NOTES AND QUERIES. 351 



last pair were shot on Drwsynant moor, adjoining Sir Walter Wynn's 

 Llannwchllyn moor. Perhaps some of your readers who reside in 

 Merionethshire would kindly furnish instances of Blackgame in the 

 county.— C. E. M. Edwards (Dolserau, Dolgelley). 



Birds in the Rhone Valley. — To ornithologists visiting Switzerland, 

 Rex, in the Rhone Valley, may be recommended as a very good centre for 

 the observation of birds. I was chaplain there in July, 1890, and again 

 in July, 1890 ; and I noted on the latter occasion, and that not in the best 

 month of the year, no fewer than seventy species. What seemed most 

 remarkable to me at Bex was the number of birds about the houses in the 

 town, to be heard and seen without in many cases going outside the doors 

 at all. We sojourned at the Grand Hotel des Bains, and its kind and 

 energetic proprietor, M. Hieb, took a great interest in our quest of birds, 

 and gave us all the information in his power. There is also a museum close 

 to the hotel which boasts of a good collection of local birds, and is under 

 the direction of M. Borel. Around about the hotel grounds, or within 

 earshot, we observed the following birds among others : — Warblers : 

 Blackcap, Garden Warbler, Bonelli's Warbler, Whitethroat, and Chiff- 

 chaff; Common and Black Redstarts, Yellow and Cirl Buntings, Great and 

 Marsh Tits, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Serin, Green Woodpecker, 

 Nuthatch, Spotted Flycatcher, and at night the Tawny Owl. In the 

 "Signal" wood just behind, birds abounded, and one afternoon, as my 

 friend James Fitzgerald and myself were wending our way towards the 

 Belvedere, we heard the cry of the Green Woodpecker, followed imme- 

 diately by a louder and more piercing cry, which I took for that of the 

 Great Black Woodpecker, and in a moment the bird appeared flying 

 towards us ; its body seemed as large as that of a chicken, as with rapid 

 beats of the wing and a loud whirring sound it passed over our heads into 

 the forest. In the marshes near the Rhone the Reed Warbler is abundant, 

 but I could not detect the Sedge Warbler, nor, strange to say, the Willow 

 Warbler, most delightful of birds, but which is, I think, rarer on the 

 Continent than with us, whilst Bonelli's Warbler is met with almost 

 everywhere. In going up the Riffel Alp we noticed, as usual, the number 

 of Nutcrackers there, and the first and only Hedgesparrow we met with 

 this year in Switzerland. On July 22nd we ascended to the Hospice of the 

 Great St. Bernard, 8200 ft., and there the only traces of bird-life we could 

 discover were the Meadow Pipit and Black Redstart, close to the Hospice, 

 while high over head an Eagle was sailing — " Aigle noir " we understood 

 from one of the monks; but as we went down by the lake behind the 

 Hospice, a sweet but invisible songster among the rocks delighted us with 

 a bright and charming song in that desolate place: was not this the Rock 

 Thrush ? The monks assured us that the Snow Finches came only there 

 in winter, and we certainly saw none, though we had expected to find them 



