BIED NOTES BY THE WAY. 3 



I was in the garden by eight o'clock, but could see no fresh 

 birds. In the afternoon, I started to cross the north-west 

 corner of the island by rail, but my way, until it got dark, lay 

 through miles of olive, orange and lemon trees, loaded with 

 fruit, and I saw no birds save a Hawk, probably a Kestrel, in 

 the distance when we touched on the coast of the Gulf of 

 Castellamare. 



I went on board my steamer late at night at Trapani, the 

 strong southerly gale which had sprung up, making the steamer 

 calling at Marsala (where I had hoped to join it) next morning, 

 out of the question. In Trapani we lay weather-bound for 

 twenty-six hours, but as we expected to go out every hour, we 

 could not go ashore, so I had to content myself with watching 

 a little flock of the pretty Slender-billed Gulls, while the rain 

 came down in torrents at intervals, varied with hail stones as 

 big as horse-beans! Some of the mountains were snow- 

 capped. There was only one other saloon passenger on board, 

 and as he, according to his usual custom, had come south to 

 escape the English winter, he made some very hard remarks 

 about the sunny south. t On shore some of the people looked 

 comfortably and appropriately clothed in their sheep-skin 

 trousers. But we had fresh green peas to eat, and as the cook 

 was the best I have ever met on board-ship, we managed to 

 pass the time. The next morning we went to sea, and I bid 

 adieu to Europe for some months. 



In the dazzling noontide of the 16th June, I landed again 

 in Sicily, at Marsala. The only birds seen since daylight 

 having been one or two Lams cachinnans at the little island 

 of Pantellaria. Sicily was fast scorching up. The railway 

 line by which I travelled to Palermo passes through some corn 

 lands, where harvest was in full swing or finished ; and here I 

 saw Calandra, Crested and Short-toed Larks {A. calandra., A. 

 cristata and A. brachydactyla), with the appearance of all 



f I may, perhaps, be excused a passing tribute here to the memory of one 

 of the pleasantest travelling companions I ever came across. Little I thought 

 when we parted in Tunis ten days later, I to go down the Gulf of Gabes, and 

 he to Algeria on his way to Minorca and Spain, that actually while preparing 

 these notes for publication, I should read the announcement of his lamented 

 death in December last. 



