138 Mr. S. B. Wilson's Notes 



from the Joch Pass we observed a pair of Pipits Lopping 

 about a rough stony piece of ground^ clearly most anxious 

 about nest or young; but although we searched long, we 

 could find neither. The next day, on returning to the same 

 place, we only saw one bird, which I shot, despairing of finding 

 the nest ; it was very much spotted and greatly resembled 

 the Tree Pipit, but I have since made it out to be a bird of 

 the year of A. spipoletta. The same day we shot an adult 

 male, with its plumage a good deal worn ; however, the 

 reddish colour of the breast and neck and the whitish of the 

 belly, together with the prevailing grey-brown of the upper 

 plumage, make it not at all an ugly little bird. My friend Mr. 

 John Hancock, to whom I gave the specimen, has stuffed it 

 most beautifully, and it is now in the Newcastle Museum. 

 In winter the breast is white, with greyish-brown spots. 



On the 10th June, 1886, Anderegg found, on the Engstlen 

 Alj}, a nest placed on the ground under the shelter of a large 

 stone, with five eggs. He saw the old birds near the nest, 

 but did not shoot them. I subsequently found a nest myself 

 when walking over the Furka Pass alone, in a snowstorm, on 

 July 17th. The bird flew off this nest, which was placed 

 only two or three yards from the main road, in a depression 

 in the ground overhung by a large rock, and contained five 

 young, just hatched ; I took one of them in my hand, the 

 old bird perching on a stone near all the time. The nest is 

 loosely composed of dry grass-bents and stems, resembling 

 very much a nest of the Common Whitethroat, lined inside 

 with a few hairs and feathers. 



CoTiLE RUPESTRis. " Hiroudelle des rochers,-"^ " Felsen- 

 schwalbe.'" 



I saw the Crag Swallow flying about the perpendicular crags 

 of the Gemmi in June 1885, but observed it more particularly 

 and found it breeding on the 1st of June, 1886, near Mei- 

 ringen. The two nests I saw were placed against the face of 

 an almost perpendicular crag, about thirty yards from the 

 ground, and I could see the head of the old bird projecting, 

 as it sat on the nest ; but, alas ! both nests were quite iuac- 



