fyO RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



mandible is without a sheath, and its breast is spotted with 

 grease. The tongue appears to be still in the mouth. In a 

 cursory glance through, I noticed an 2.^\AX.HaliaetHs pelagicus ; 

 and a Red-breasted Goose, not the specimen recorded by 

 Vieillot as killed near Strasburgh, of which Kroener makes 

 no mention ("Appergu des oiseaux de I'Alsace et des 

 Vosges ") ; also a separate collection of Alsace birds, contain- 

 ing many rarities of local interest, e.g., four adult (grey- 

 visaged) Honey Buzzards, and an example of the white 

 variety, which is rarer than the white or whitish Common 

 Buzzard, a Hawk Owl, killed in 1842 in the forest of 

 Brumath, and a Tengmalm's Owl. Of this last the editor of 

 the fourth edition of "Yarrell" says, "occasionally occurs 

 on the Vosges." He might have gone further, since, accord- 

 ing to M. Kroener (1. c, p. 5), it is sedentary (though very 

 rare) nesting " dans les hauts vallons de la vallee de 

 Munster," 



I brought away two relics from the house of the taxider- 

 ;mist. Perhaps some will remember an account of the havoc 

 which the bursting shells played among his insects and 

 stuffed birds. One was a piece of a Middle spotted Wood- 

 'pecker, which had originally been stuffed, but having had 

 the misfortune to be hit again, was instantly torn in pieces. 

 The other was a Water Ouzel, which had had a similar hard 

 fate of being shot twice over. 



A venerable pile is the ancient Minster of Strasburg, and 

 very sorry I was to see that on one side its long buttressed 

 nave had suffered a good deal. Though not a mark itself 

 for the Prussian artillerymen, except when used as a look- 

 out, it would appear that some of the houses in its immediate 

 vicinity were selected to suffer. Of one called the Maison 

 Ohlmann, which is but divided from the Cathedral by the 

 breadth of the street, only the bare walls remained. The 

 shoemaker who tenanted it may well have envied his neigh- 

 bours, for the houses on either side of it were untouched. 



