1896 j Hoffmann, Summer Birds of the Rhine. -JOC 



These then are the birds which on a summer day in Germany 

 one cannot fail to see. How they are distributed, in what haunts, 

 and in what numbers, how they and their rarer kindred enter into 

 the pictures of Rhine scenery, I shall try to show by the following 

 notes. 



My time on the Rhine was divided between two points on the 

 upper Rhine, Bonn and St. Goar, and a short trip along the 

 sluggish waters of its lower course. 



The first German soil that I trod, after I shook the dirt of 

 Cologne off my shoes, was that of Bonn, where I spent Sunday and 

 Monday, July 14 and 15. I was impatient to get into the fields, 

 and taking a ferry Sunday morning, swung slowly across the 

 stream, towards the opposite bank, where a low range of vineclad 

 hills formed the outposts of the Siebengebirge. The familiar 

 harsh note of the Bank Swallow, the skreeing of Swifts, and the cry 

 of the Martins which I heard here, proved the constant attend- 

 ants of my journey along the river. 



In the fields which lay along the opposite bank, my first Skylark 

 flew to the ground almost at my feet, with a note which suggested 

 that of the Shore Lark. A moment later I heard one singing 

 overhead. The song reminded me in quality of a Bay-wing's 

 {Pooccetes) , but the singer's height and the length of the perform- 

 ance made it fairly inspiring. A slight disappointment which I 

 felt at first, soon wore off and the song grew to have a great charm 

 for me, before the gathered harvests made the singer a silent 

 gleaner among the stubble. In a neighboring furrow, I made 

 another acquaintance, destined to be an almost inseparable com- 

 panion of my travels. This was a White Wagtail, who was 

 picking his way over the upturned soil, walking with dainty steps, 

 and balancing his long tail with a skill born of much practice. 



The chaussee lay white and hot under the fierce sun, so I 

 turned off past a gravel-pit, where Bank Swallows were breeding, 

 to a little hill, the ' Finkenberg ', formed, like the rest of the 

 Rhine banks, of loose shingly stone, and covered with a sparse 

 growth of small oaks. Here my scanty knowledge of European 

 birds soon proved insufficient to identify the small restless crea- 

 tures which eluded observation among the leaves, or to trace 

 to their source the varied notes which issued from the thickets and 



