Letters, Extracts from Correspondence, Notices, S^c. 407 



towards Pont St. Louis, and saw a single Wryneck [Yunx tor- 

 quilla) worming its way among the leaves, with its peculiar side- 

 long motion and well-marked brown-striped back. I have 

 never again seen this bird as a winter resident, unless I should 

 allow one example which I observed, last October (25th), to 

 rank as such. Throughout the early spring (1863) the Black 

 Wheatear paid us many visits, being excluded from its wilder 

 haunts by repeated falls of snow. Perhaps we owe to the same 

 cause the passage of a flight of birds of the Crow family, on 

 January 18th. Their general appearance was that of Red-legged 

 Crows {Pyrrhocorax graculus), but they may perhaps have been 

 no other than the Alpine Crows themselves {P. pijrrhocorax). 

 They did not alight, but passed determinedly over our heads in 

 a S.W. direction. During this month I frequently saw the 

 Rock Creeper [Tichodroma phcenicoptera), and on one occasion, 

 (January 20th), when driving through the town of Ventimiglia, 

 perceived one of them climbing most composedly the dirt-crusted 

 walls of a many-storied Italian house. This gay street-bird, 

 dressed in crimson and grey, was but a few yards from a dismal 

 little window, out of which, at any minute, curious eyes might 

 have cast hungry glances on the brilliant visitor. I last saw the 

 Tichodroma on March 14th, 1863, the individual being a fine 

 male bird with his newly acquired jet-black throat. After this 

 date I believe that they leave the coast, and seek their breeding- 

 places among the mountains. Throughout the year I did not 

 see any really early migrants, my notes giving the following : — 

 One female Black Cap, January 23rd; Swallows, April Ist; 

 Redstart [Ruticilla phcenicura) , April 4th ; Cuckoo [Cuculus ca- 

 norus), April 19th ; Swifts [Cypselus o/?m5), April 28th. As for 

 the Hoopoes, I did not notice one till quite the middle of April, 

 though they are in reality the earliest of our visitors, bearing the 

 local name " Le Coq de Mars." As the spring advanced, I saw 

 among the intricacies of the lemon, orange, and olive trees many 

 insect-hunting birds of colours and forms new to me; and, 

 were it not that the mere transitory glimpses obtained form no 

 admissible evidence, I might have been tempted to recount some 

 of the wild-goose chases on which I have so often been led. I 

 shall only, however, venture to represent two occasions on which. 



