48 THE ALPS IN JUNB. 



thing on this point, we find that bird after bird, especially 

 among the tenderer kinds of warblers, gets no further than 

 North Italy and the southern slopes of the Alps, seldom straggling 

 into Switzerland ptoper. On the other hand, some migrating 

 birds, such as the Black Eedstart, the Citril Pinch, and some 

 of the hardier warblers, seem to desire a cool climate to 

 breed in, and doubtless come across the passes to inhabit the 

 alpine pastures during the whole of the summer. How far 

 this is also the case with the vast number of more delicate birds, 

 such as the various Eeed- and Willow- warbjers, and Swallow tribe 

 who live by the rivers and lakes during the summer, I cannot 

 undertake to say ; and it is a mere guess on my part if I hazard 

 an'opinion that many of these must come into Switzerland by 

 way of France and Austria. Anderegg sent me word last autumn 

 that he had noticed the Swallows leaving Meiringen, not south- 

 wards over the Grimsel pass towards Italy, but westwards, as if 

 they were seeking to turn the vast mountain barrier. Yet it 

 is a known fact that on some of the passes birds are watched 

 and killed in their passage. Unfortunately I have never 

 yet been able to make a sojourn in the Alps at the time of 

 migration, and so to make personal observations on this in- 

 teresting point. 



A comparatively small number of birds come from the North to 

 the Alps, and there spend the summer, and breed. One remark- 

 able instance of this came under my observation last summer. 

 Bird-lovers know well that our lesser British EedpoU {Linota 

 rufescena, Viell.) has a very peculiar distribution ; ' Its area 

 during the breeding-season,' says Prof. Newton, ' appears to be 



