160 The Wilson Bulletin — No. 97 



home would discover for us hundreds of birds, whose songs 

 would fill the air. But on this twenty-fifth day of March the 

 bird sights along the Sacred Way were very few : There 

 were several Hooded Crows and some black Crows, whose 

 species were not determined. Two or three times flocks of 

 small birds numbering from ten to twenty individuals were 

 startled into the air. Earlier in the day Gulls, two Hawks and 

 Swallows were seen. Having passed the valley before men- 

 tioned the road climbed a rocky spur of Mount ^galeos, that 

 bore a perennial crop of stones, then descended to cultivated 

 fields and the margin of the Bay of Eleusis, from which a view 

 could be obtained of "sea-born Salamis." But the rocky brow 

 upon which Xerxes perched on a certain fateful day is sup- 

 posed to be on the eastern side of Mount ^galeos. 



The noise from the street : the cries of the venders, and the 

 clatter of hoofs on the pavements, awakening me with their 

 familiar sounds the first morning in Athens, brought home 

 the fact that the Orient had been left behind ; that we were in 

 a new city very similar to American cities, founded a century, 

 or less, ago. For Athens numbered no more than two thou- 

 sand wretchedly-housed inhabitants when Greece was freed 

 from Turkish misrule less than a hundred years ago. Beyond 

 question, since their release from thralldom, the Greeks have 

 made most commendable progress. Of this Athens on all sides 

 offers abundant evidence, over which one could tarry long in 

 pleasureable study. But for me there was a lure in the land 

 of historic Hellas : in the scenes that had smiled or frowned 

 on her ancient worthies. Olympia, Argos, Mycense, Delphi, 

 and Chseronea, all beckoned in vain, since a slender week of 

 time would not permit the visiting of them, but it did suffice 

 for trips to Thebes and Marathon. 



The trip to Marathan by automobile was easily made in an 

 afternoon. As attractions, aside from its battlefield and the 

 famous run made by the messenger, who carried the news of 

 victory to Athens, it offered a view of the countryside in the 

 direction opposite to Eleusis, and seemed favorable for see- 

 ins: the birds. When at last the citv was left behind the course 



