Plant, v. 8. 2) it must have been known to the country people.]), but fate decreed that I should have to go that day in an opposite direction. The three Spotted Woodpeckers – great, middle, and lesser – all occur, but our familiar green bird, which does not seem at home among the pines, is less common. Rarest of all is the Three-toed Woodpecker, with yellow head, which dwells – so Anderegg told me, and I find from the books that he was right – only among the highest and most solitary pine-woods.

At intervals, as in an English wood, the trees will be astir with Titmice. The Cole-tit and the Marsh-tit, the Blue-tit and the Great-tit, are all to be seen here, the last two undistinguishable from the British form, while the Cole-tit has a bluer back than ours, and the Marsh-tit in these higher levels differs, according to Professor Fatio, even from the same bird when found lower down, and approaches rather to the Scandinavian form. This single fact is enough to show how interesting would be a persevering study of this particular family. I will not venture to say whether these slight differences in plumage are enough to justify a specific separation of the forms. In the case of the continental Long-tailed Tit, which is decidedly different in colouring from ours, even amateurs may perhaps see a sufficient reason; but will prefer to suspend their judgment as to the other two.

There is yet a Titmouse, nearly always to be heard and seen between the Engstlen-alp and the Gentelthal, which is even more attractive to the ornithologist than any of its cousins. This is the Crested-tit (Lophophancs cristatus, Linn.), now so rare even in Scotland, and, according to Anderegg, not too common even in these pine-forests. It needs a vigilant eye and ear to detect it, so closely does it resemble its relatives (and especially the Blue species) both in voice and appearance, until you catch the well-marked crest on the head, and the additional shade of melancholy in the note. So close indeed are this bird and the Blue-tit in form, habits, and note, that I am astonished that the crest by itself (a few feathers raised on the head) should have been thought a sufficiently strong character to raise it into a separate genus —Lophophanes. If we notice the Blue-tit carefully, we shall find that he also often elevates his head-feathers into something like a crest; imagine this a little larger, and the bright colouring of the Blue-tit sobered into a soft bluish gray, and you will get a very good idea of the appearance of the male Crested-tit. His lady is brown rather than gray, causing Anderegg to make one of those mistakes to which the peasant-naturalist is liable; he assured me that there were two species, answering to the two prevailing tints.

I never can forget the spot where my old friend’s sharp ear first caught for me the quiet note of these little birds. If any bird-lover should chance to walk from Engstlen down to the Hasli-thal, he should stop near the foot of the first rapid descent among the pines, where the stream which he has lately crossed tumbles over a ledge of rock into a deep dark pool. At the very edge of this pool stand a few black pine-trees, and among the thick branches of these the Tits were playing. Above us were vast mountain walls, and at our feet was the mossy grass, damp with the spray of the fall; among the gray boulders the alpine rhododendron was coming into bloom. At a little distance a robin was singing its ever-welcome song, mingling its English music with the sound of alpine cow-bells from the pasture further down the valley. Such scenes linger for ever in the memory, and are endeared to us by the thought of the blithe creatures who live and sport among them during a long golden summer, long after we have returned to the land of misty meadows and miry ways.

But we must now leave these woods and pastures, and descend to the deep valley of the Hasli-thal, where we shall end our journey at Meiringen. If, instead of following the ordinary path, we skirt along the heights to the north towards Hasliberg, and so keep in cooler air, enjoying endless views, we shall finally descend by a very steep winding path, which is the only means of communication between the population of the valley and that of the higher slopes. In the willows and hazels among which this path winds, and also on the opposite side of the valley on the way to Rosenlaui, I have always heard a little warbler whose voice was quite strange to me. More than once I have done all I could to obtain a good sight of it; but the restless caprice of these little birds, who flit rapidly in and out of the bushes while the ornithologist waits with his head in a burning sun, only to lose sight of the tiny creature the moment the glass is upon him, defeated my purpose of finding out his species beyond the possibility of error; and Anderegg was as unwilling to use his gun so near the village, as I should have been to sacrifice a joyous life to the spirit of curiosity. But I have every reason to believe that my little tormentors belonged to a species with which I shall hope some day to make a closer acquaintance; it bears the name of the Italian naturalist Bonelli, and is a very near relation of our friends the Chiff-chaff and Willow-wren (Phylloscopus Bonnellii, Vieill.).[25 - The closer acquaintance has been made, and I have learnt the song of this bird, which is not unlike that of the Lesser White-throat described in Chapter II (#c2). Of all the warblers I know, this is the most restless and difficult to observe when once the leaves are fully out. It is the only bird, I think, which has completely baffled me during a whole morning spent in pursuing the song without once getting a fair look at the singer. (June, 1889.)]

Our walk is now ended, and this chapter is already quite long enough. Were we to take another, we might see many other species not less interesting than those we have met with on the way from Stanz-stadt; we might find Hawks of several species, Nutcrackers in the pine-woods, the Golden Oriole, the Hoopoe, or the beautiful Blue-breast. But I have thought it better to be content, for the most part, with the birds I have actually met with in the walk we have chosen to take, rather than to furnish a catalogue of all those we might be lucky enough to meet with if we stayed some weeks in the country. And thus I hope I may have given my readers some little idea of the impression left by the birds of a well-known alpine district on the memory of a rather hurried traveller, who has not been always able to go or to stay as his own inclination would prompt him.

CHAPTER IV.

A MIDLAND VILLAGE: GARDEN AND MEADOW

It is a curious fact that, when I return from Switzerland, that I am at first unable to discover anything in our English midlands but a dead level of fertile plain. The eye has accustomed itself in the course of two or three weeks to expect an overshadowing horizon of rock and snow, and when that is removed, it fails to perceive the lesser differences of height. This fact is an excellent illustration of the abnormal condition of things in the Alps, affecting the life both of the plants and animals which inhabit them; and it also shows us how very slight are the differences of elevation in most parts of our own island. In ordinary weather, the temperature does not greatly differ in an English valley and on an English ridge of hill, and the question whether their fauna and flora vary, is one rather of soil than of temperature. Still, there are manifest differences to be observed as we proceed from river-valleys to rising wooded ground, and from this again to a bare hill-side; and it may be interesting, after our walk in the Alps, to note the bird-life of an English rural district which is provided with all three, recalling dimly and perhaps fancifully the three regions of the Alpine world.

The traveller by railway from Oxford to Worcester leaves the broad meadows of the Isis about three miles above Oxford, and after crossing a spur of higher land, strikes the little river Evenlode at Handborough Station, not far from its junction with the Isis at Cassington. This Evenlode is the next considerable stream westward of the Cherwell, and just as the line of the latter is followed by the Birmingham railway, so the line to Worcester keeps closely to the Evenlode for nearly twenty miles, only leaving it at last in its cradle in the uplands of Worcestershire. Westward again of the Evenlode, the Windrush comes down from the northern Cotswolds, to join the Isis at Witney, and further still come Leach, and Coln, and others, bringing the clear cold water in which trout delight, from the abundant springs at Northleach and Andoversford. But the Evenlode is not a Cotswold stream, though trout may still be caught in it where it has not been polluted; it skirts for many miles the north-eastern slope of the Cotswolds, which may be seen from the train-windows closing in the horizon all the way from Shipton-under-Wychwood to Evesham and Worcester, but it has the slow current and muddy bottom of a lowland stream, and runs throughout its course among water-meadows liable to flood.

For the first few miles of its course it is little more than a ditch; but shortly after passing the historic lawns of Daylesford, it is joined by two other streams, one descending from the slope of the Cotswolds, and the other from the high ground of Chipping Norton eastwards. These two join the Evenlode exactly at the point where it enters Oxfordshire, and the combination produces a little river of some pretension, which enjoys a somewhat more rapid descent for some miles from this junction, and almost prattles as it passes the ancient abbey-lands of Bruerne and the picturesque spire of Shipton church.

Close to the point of junction, on a long tongue of land which is a spur of Daylesford hill, and forms a kind of promontory bounded by the meadows of the Evenlode and the easternmost of its two tributaries, lies the village where much of my time is spent in vacations. It is more than four hundred feet above the sea, and the hills around it rise to double that height; but it lies in an open country, abounding in corn, amply provided with hay-meadows by the alluvial deposit of the streams already mentioned, and also within easy reach of long stretches of wild woodland. For all along the valley the observant passenger will have been struck with the long lines of wood which flank the Evenlode at intervals throughout its course; he passes beneath what remains of the ancient forest of Wychwood, and again after a considerable gap he has the abbey-woods of Bruerne on his left, and once more after an interval of cultivation his view is shut in by the dense fox-covers of Bledington and Oddington, the border villages of Gloucestershire. It is just at this interval between Bruerne and Bledington that the junction of the two streams with the Evenlode takes place; so that from this point, or from the village already spoken of, it is but a short distance to an ample and solitary woodland either up or down the valley. Beyond that woodland lies a stretch of pasture land which brings you to the foot of the long ridge of hill forming the north-eastern boundary and bulwark of the Cotswolds, and hiding from us the little old-world towns of Burford and Northleach. We have therefore within a radius of five or six miles almost every kind of country in which birds rejoice to live. We have water-meadow, corn-land, woods, and hills, and also here and there a few acres of scrubby heath and gorse; and the only requisite we lack is a large sheet of water or marshy ground, which might attract the waders and sea-birds so commonly found near Oxford. We are neither too far north to miss the southern birds, nor too far south to see the northern ones occasionally; we might with advantage be a little farther east, but we are not too far west to miss the Nightingale from our coverts.

Such a position and variety would be sure to produce a long list of birds, both residents and visitors; not only because there are localities at hand suited to be their dwelling-places during the whole or a part of the year, but because they offer the change of scene and food which is essential to the welfare of many species. An open country of heath and common will not abound in birds of more than a very few species, unless it is varied with fertile oases, with garden, orchard, or meadow; for many of the birds that delight to play about in the open, and rove from place to place during the first few months of their existence, will need for their nests and young the shelter of trees and shrubs. While the young are growing, they require incessant feeding, and the food must be at hand which they can best assimilate and digest; and it does not follow that this is the same as that which the parents habitually eat, or which the young themselves will most profit by when they are fledged. The relation between the movements of birds and their food is a problem which has not, so far as I know, been fully investigated as yet. Other problems of absorbing interest at present occupy the attention of men of science. The sure foothold which has been gained by the theory of development has placed the great questions of classification in a new light, and brought the structure of animals into the foreground; the microscope each year discovers new wonders in the development of that structure from the earliest visible germ of life, and the habits of the living animal,[26 - Mr. Seebohm’s British Birds is a remarkable exception to this tendency.] and the relations of animals to each other, have consequently fallen a little into the background. No ornithological researches, so far as I am aware, have been lately published in this country, which can compare with those of Sir J. Lubbock on the intelligence of insects. Birds are in fact an extremely difficult subject for minute study; abundant leisure at the proper season, indefatigable perseverance, and the means and opportunity of travel, are its necessary conditions, which are denied to most men. And, it must be added, a considerable sacrifice of the life and happiness of birds is another sine qua non of investigations of this kind; and thus the growing sensitiveness of cultivated men is brought into conflict with the ardour of the enthusiastic savant.

But to return to my village; it is astonishing how many birds, in spite of the presence of their deadliest enemies, boys and cats, will come into our gardens to build their nests, if only fair opportunities are offered them. In a garden close to my own, whose owner has used every means in his power to attract them,[27 - This kindly patron of birds is E. D. Lockwood, Esq., late of the Bengal Civil Service, and author of Natural History, Sport, and Travel in India.] there were last May fifty-three nests, exclusive of those of swallows and martins. The garden is not more than two or three acres in extent, including the little orchard which adjoins it; but by planting great numbers of thick bushes and coniferous trees, and by placing flower-pots, old wooden boxes, and other such odds and ends, in the forks of the branches at a considerable height from the ground, he has inspired them with perfect confidence in his goodwill and ‘philornithic’ intentions. The fact that a pair of Missel-thrushes reared their young here only a few feet from the ground, and close to a stable and a much-frequented walk, shows that even birds of wild habits of life may be brought to repose trust in man by attention to their wants and wishes. The Blackcap, which almost always nests in woods, had here found it possible to take up its quarters close to the fruit it loves; and of all the commoner kinds the nests were legion. Three Greenfinches built in the same tree one over another, the nests being little more than a foot apart; a Wren had so closely fitted a little box with the usual materials of its nest, that the door corresponded with the only opening in the box; a Robin had found an ample basis of construction in the deserted nest of a Blackbird. The only bird that had been forbidden access to this Eden was the Bullfinch; he duly made his appearance, but was judged to be too dangerous to the buds of the fruit-trees. Siskins and Hawfinches have occasionally looked into this garden; but the Hawfinch has never bred here, and for some unexplained reason the same is the case with the Redstart.

In my own garden, within a few feet of the house, this last-mentioned friend found a very convenient abode in a hole in my largest apple-tree. The parents became very tame, and when they knew their young were discovered, made very little scruple about exposing themselves in going in and out. The food they brought their young, whenever we happened to see it, was a small green caterpillar; and I sincerely hope we may have them again next year, both for the benefit to my garden and for the pleasure they give me.[28 - They came, but found the hole occupied by the ubiquitous Starling. He again gave way to a pair of bold Blue-tits, who brought up their young here, flitting about the garden like large blue butterflies.] May the sad loss of one fledgling depart from their memory before next summer! It was just launched into the world when it fell a victim to my dog, for I had seen it in the nest only an hour or two before; I had left strict injunctions for the confinement of all domestic animals as soon as the young were seen to leave the nest, but had not expected them to face the world so soon. This was a beautiful little bird, showing already the rich russet colour in what he had of tail; his legs and claws were of extreme slightness and delicacy, and his whole colouring and framework was far more engaging than is the case with most young birds of his age. He had already picked up, or had been given by his mother, a pebble or two to assist his digestion.

The Redstart was not a very common bird about us until about three years ago, but now its gentle song is heard in May in almost every garden and well-hedged field. In August and September the young birds are everywhere seen showing their conspicuous fire-tails as they flit in and out of the already fast-browning hedges; yet three or four years ago my daily walks did not discover more than a few dozen in a summer. What can be the cause of this surprising increase of population? If it is anything that has happened in this country, such as the passing of the Wild Birds’ Protection Act, we must suppose that the same individuals which breed and are born here in one spring, return here the next year; i. e. our supply of this summer migrant depends on the treatment it receives here, and not upon the number of Redstarts available in the world generally. I am inclined indeed to think, though it is difficult to prove it, that the wholesale slaughter of young birds in our neighbourhood is less horrible than it used to be before the passing of the Act; but when we remember that other creatures, certain butterflies, for example, whose relations to man never greatly differ from year to year, are found to be much more abundant in some years than others, the more rational conclusion seems to be, that an increase or decrease of numbers depends, in the case of migrating birds, on certain causes which are beyond the reach of mankind to regulate. What these may be it is possible only to guess. A famine in the winter quarters would rapidly decimate the numbers of those individuals which were with us last summer, and we cannot tell whether the deficiency would be supplied from other sources. Even a severe storm in the spring or autumn journey would destroy an immense number of birds so tender and fragile; and we must not forget that these journeys take place at the very seasons when storms are especially frequent and violent. Any very serious alteration in the methods of dealing with the land in this country, such as the substitution of railings or ditches for hedges, or the wholesale felling of woods and copses, would also most certainly affect the numbers of this and most other birds; but in the course of the last few years no such change of any magnitude has taken place, and the increase of the Redstarts must be put down, I think, to causes taking effect beyond the sea.

The only really annoying destruction of hedges in our immediate neighbourhood within my recollection is one for which I ought always to be grateful, for it brought me a sight of the only Black Redstart I have ever seen in England. I mentioned in the last chapter that this little bird, which is so abundant on the Continent all through the summer, never comes to this country except in the autumn, and then only in very small numbers, chiefly along the south-west coast. It is generally seen in Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall in November, but never breeds there, and it is seldom that a straggler finds his way further north. On the 6th of November, 1884, I was returning from a morning walk, and about a mile from the village came to a spot which a few years ago was one of the prettiest in the country-side. Here one road crosses another, and formerly the crossing was enclosed by high hedges and banks, forming a comfortable nook where the hounds used to meet, and where the Sand-martins bored their way into the light and sandy soil. A land-agent descended here one day, like a bird of ill omen, and swept the hedges away, filling their place with long lines of bare and ugly wall; the martins sought a lodging elsewhere, for they could no longer feed their young with the insect-life of the hedgerows; the hounds followed their example, and all my associations with the spot were broken. But it was upon this very wall, new, useful, straight, and intensely human, that this rare little bird chose to sun himself that bright November morning. A thousand times have I seen him on the old gray fern-covered walls of the Alpine passes, but never did I expect to see him on this hideous ‘improvement’ of civilization. Except that he was silent and alone, he seemed as much at home here as on the flowery slopes of the Engstlen-alp. There is nothing that man can erect that is too uncomely for the birds.[29 - For exactly four years I saw no other Black Redstart in Oxfordshire. But on November 5, 1888, another caught my eye within half a mile of the spot described in the text. This time it was another new and ugly wall that he patronized, transferring his attention now and then to the cabbages in a cottage garden hard by.]

I have digressed for a moment to tell this tale of the Black Redstart, but I have hardly yet done with the village itself. We have of course plenty of Robins and Hedge-sparrows breeding in our gardens, and in the nests of these the Cuckoo is fond of depositing its egg. It would not be always true to say that the Cuckoo lays its egg in its victim’s nest, for in some instances at least the egg is dropped from the bill. A Robin built its nest in a hole in the wall of my garden, several inches deep, and with a rather narrow entrance; several eggs were laid and all was going well. It was three or four days from my first knowledge of the nest to my second visit, when I was greatly annoyed to find all the eggs but one on the ground at the foot of the wall, broken to fragments. I accused the boy who filled the office of boot-cleaner; he was more or less of a pickle, but he positively denied all complicity. Meanwhile in my indignation I had forgotten to examine the remaining egg; but the mystery was soon solved. Noticing that the Robins had not deserted, I looked again after awhile, and found a young Cuckoo. The ugly wretch grew rapidly, and soon became too big for the nest, so we hung him up in a basket on a branch, where the Robins continued to feed him. His aspect and temper were those of a young fiend. If you looked at him he would swell with passion, and if you put your finger towards him, he would rise up in the basket and ‘go for it.’ One fine morning he disappeared, and was never heard of more.

In this case the egg was unquestionably deposited with the bill, while the same instrument must have been used to eject the Robin’s eggs, thus saving the young Cuckoo when hatched the trouble of getting rid of the young Robins by muscular exertions. Next year a Cuckoo’s egg was laid in a Hedge-sparrow’s nest in an adjoining garden; but the intended foster-parents wisely deserted, and I was able to take possession of the nest and eggs. Every year in June we are sure to notice a persistent cuckooing close by us, and nearly every year an egg is found in some nest in the village. Once (I think it was at the time when the Robin was the victim) boys reported that they saw a cuckoo sitting on a bough hard by, with an egg in its bill. There is no doubt whatever that the bill can hold the egg, which is hardly as large as a starling’s.[30 - The discovery in Germany (see the Ibis for April, 1889) of a Cuckoo hatching its own egg should put all English observers on the look-out. We have taken it too much for granted that such a thing could not happen.]

We have another much smaller bird in the village which can hold large objects between its mandibles – objects almost as large, and sometimes more bulky, than the egg of the Cuckoo. This is the Nuthatch, which will carry away from a window any number of hard dessert nuts, and store them up in all sorts of holes and corners, where they are sometimes found still unbroken. These plump and neat little birds, whose bills and heads and necks seem all of a piece, while their bodies and tails are not of much account, have been for years accustomed to come for their dinners to my neighbour’s windows.[31 - Col. Barrow tells me that now (August, 1886) they have come to prefer bread to nuts, and will leave the latter so long as they can get the former.] One day while sitting with my friend, Col. Barrow, F.R.S. (to whom the Oxford Museum is indebted for a most valuable present of Arctic Birds), we set the Nuthatches a task which at first puzzled them. After letting them carry off a number of nuts in the usual way, we put the nuts into a glass tumbler. The birds arrived, they saw the nuts, and tried to get at them, but in vain. Some invisible obstacle was in the way; they must have thought it most uncanny. They poked and prodded, and departed ἀπρακτοὶ. Again they came, and a third time, with the like result. At last one of them took his station on a bit of wood erected for perching purposes just over the lintel; he saw the nuts below him, down he came upon the tumbler’s edge, and in a moment his long neck was stretched downwards and the prize won. The muscular power of the bird is as well shown by this feat, as his perseverance and sagacity by the discovery of the trick; for holding on by his prehensile claws to the edge of the tumbler, he contrived to seize with his bill a large nut placed in the bottom of it, without any assistance from his wings; the length of the tumbler being little less than that of the bird. But after all, this was no more than a momentary use of the same posture in which he is often to be seen, as he runs down the trunks of trees in search of insects.

The Spotted Flycatcher is another little bird which abounds in our gardens and orchards; it is always pleasant to watch, and its nest is easy to find. One pair had the audacity to build on the wall of the village school: it was much as if a human being should take up his residence in a tiger’s jungle, but if I recollect right, the eggs and young escaped harm. Another pair placed their nest on a sun-dial in Col. Barrow’s garden, as late as mid-July. This Flycatcher is the latest of all the summer migrants to arrive on our shores;[32 - When does he leave us? On Aug. 23, 1886, I saw an astonishing number of Flycatchers all on the same side of an orchard, and felt sure, from their restlessness, that they had assembled, as swallows do, in view of migration. On the 24th I went to S. Wales, where, during a whole week, I only saw one, though they were abundant up to that time. Letters from ornithological friends led me to believe that the birds have almost entirely disappeared from South and East England by about Sept. 12; and Mr. Seebohm is probably right in giving the first week of September as the usual date of their departure. How much less we know of the departure than of the arrival of birds, so quietly do they slip away!] the males and females seem to come together, and begin the work of nesting at once, i. e. in the middle of May; if the nest is taken, as was probably the case with this pair, the second brood would not be hatched till July. The bird is singularly silent, never getting (within my experience) beyond an oft-repeated and half-whispered phrase, which consists of three notes, or rather sounds, and no more; the first is higher and louder than the others, which are to my mind much like that curious sound of disappointment or anxiety which we produce by applying the tongue to the roof of the mouth, and then suddenly withdrawing it. But is the Flycatcher always and everywhere a silent bird?[33 - Mr. Seebohm (Brit. Birds, i. 325) tells us of a quiet little warble, so low as to be scarcely heard at a few yards’ distance; but this I have never yet succeeded in catching.] It is most singular that he should be unattractive in colour also – gray and brown and insignificant; but perhaps in the eyes of his wife even his quiet voice and gray figure may have weight.

This Flycatcher is an excellent study for a young ornithologist. He is easily seen, perching almost always on a leafless bough or railing, whence he may have a clear view, and be able to pick and choose his flies; and he will let you come quite close, without losing his presence of mind. His attitude is so unique, that I can distinguish his tiny form at the whole length of the orchard; he sits quietly, silently, with just a shade of tristesse about him, the tail slightly drooped and still, the head, with longish narrow bill, bent a little downwards, for his prey is almost always below him; suddenly this expectant repose is changed into quick and airy action, the little wings hover here and there so quickly that you cannot follow them, the fly is caught, and he returns with it in his bill to his perch, to await a safe moment for carrying it to its young. All this is done so unobtrusively by a little grayish-brown bird with grayish-white breast, that hundreds of his human neighbours never know of his existence in their gardens. He is wholly unlike his handsomer and livelier namesake, the Pied Flycatcher, in all those outward characteristics which attract the inexperienced eye; but the essential features are alike in both, the long wing, the bill flat at the base, and the gape of the mouth furnished with strong hairs, which act like the backward-bent teeth of the pike in preventing the escape of the prey.

Our village is so placed, that all the birds that nest in our gardens and orchards have easy and immediate access to a variety of feeding-grounds. From my window, as I write, I look over the village allotments, where all kinds of birds can be supplied with what they need, whether they be grain-eating or grub-eating; here come the Rooks, from the rookery close by, and quite unconscious of my presence behind the window, and regardless of the carcases of former comrades which swing on some of the allotments, they turn out the grubs with those featherless white bills which are still as great a mystery as the serrated claw of the Nightjar.