WAYSIDE NOTES IN SWITZERLAND. 48 



lower part of the Lake of Constance. Twenty-five years ago a 

 pair were daily to be seen on the Lake of Lucerne, just below 

 Brunnen, and I recollect disturbing one off the great mass of 

 rock, the Mythenstein, which is now devoted to a monument to 

 Schiller, at the entrance of the Bay of Uri. The specimens in 

 the exhibition of the Swiss Alpine Club were particularly good 

 ones, and well set up. 



I noticed what I believe to have been a female Hen Harrier, 

 Circus cyaneus, hunting in the meadows between Baden and 

 Zurich, although not near enough to distinctly state it was that 

 bird, yet from its mode of quartering its ground, &c., like what 

 I have seen many times in this country, when I have been able 

 to get much nearer the bird, I am pretty certain it was the 

 female of this species. 



Fork-tailed Kite, Milviis ictinns. — Not uncommon. When 

 I was at Schaffhausen one of these birds would come every 

 evening between four and five o'clock sailing and soaring over 

 the river, and remain hovering over one place, always the same, 

 for a minute or two — a kind of farmyard, where, no doubt, he 

 had often picked up his supper. He looked a noble fellow, and 

 as he wheeled round and round, the evening sun would light up 

 his plumage, making him look quite golden. I rather selfishly 

 wished to possess him, knowing, as a salmon-fisher, what power 

 a "glead tail" fly exerts over the migratory monsters of the 

 Lochy and other well-known salmon rivers. I also saw a pair 

 of these birds on the Lake of Zug. 



The Kestrel, Falco tinnunculiis, is everywhere, and the 

 Sparrowhawk, Accipiter nisus, also. One of the last-named 

 birds, a male, used to frequent the banks of the Limmat, close 

 to the Hotel at Baden ; under the terrace which was built on 

 the banks, the Wagtails and Eedstarts collected in considerable 

 numbers to prey upon a species of Ephemera, very like a small 

 mayfly, only grey, filling the air in vast swarms, and I have 

 seen him whisk round the corner of the terrace and carry off 

 a Wagtail with a rapidity quite astonishing. At another time 

 I saw him take away a young Eedstart from the balcony at the 

 corner of the hotel : he appeared to rise up from the river, swoop 

 and carry off his prey before one could wink. On this particular 

 occasion he was baulked of his dinner : as he flew across the 

 river to his dining-place, — a large flat stone, where I have often 



