118 M. Beudant's Travels in Hungary, 



Having had occasion to mention the notary, I should ohserve 

 that the word is not to be taken in the sense we use it in 

 France. In the Hungarian villages, they are a sort of mayors, 

 employed to execute orders transmitted by the lords, or directly, 

 by the comitat ; all ought to know Latin, which is the language of 

 office and business throughout Hungary. Their appointment is 

 by the lord to whom the village belongs, but the inhabitants of the 

 place may depose him and demand another, if his conduct should 

 not give satisfaction. Every village has also its judge, but he is 

 subordinate to the notary, and, in a variety of cases, must act by 

 and with his advice and consent. 



The marshy plains of Hungary, in a zoological point of view, 

 must be highly interesting. The number of aquatic and river 

 birds is immense, among which there exists species it would be 

 difficult to find in the plains of Europe, and especially in France. 

 Such, for instance, are the Glareola Austriaca, or ordinary Sea 

 Partridge, the Charadrius Asiaticus, or Solitary Plover, found on 

 the banks of the salt lakes in Southern Tartary, the Tringa Gre- 

 garia, or Social Lapwing, in the plains of the Volga, and a mul- 

 titude of other species well deserving of attention, mingled with 

 other birds more common. Birds of prey, of every kind, are 

 here in immense numbers, some of them weighing from twenty 

 to twenty-five pounds. Mammiferous animals, of diminutive size, 

 which often occasion much damage, are numerous in the plains, 

 and would be interesting as objects of study. And, lastly, in 

 these vast marshes I have found testaceous aquatic molluscae of 

 every species, genus, and particular variety; to the study of which 

 I could have devoted myself with pleasure had time permitted. 

 I had collected several varieties that were afterwards lost, andean 

 only recommend the assemblage to the notice of future travellers. 



Pest and Buda may be said to form but one city, the two parts 

 of which are separated by the Danube. Pest is on the left side of 

 the river, at the end of the Great Plain, and Buda, on the right, 

 at the summit and on the point of some hills of no great height. 

 A bridge of boats maintains a free communication between the 

 two towns, during a great part of the year ; but the rapidity of the 

 river, from heavy floods at times, interrupts the intercourse. Old 

 Buda, which forms a particular precinct, is not properly separated 

 from New Buda, and one might pass from one to the other with- 

 out perceiving a difference, were it not for a sort of barrier such 

 as we meet with between a town and its suburbs. The result of 

 this union is a very long street along the Danube, between it and 

 the hills that border it ; it requires an hour and a half for a 

 pedestrian to proceed from one extremity to the other. 



The present importance of these towns is such that they may 

 well be considered as the capital of Hungary. Their height 

 above the sca x (according to the mean level of ten years' obscrva- 



