58 



Rock Thrushes 



presently reach the groves of chestnut, to which you 

 are grateful for shade and coolness ; but which must be 

 left behind before you reach the summit of Monte 

 Generoso, clothed in brushwood and trees of more 

 stunted growth. But here amongst the ravines, where 

 great boulders have tumbled down, and are heaped in 

 artistic tumult one on the other, where troops of 

 crimson pceonies bedeck the steeps of rock, tiny 

 streams gushing amongst them on their way to the 

 lake below, is a summer home of the rock thrushes, 

 which live, as a rule, at a somewhat lower level in the 

 mountains to that of the blue thrush. You may catch 

 an echo of his song, a song not so far-reaching perhaps 

 as that of his blue cousin ; but melodious and wild, 

 entirely fitted to his surroundings, as is always the case 

 in Nature's economy. Flitting from stone to stone 

 (the Germans call it the steinmerle), his white-patched 

 back showing conspicuously as he flies, you will see 

 him until he settles ; when he suddenly vanishes, 

 environed by rust-stained rocks with dark shadows and 

 whitened lights, to which his plumage bears so strong 

 a resemblance when at liberty amongst them. 



His mate is still more difficult to distinguish, for 

 her feathers, except for the rufous tail, are for the most 

 part of an unconspicuous speckled brown, lacking the 

 blue head, the chestnut breast, and the white back of 

 the male. Here again Nature's Creator has decreed 

 things well in His eternal wisdom, for if the 

 brilliancy of male birds in many species was shared by 

 the female alike, how could she conceal herself and 

 her eggs from view ? 



