4^ THE ALPS IN JUNE. 



covers the whole of the Alpine pastures from May to Julyv 

 and abundance of com, flax and fruit in the valleys : in the 

 Bteep pine-woods that usually separate these valleys from the 

 pastures, the larger seed-eaters enjoy an endless supply of 

 fir-cones. The insect-eating birds are still more fortunate. 

 Nothing is more striking in the Alps than the extraordinary 

 abundance in the summer of insects of all kinds, as we know 

 to our cost in the sun-baked valleys ; and on the mountains 

 it is equally wonderful though less annoying. There it is 

 that the beetles have their paradise. In loose heaps of 

 stone, often collected to clear a stony pasture ; in the wooden 

 palings used to separate alp from alp ; in the decaying lumber 

 of the pine-forests, beetles both small iaind great are absolutely 

 swarming. A clergyman, pastor of a valley near Meiringen, 

 who collected them, found more than 800 different species in 

 his parish alone. All the birds shot for me at the Engstlen-alp 

 had been living on a diet of minute beetles as their principal 

 food. It is indeed wonderful to notice the strange disproportion 

 between the abundance of food provided and the numbers of 

 the birds who avail themselves of the repast : there is so much 

 more to eat than can ever possibly be eaten. 



But we must remember that this is the case only during the 

 warm months. During the greater part of the year the snow is 

 on the ground in the regions of which I am speaking, and hardly 

 any birds are to be found there. A great and general migration 

 takes place, either to the valleys below, or out of the mountain 

 region altogether, southward, or in a very few cases, northward. 

 Switzerland is, in fact, an admirable centre for the study of 



