A NATURALIST'S JOURNAL IN HOLLAND AND BELGIUM. 329 



(the best I ever tasted, with firm sweet flesh), Hare, and Part- 

 ridge. Swallows and Martins were still in some numbers round 

 the church of Hotton, the next village, but we saw little of them 

 after this. Arrived at La Roche, some way up the valley of the 

 Ourthe (about 050 or 700 ft. above the sea), we went for a walk 

 up one of the half-dozen valleys meeting at this place. White 

 Wagtails were pretty common, also Jay?, and we saw the Green 

 Woodpecker and a Buzzard. 



Oct. 9th. Walked by the terraced road leading part of the 

 way through the Bois de la Roche to Samree (550 metres altitude). 

 Soon after leaving La Roche we saw two Black Redstarts, not 

 fully adult. After entering the wood we saw a lovely fresh 

 Comma Butterfly {Grapta c-album). Marsh Tits were the com- 

 monest birds in the forest, and were abundant ; the woods were 

 chiefly beech, with some oak in places. These birds had rather 

 more extensive black caps, and were perhaps a shade greyer on 

 the back than the British form. A wandering party of birds 

 comprised Marsh and Great Tits, Tree Creepers, and Nut- 

 hatches ; we saw too Wrens, Jays, and Chaffinches. Passing 

 out of the woods we came on some open rough grass-land and 

 cultivated patches near the top of the hill, perhaps the highest 

 in the neighbourhood ; there were a few Yellow Buntings. Some 

 rowan trees were covered with berries, and, like others we had 

 seen, were hardly touched by birds as yet. But the Song 

 Thrushes, which fatten on them,* were just arriving, and we saw 

 a little party of them visit the trees to-day. Samree was, at that 

 time at all events, a vast midden, manure-heaps and pools of 

 black water being freely scattered over the place. Accordingly 

 the White Wagtail found the place much to its liking, flying up 

 as we passed from the manure-heaps to settle, as they love to do 

 there, on the grey slate-stone roofs. As we were eating strange 

 fare in a little farmhouse, which was (so a sign-board said) also 

 an auberge, I watched from the window a bird with the yellowish 

 tinge, often seen in autumn in M. Yarrellii, very strongly de- 

 veloped. Never were there such people as these for living with 

 their cows ; they beat the North Dutch, Norwegian, and Swiss 

 people in this, I think. The auberge smelt so much of cows that 

 I strongly suspect they had got them in the back room. There 



* In Brussels, Grives from the Ardennes are esteemed the best. 



