34 Summer Studies of Birds and Books CHAP. 



twigs, with food for their young in their bills, uttering 

 their metallic alarm -notes, and watching us sus- 

 piciously ; we found one nest in a stunted bush below, 

 with young just ready to fly. 1 Eedpolls also build 

 in these pines, and are at this time dancing about in 

 families from tree to tree, twittering merrily. All 

 that I have seen of recent years have been of the 

 " mealy " form, as it is called ; they were somewhat 

 larger than our English Lesser Eedpoll, and some of 

 them had heads and breasts of the most brilliant 

 carmine. But I still hold that a specimen which 

 Anderegg shot here in 1885 was a genuine bird of 

 the smaller race ; it was extremely small, and very 

 dark in hue. 



On the top of these same trees the Alpine Pipit 

 loves to perch, and thence to soar into the air and 

 sing. It is generally the first bird we hear on our 

 arrival, and very welcome the song always is ; for it 

 tells you at once that you are on the real " alps," in 

 pure, cool air, within reach of snow. You rarely or 

 never hear him until you have mounted above all 

 dense woods and heavy grass, into the shortest and 

 sweetest of herbage, in which he loves to place his 

 nest. When last year we were scrambling at some 

 height above the alp, my friend Mr. Playne came 



1 The Ring-ousels here, as Mr. Aplin pointed out to me, are of 

 the alpine race, with something more of white on the wing than 

 the common form. See Mr. H. Saunders' Manual of British Birds, 

 P. 16, and Mr. Seebohm in Ibis, vol. vi. 309, 



