44 Summer Studies of Birds and Books chap. 



have been having at the club-hut, for like the Book 

 he is omnivorous, and needs be so to pick up a 

 living in these wilds. He will eat snails, insects, 

 and such small fry, when he has nothing better ; 

 but, like the rest of his race, he is ready to feast on 

 the carcase of some creature that the hunter has 

 wounded and lost, and to fight for his share of it 

 with his sharp yellow bill. It may be that now and 

 then he falls a victim to some bird of prey ; but in 

 a multitude there is safety, and as I have seen him 

 teasing a Kestrel just as the Eooks will do at home, 

 I think it not unlikely that he may be able to 

 defeat the attacks of much more formidable enemies. 

 We shall leave the Choughs behind us as we 

 descend from the snowy heights of the Joch ; we 

 shall leave too the Ptarmigan and the Snow Finches, 

 the two other species which are to be found only 

 where snow is still lying or where it has but just 

 melted. As we descend towards Engelberg we may 

 again hear the Accentor and the Alpine Pipit ; then 

 on the Pfaffenwand the bright voice of the Chiffchaff 

 will be almost sure to tell us that we are nearing 

 the woodland, and a little farther the Tree-pipit will 

 greet our return to his own country, and the ubi- 

 quitous Chaffinch, and many another. We are again 

 in the regions of civilised bird-life ; what we see here 

 we have seen before, and our ten days' work is done. 

 An Alpine Chough down here would be a lost bird : 



