isg6 J Hoffmann, Summer Birds of the Rhine. too 



heather. A gold-green lizard slipped into a bush, and climbed it 

 as nimbly as a snake. 



Here and there in a thorn bush, I found a Red-backed Shrike, 

 or his plainer colored mate, and once the Great Gray Shrike slipped 

 to a topmost spray, like our winter visitor. This is a rare bird in 

 Germany, where he is persecuted for his murderous attacks on 

 the smaller birds. From every side came the song of Yellow- 

 hammers. Their lemon yellow heads, brown bodies, and white 

 tail-feathers made them an easy mark for my opera glass. 



The vineyards were the resort of numerous fringilline birds. 

 The vines are planted on a steep succession of sloping banks, 

 separated by stone walls, which keep back the avalanche of loose 

 scaly stones, which threaten to engulf them. Here I found 

 another rare bird, a Bunting, with white stripes on his ashy fore- 

 head ; Linnets, too, with reddish cap ; and Goldfinches, brilliant 

 and restless birds, painted by the Creator, as the Germans tell 

 their children, from the leavings of all the paint pots used during 

 the creation. 



It was with a feeling of surprise, when I had climbed the hillside, 

 that I came on broad fields of grain, men and women reaping and 

 binding, and Larks singing constantly overhead. The ascent was 

 that of a mountain ; the summit was a smiling plain. Here I was 

 never out of the sound of Larks ; scarcely had one shot down into 

 the grain, when another began his skree, skree. I timed one, and 

 found he sang for two and a half minutes. According to the 

 books, however, it is not an unusual thing for one to remain in the 

 air for a quarter of an hour. When I visited the same spot a 

 month later, no Larks were singing, but here and there one flew 

 from the stubble. Wagtails were numerous, particularly after the 

 stubble had been turned over, and, in one field, a Pipit followed 

 me for some distance with signs of distress. Crows, in voice and 

 aspect hardly distinguishable from ours, also frequented these 

 fields. 



Here and there among the fields, or in the hollows between, 

 clusters of trees had been left, and from among these the hoarse 

 scream of the Jay startled me. It was some time before I dis- 

 covered the author. Though so large a bird (he is five inches 

 longer than the. Blue Jay), he conceals himself with all the dex- 



