PKOM 



THE SOUTH. 



A FEW weeks spent on the coasts of Dalraatia and Istria, and 

 in excursions into the Herzegovina, afforded me opportunities 

 of making occasional ornithological notes ; and as some of 

 these jottings may not be wholly devoid of interest, I have 

 undertaken to arrange them in the form of a list. I fear, 

 however, that the many gaps therein, and the superficial 

 nature of my remarks, will very likely be irritating to the 

 naturalist, but my excuse must be found in the manner in 

 which I travelled and the character of the districts that I 

 visited. 



It is no easy matter to collect notes of this sort from a 

 fast steamer or while driving along the highroad ; and where 

 I had a chance of rambling about on foot, the impenetrability 

 of the thorny evergreen thickets and the seas of jagged 

 slippery stones greatly impeded my progress. The shyness 

 of the birds, too, formed another difficulty, for the little 

 songsters, which in our gardens and woods allow one to 

 approach them quite confidingly, there fly with timorous haste 

 into the thickest hiding-places, a fact that greatly increases 

 the difficulty of making accurate observations, especially of 

 the Warblers. 



