126 Mr. W. E. Clarke, Field-Notes 



Consul-General, through whose influence we hoped to obtain 

 the necessary permit from the Hungarian government to 

 enter the Obedska Bara, which is strictly preserved, and to 

 engage the services of an interpreter to accompany us. In 

 the evening we visited Margaret Island, the charming plea- 

 sure-resort of the Pesthians, situated in the middle of the 

 Danube, about a mile above the city. Although this beau- 

 tiful spot offered a great variety of attractions in the shape of 

 gardens, baths, and military music, we wended our way to the 

 barren shingly spit which forms the northern extremity of the 

 island, and considered ourselves well repaid on finding, after 

 considerable difficulty, a nest and eggs of the Little Ringed 

 Plover. In the wooded portions of the island a pair of 

 Hooded Crows had a nest within a couple of hundred yards 

 of the band-stand ; the Nightingale and Golden Oriole were 

 singing on all sides, and we observed the Goldfinch, Haw- 

 finch, Greenfinch, Tree-Sparrow, Wryneck, Jackdaw, Tawny 

 Owl, and Sparrow-Hawk. 



May 16th. In the morning we visited the Hungarian 

 National Museum, a fine handsome building, which possesses 

 really valuable collections in all departments of science and 

 a large and able staff of curators, at the head of whom was 

 Herr Pulszky Ferencz, a companion of Kossuth in the doings 

 of 1848, and who had spent some years in England as a 

 political refugee. We were received by him with the 

 greatest cordiality, and were introduced to Dr. Madarasz- 

 Gyula, the curator in ornithology, a most courteous and 

 obliging gentleman, with whom we went carefully over the 

 Hungarian collection of birds. The afternoon we spent with 

 Dr. Madarasz in his large well-wooded town garden, where we 

 found birds very numerous^ and observed, among others, the 

 Blackbird, Nightingale, Blackcaj), Barred Warbler, Golden 

 Oriole, Hed-backed Shrike, Collared Flycatcher, Goldfinch, 

 Serin, Greenfinch, Chaffinch, Jackdaw, Hooded Crow, 

 Wryneck, Cuckoo, Kestrel, and Turtle-Dove, all of which were 

 nesting there ; while above soared a pair of Aqiiila heliaca, to 

 us a strange sight to see above a city of 400,000 inhabitants. 



May 17th. Under the guidance of Dr. Madarasz we Adsited 



