of Western Greece. 385 



daws of Central Europe. All the evidence seems to point to 

 the fact that these ^'Etolian Jackdaws of February are the same 

 birds which breed during spring in Albania (see ' Ibis/ vol. ii. 

 p. 135), and it seems clear that the Albanian Jackdaw of spring 

 and summer is like the form prevalent in Central Europe. 

 Whence then this great change ? On the other hand, those 

 birds which remained in Southern iEtolia to breed, retained 

 during spring (of the summer I cannot speak) the whitish neck 

 and shoulder, as also did all the Jackdaws that came under my 

 notice in Asia Minor and Turkey during the spring of 1860. 

 At Ephesus, amongst other places, there was a large colony 

 breeding in April. During the latter part of the same month, 

 in the very different region and under the very different climate 

 of the Dobrudska, though on pretty nearly the same meridian, 

 C. collaris was found breeding, to the entire exclusion of the 

 Central-European form. These facts would point to its being 

 an Eastern variety ; and if one may hazard a conjecture on such 

 slender evidence, we can suppose the majority of the Jackdaws 

 hybernating in Western Greece to exhibit during a certain por- 

 tion of the year those peculiarities, which, in some of their 

 brethren that remain to breed, and in nearly all — if not all — 

 the Jackdaws further eastward, have already passed into a per- 

 manent variety. It should be mentioned, however, that during 

 the month of May 1859 there was noticed near Cape Papa in 

 Elis a small colony, of which no one bird could be detected as 

 differing from the common C. monedula of the rest of Europe. 



Now that we are on the north side of the gulf, and once more 

 at the foot of xVracynthus, it will be worth while to ascend the 

 mountain a short way, either up the Grand Gorge, or, better 

 still, up the Little Klissoura, to observe a few more of the very 

 singular nests of Sitta syriaca and Hirundo rufula. Scrambling 

 up the dry watercourse at the bottom of the Little Klissoura, 

 we may notice in several places the nests of the former plastered 

 to the face of the cliff. Most of these are old, and probably all 

 but one or two inaccessible without a rope. Where the nest 

 does not include a natural cavity of the rock, it is glued very 

 tightly to the face of the latter, being fully exposed without any 

 attempt at concealment, though very difficult to distinguish 



