90 The Alps in June. 



are within a few feet of him. They are sorry to 

 part with him in autumn, and cannot make out 

 what becomes of him. One of them told me that 

 twenty-two of these birds were once found in the 

 winter fast asleep in a cluster, like swarming bees, 

 in the hollow-trunk of a cherry-tree ; how far the 

 story was mythical, I will not venture to say. 



The Swallow tribe have been with us all the 

 way along the valley, but they will follow us no 

 further. Even at Engelberg (3500 feet) they 

 seem to be a little chilly in the early summer. 

 When I first arrived there, in cold weather, there 

 was not a Swift to be seen ; but one morning 

 when I woke I heard them screaming, and after- 

 wards I always knew a fine morning by the sound 

 of their voices. Higher up, when we leave the 

 highest limits of region No. i, we shall see neither 

 Swift, Martin, nor Swallow, and nothing is more 

 striking on the 'Alps,' than the sense that you 

 have left these birds of summer behind you. 

 The highest point at which I saw a swallow last 

 summer was at the glacier of the Rhone, where 

 Anderegg pointed me out a single straggler as a 

 curiosity : but later in the year they are probably 



