BIRDS ON A SWISS GivAZIER 



At 5 p.m. the guides are already waiting : 

 thick-set fellows picturesque in dress and accoutre- 

 ment, ruck-sacks to carry our provisions on back, 

 ropes coiled about the shoulders, glittering ice- 

 axes in hand. The heat of the day has now 

 spent itself. Slowly our small procession takes 

 its way up the gentle mountain slope. The 

 track is narrow, and from time to time we stand 

 aside to allow the hay-carts, with their long tail- 

 boards resting on the ground and drawn by the 

 slow, mild-eyed oxen, to pass by. 



From the point of view of the naturalist the 

 country is disappointing. Once, in the lower 

 bushes, we catch a glimpse of the quivering tail 

 of a redstart, and now a familiar meadow-pipit 

 sits piping on a rock, which stands starkly in the 

 lush grass. Occasionally, a lizard streaks across 

 some brown patch in the herbage, but for the 

 most part the way is desolate of living thing. 



Stay : little by little the path has grown steeper : 

 now it winds through the gloom of a pine belt. 

 From this wood a strange bird-cry proceeds. 

 We wait and listen. The notes are repeated : 

 a harsh, " crah, crah," somewhat jay-like in tone. 

 Through the wood the path comes to the light 

 again on the edge of a precipice, where, thousands 

 of feet below, the milky hued glacier water dashes 

 through the rocks. A dark bird form flies 

 through the trees, alights on the path far ahead, 

 and may be seen moving amidst the grass and 

 stones, seeking for food as a jackdaw might. It 

 is far away, and refuses to permit a nearer ap- 

 proach, rising at once, and alighting again at a 

 much greater distance. But the glass has 

 already brought it nearly to our feet, and, for the 

 first time, we see the variegated plumes of the nut- 

 cracker in its native haunts. Further in the 

 ascent, the path, partly hewn out of the face of the 



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