66 Mr. H. Saunders o?i the 



we hoped to break new ground by crossing the Col de Mar- 

 mare to Quillau, in the almost parallel valley of the Aude. 

 The general opinion being that this was impracticable, we 

 returned to Toulouse, never expecting to see Ax again, but 

 Diis aliter visum. 



Next day we started for Quillan by way of Carcassonne, 

 where we stopped a few hours, and the climb to the pictur- 

 esque cite iu almost tropical heat will long be remem- 

 bered. In the cemetery Nightingales were singing loudly. 

 Serin Finches were uttering their peculiar " frizzling " 

 twitter, and the abundance of large castings at the foot 

 of a cypress indicated the presence of some species of 

 Owl. Ascending the valley of the Aude, where the soil is 

 red, like that of Devon, and quite different from that of the 

 Ariege, we reached the pretty little town of Quillan in a 

 heavy thunderstorm, the swollen clay-coloured river con- 

 firming the e\ddence of the panorama of the Pyrenees on the 

 way from Toulouse, that there had been plenty of recent 

 snow on the French slope. 



Quillan itself is not more than 1000 feet above sea-level, but 

 the scenery beyond it, on both sides of the valley, is very 

 fine ; the rocks being peculiarly rugged in outline and white 

 in colour, studded with dark-green forest in strong contrast. 

 After heavy rain all night, the weather lifted sufficiently to 

 allow us to take a walk in the hills and obtain some idea of 

 the surroundings ; but the Meadow- Bunting and the Crag- 

 Martin were almost the only species which could not have 

 been met with at home, and before noon the rain came down 

 in torrents, with a sharp fall in temperature. Next morning 

 (May 1st) we made an early start in the direction of the 

 Corbieres, a wild spur of mountains branching off the main 

 chain to the north of the valley of the Tet, and consequently 

 to the northward of Perpignan : a region almost unknown, 

 except to a few French alpinistes. It was on its skirts — in 

 the Foret des Fanges and some other localities — that Com- 

 panyo said the Black Grouse was found, and certainly, if 

 anywhere, the Corbieres seemed the most likely, owing to 

 their geographical position at no great distance from the 



