200 The Alps in September. 



Hospenthal, which lies just at the northern mouth 

 of the St. Gotthard Pass proper, in that curious 

 elevated valley mentioned at the beginning of 

 this chapter, which lies just between the two 

 halves of the great trench formed by the valleys 

 of the Rhine and Rhone. Any birds crossing 

 the St. Gotthard into Italy must necessarily pass 

 Hospenthal, and I had heard enough already of 

 migration in this district to make me pretty con- 

 fident of getting information here, even if I were 

 not lucky enough to see anything myself. 



When we issued from the ' Urner-loch ' into 

 this broad and grassy valley, it was just beginning 

 to grow dark ; but we could see great numbers of 

 swallows and martins on the church steeples both 

 of Andermatt and Hospenthal, which are about a 

 mile apart. As I came down the next morning 

 at 7 a.m., I was met by Anderegg, who informed 

 me that the gathering on the Hospenthal steeple 

 had left their station in a body at 6 a.m., had 

 circled high into the air for a few minutes, and 

 then taken a directly southward course, not by 

 the St. Gotthard road, but over the shoulder of 

 the mountain which separates that road from a 



