NOTES IN FRANCE AND SWITZERLAND. 57 



grew attached to her also. He often stretched his wings across 

 his feet. He used to lower his neck and hunch his back. The 

 feathers on the neck were the last to expand. The tufts of down 

 on his head lingered until July 7th, when he scratched the last of 

 it off with his foot. He became fond of drinking water. From an 

 early age we had trickled drops down his throat, the weather 

 being so hot. His early efforts to drink were comical, as he could 

 not distinguish between the .water and the rim of the continent 

 glass, and so allowed his little beak to wander in all directions 

 but the right one. He was fed on fresh meat and bread-and- 

 milk, varied as far as possible with cherries, apricots, and other 

 fruit. Unluckily, his voracious, cuckoo-like appetite, drove him 

 into a fatal illness. I wanted to add ants'-eggs to his food, but 

 being on the sick list could procure none. Though I have kept 

 most of the British passeriform birds in confinement, I have 

 never found any which interested me more than this intelligent 

 Oriole. He died on July 12th, having been my constant com- 

 panion for three weeks. Two gentlemen, whom we met after- 

 wards at Montreux, told us that they had repeatedly procured 

 young, well-fledged Orioles from Savoy peasants, but they had 

 never kept them alive, on a fruit diet, more than a few weeks. 

 I should be glad to know, if H. L. Meyer is correct in stating 

 that Oriola galbula moults in February. 



We reached the medical spa of Mont Dore, in Auvergne, on 

 the 24th of June last. Early on the 25th I saw, and heard 

 the call-note of the Meadow Bunting, several of which haunted 

 the left side of the Grand Cascade. On July 14th, a turning of 

 the Clermont road brought me, unnoticed, within a few yards of 

 a male of this species, singing lustily on the top of a bush his 

 sweet, jerky, varied strain. The clear grey head, with its black 

 stripes, contrasted prettily with the breast of reddish cinnamon. 

 I tried unsuccessfully to obtain a nest of Emberiza cia. The 

 peasant boys could bring me none of any kind, whilst the 

 condition of my hands, confined for ten weeks in bandages of 

 carbolic acid, applied for viper bites, made it extremely difficult, if 

 not impossible, to get over rough ground. Half an hour before 

 being bitten by the grey reptile, the movements of a pair of 

 Whitethroats betrayed the whereabouts of their five callow young. 

 Still unclothed July 4th, six days later, their feather tracts were 

 well marked ; at noon, July 7th, they were well feathered and 



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