ii To the Engstlen Alp once more 25 



of speech, than for those which change their 

 residence with the seasons. They are in a certain 

 sense isolated species, and, like some of the birds 

 which never leave our island, they may take 

 up peculiarities of their own, in voice as well as 

 colour. 



Just above the garden, on the wooded slopes 

 which shelter it from the north, we heard another 

 voice, which was familiar enough to me, though at 

 the first moment on that occasion I misinterpreted 

 it. It was seven years since I had first heard this 

 song if song it may be called a quick sibilant 

 trill, which I may describe to those who know 

 the songs of birds as half-way between the song 

 of the Wood -wren and that of the Lesser White- 

 throat. When it first attracted me on the wooded 

 hills above Meiringen, it seemed to be uttered in 

 varying tones, now here, now there, and sometimes 

 close to me ; but the singer would not show himself. 

 Three years later I came to this same place again, 

 and again heard the bird, and many others of his 

 kind, and confirmed my earlier conjectures. He 

 was Bonelli's Warbler (Phylloscopvs Bonelli), a near 

 relation of our Chiffchaff, Willow-wren, and Wood- 

 wren. He is a Wood - wren, with little of the 

 Wood -wren's yellow tints; a Willow -wren, with 

 a purer white breast and longer wings ; a Chiffchaff, 

 with lighter coloured legs, and a rather longer body 



