NOTES FROM SWITZERLAND. 377 



me that it is not a shy bird ; it allowed me to come quite close 

 without getting alarmed. 



July 2. — Meiringen. Certliia familiaris abundant in the 

 apple trees; Marsh Tit and Robin. A little Warbler, very 

 slender, but otherwise looking very like the CliiffchafF, was sing- 

 ing a somewhat tremulous note in the hazel bushes and brush- 

 wood on both sides of the valley ; i.e., near the paths to Hasliberg 

 and Rosenlain. As the note was strange to me, and as it could 

 hardly have been that of our Wood Warbler, I have consulted 

 Bree, and find there figured a bird which closely corresponds, 

 viz., Bonelli's Warbler, Phylloscoptis bonellii, which is said to be 

 common in Switzerland, and to prefer wood-covered hills, alders, 

 hazels, &c., and to have a very monotonous note. I shall hope to 

 examine the bird more closely next summer. 



July 3rd. — Rosenlain. Pair of Yellow Wagtails, with black 

 or dark heads, and therefore probably M. flava, though much 

 yellower in general appearance than those I saw at Stanzstadt. I 

 saw a Missel Thrush on the top of a pine ; also some round holes 

 in an old pine, made (so said the guide) by the Great Black Wood- 

 pecker, Picus martius. 



July 5th. — Grindelwald to Wengern Alp. Heard a Robin 

 sing with two Cuckoo-like prefatory notes, repeating its song many 

 times. A little further on I found a Ring Ouzel singing the same 

 two notes from the top of a pine ; was Robin imitating ? My 

 guide suddenly declai-ed he saw a " Gold-amsel," a rare bird he had 

 only seen two or three times. We left the path and stalked this 

 bird, and I saw at last a bird of the size of a Blackbird, with 

 yellowish tints about it, flying from one bush to another. This 

 was very likely the female of the Golden Oriole, Oriolus galbula, 

 many specimens of which I saw in the Bern Museum afterwards. 

 It must have been the male which caught the guide's shai'p eye, 

 but we could not find it. This was at a height of about 6500 ft. 



July 6th. — Lesser Scheidick. Here I saw a pair of Snow- 

 finches, Montif7-ingilla nivalis, close to the glacier which descends 

 from the Eiger, the only ones I saw this year. I have seen them 

 in flocks on the Gemini Pass, and very beautiful they are as they 

 rise together in the sunshine. I call them Snow Finches, though 

 both Snow Finches and Snow Buntings were in the Bern Museum, 

 and I could not have clearly distinguished the two at the distance 

 I was from this pair of birds ; but Prof. Newton (Yarrell, vol. ii., 



