on Rock Thrushes at Riva.



215



of the South. Our spirits rose high as we sat sipping coffee in

the lovely wooded garden of Mr. Weizmann’s comfortable

Hotel de Lac, surrounded by the warbling of inuumerabie

Nightingales and Blackcaps, while the cool Ora breeze from the

lake wafted around us the perfume of thousands of pale pink

roses.


We were up betimes next morning, and made our way to

the foot of some high absolutely precipitous cliffs, at the foot of

which were strewn large boulders and shingle ; as we struggled

and scrambled over these we paused to rest, wdien, suddenly

from far above us on the face of the cliff, burst forth the most

exquisitely wild and operatic whistling—it was the Blue Rock

Thrush—far up we saw him flying from ledge to ledge with slow

hovering flight; whilst lower down our delighted eyes discovered

our little pied friend jerking up and down in a very Chat like

manner. After this we saw them everywhere where there were

cliffs, in fours and fives, the blue predominating. We even saw

them pilfering down in the cherry gardens that ranged along the

foot of the rocks ; we could also see where they had their nests, but

could not possibly get at them, so hearing that broods of young

were occasionally brought into the villages round, we spent

many weary hours walking through every higli-way and bye-way

of Riva and Torbole, gazing up at every window and into every

cage until I am sure the people thought we were demented. We

found several nice adult birds by their song, but, as unfortunately

we did not know a word of Italian except “ Passera solitaria”

which we learnt from the Avicultural Magazine ,* we were too

shy to tackle their owners.


At length one day my heart nearly stopped beating, for

there, outside a grocer’s door, hung the object of our search, four

Rock Thrushes, two of which were unmistakably young blues,

and unmistakably a pair ; the owner, a jolly fat man, stood at

the door with his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, and

such a benevolent look on his face that, without counting the

cost, we rushed up to him pointing wildly at the birds and

repeating “ Passera solitaria .” He immediately burst into

voluble Italian and we collapsed and fled!



* Vol. III., p. 101.



