6 o



About a week before, standing near the top of the Brevent, at

Chamonix (nearly 8,000 feet high), we saw, up in the sky, at a great height,

apparently considerably above the summit of Mont Blanc—which would

mean an elevation of over 3 miles—a flock of birds, which at that distance

looked like a lot of Black Crows. Whilst watching them in a motionless

mass, they began to drop, one by one, as by gravity, with such rapidity as

to suggest being dashed to pieces on the rocks below, but when quite near

the latter they used their wings to skim off horizontally, and settled for the

night on the rocks, perhaps 100 or 200 feet below the actual summit of the

Brevent, thus roosting nearly 8,000 feet above the sea level. They must

have dropped 7,000 or 8,000 feet without a flap of the wing (/).


Whilst ascending the Brevent in the morning, we had heard a short

plaintive whistle repeated frequently, which I certainly mistook for the

well-known cry of the Marmot. A week after, wandering alone on a very

elevated mountain-path, high above the south side of the Rhone valley, I

heard the same cry, accompanied by a rustling amongst the bushes, and,

directly afterwards, saw one of these Crow-like birds darting from one low

bush to another as I went along, though I only caught sight of it in its

flight. At close quarters it seemed a brown colour, and not nearly so large

as a Crow — more like a Starling or Blackbird for size.


This is very vague information, but some practised ornithologist

might possibly recognise the birds by the locality, etc. A. A. Pearson.


NOTES ON WEST AFRICAN BIRDS.


Sir,—A short time ago I received a letter from one of our members—■

Lieut. B. Horsbrugh, of the Arnij^ Service Corps stationed at Sierra Leone,—-

containing some notes which will doubtless interest our readers He says :

“ The commonest bird in Cape Coast is a large Yellow Weaver, the Rufous¬

necked, I believe; there is a tree which is a regular sight (it is near my

quarters) a huge silk-cotton, and cannot contain less than eight or ten

thousand nests ; the birds are coming and going in swarms all day, and the

noise is deafening: the males are very quarrelsome and have a habit of

coming to an acacia here, biting the soft green leaves off and flying to

their nests with them. I see them frequently hang upside down at the

mouth of the nest, flapping their wings while the}’ arrange the inside of it.

Some I have caged are fairly tame, and I will try to bring them home: if

you care for a pair I will send them to you on arrival.


“ In the same tree there is another smaller Weaver, with a black face

and yellow breast and head ; there are not many of them, and I have not

seen enough of them to describe them more fully.


“Another common bird here is the Gre}Mieaded Sparrow (P. diffustts)

which I recognized from your description in the Avicultural Magazine : I

have had several caged, but they are very handy at dying unnecessarily.


“ There is a small Waxbill with red rump, cheeks and bill, very

common here, and another little bird about the same size, with a reddish

breast, evidently a Waxbill.


“ Plenty of the small Whydali with long tail and red beak are to be

seen in the grassy parts near here—they seem to delight in hunting the

Waxbills whenever they see them.


“ I took three Grey Parrots out of a hole in a tree, and have reared

them up to date.” A. G. BuTEER.



(/) Probably Alpine Choughs (Pj rrhocorax alpinus).— D. S.-S.



