142 Mr. S. B. Wilson's Notes 



fir. He was much delighted, and said that it was " nie in 

 der Schweiz gefunden ; " but a note of Dr. Victor Fatio 

 on this species, under the name of Fringilla borealis, in 

 M. Saratz's " Catalogue of the Birds of the Upper Engadine " 

 (Bull. Soc. orn. Suisse), says : — " It is always the F. borealis 

 which I have met with in other parts of the Alps, nesting 

 up to the edge of the glaciers.^' 



MoNTiFRiNGiLLA NIVALIS. " Nivcrolle," '^ Schncefink.'^ 

 This bird we observed at a greater height than any other 

 Alpine bird, at the foot of the Lammern glacier ( 7600 feet) , 

 and we found it breeding at the summit of the Furka Pass, 

 as well as at the Gemmi, to which places these notes prin- 

 cipally refer. 



The first Snow Finches w^e saw were a pair on June 12th, 

 1885, on the Gemmi Pass; and on the following day, during 

 an ascent of the Torrenthorn, we saw on one of its lower 

 slopes a Snow Finch running about on the snow in company 

 with a pair of Alpine Accentors. Higher still (about 9000 

 feet) we saw this species in small flocks. On the 17th 

 June we ascended the Gemmi, and took up our quarters 

 at a small inn at the very summit of the Pass, intending to 

 do our best to find a nest of the Snow Finch and to observe 

 other Alpine birds. On the 18th we got up at 3.30 a.m., and 

 saw several pairs about the house, one pair being so tame 

 that they took bread thrown to them, just as Sparrows 

 do. We sat down to watch, hoping to track them to their 

 nest ; but they flew over the edge of the Pass and were 

 soon lost sight of. All the ground was covered with snow, 

 and we could not see where it was possible for the birds to 

 have their nest except among the perpendicular crags of the 

 Gemmi which do not hold the snow ; and there it turned out 

 to be. On the 19th June we had gone on overnight to the 

 little town of Schwarenbach ; but we thought we would give 

 the Gemmi another trial : so we started from Schwarenbach 

 at 2.30 a.m. We got back to the Gemmi about 3, the path 

 not being easy to find, as there were only a few stakes here 

 and there to show it, and we often sank into the snow above 



