360 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
tall sea-grass (marram)—the same characteristic plants which 
we find growing on the Lincolnshire coast and the warrens of the 
Spurn, but on an infinitely more extended scale. 
Black-headed Gulls are constantly beating to and fro on the 
Elbe, in Dresden, and also Terns, both the Common and Lesser. 
On one occasion I noticed a pair of the latter hovering above a 
pit opposite the new Rifle Barracks. At Pillnitz there is an 
island in the Elbe covered with tall trees and dense brushwood ; 
at one end a bank of coarse gravel and shingle extends some 
distance into the stream, with here and there single willows and 
alder-bushes, and a few coarse plants. About ten pairs of 
Common and two pairs of the Lesser Tern frequented this spot, 
where they were evidently nesting; but I had no opportunity of 
verifying this by visiting the ground, as access is verboten, a very 
common and characteristic word in the Fatherland, to be met 
with at every turn. Just opposite the island the view from the 
road above the steamboat-landing is as fine as any in the 
neighbourhood, commanding the broad sweep of the Elbe through 
an undulating and highly-cultivated and luxuriant country, rich 
in corn and hop-gardens, and vineyards ; the red tiles and white- 
washed walls of scattered villages and farmsteads contrasting 
with the silver-greys and cool greens of the landscape. In the 
middle distance, on a wooded hill more than eight hundred 
feet above the Elbe, stands the imposing fortress of Konigstein; 
beyond this at varying distances the extraordinary geological 
formation of Saxon Switzerland, each hill rising abruptly like 
so many titanic rock castles, with precipitous flanks, high above 
the dark pine-forests stretching away in endless succession into 
Bohemia; to the south are the low rounded hills, the first 
spurs of the Erzgebirge: the faint outline of the higher range 
hardly visible, melting and mingling into the cobalt-blue of the 
furthest horizon. 
The Hirundinide are all numerously represented on the 
Upper Elbe, and I do not recollect ever having seen so many 
Swifts as at Dresden. They career in great troops all day over 
the city, wheeling for hours around the lofty domes and towers 
of the chief buildings, and rush chasing and screaming with wild 
excitement beneath the arches of the old bridge which unites the 
two towns, careless of that ever-changing and ceaseless crowd of 
humanity passing to and fro in a double stream above. I never 
