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a kind of cup in the hillside, we came on Chaffinches, 

 Stonechats, and ox-eye Tits; and presently across the 

 vine clad hills came the familiar sound of "Cuckoo — 

 Cuckoo." The Stonechats were very fine specimens 

 and beautifully marked, but there was not a sign of 

 any of their cousins the Whinchats. 



Take it all in all, however, the birds round Flor- 

 ence were not numerous. After a short stay here, a 

 move was made to the seaside city of the canal and 

 gondola— Venice. Now we can summarise the birds 

 we came across in the city of Venice very quickly. 

 We saw 07ie Blackbird in the public park, which is 

 situated at one corner of the city, on a kind of penin- 

 sular jutting out to sea — two Sparrows and three Star- 

 lings! A noble list — but let us hurry to the Piazza of 

 St. Mark and buy a packet of maize. In a moment 

 you can be covered with the famous pigeons of St. 

 Mark, perching on your hand, arms and shoulders and 

 head, or wherever else they can get a foothold. Here 

 are many thousands of the birds, and on a fine morn- 

 ing, about eleven o'clock, it is quite a sight to see 

 dozens and dozens of English, German, American, 

 and other tourists, armed with cameras and bags of 

 Indian corn, each surrounded by a trembling, flutter- 

 ing crowd of pigeons. The birds are of course like 

 our own pigeons which live a semi-domesticated exist- 

 ence at S. Paul's and other public places in London. 

 They are joined from time to time by escaped varieties 

 of fancy birds, but, as readers know, the indiscriminate 

 breeding throws them back in a few generations to the 

 original parents of all our fancy breeds, the Cohunba 

 livia or rock pigeon. 



Away to the east, fronting the green Adriatic, and 

 acting like a breakwater to Venice, is the long flat 



