5268 Birds. 



viced (choked) alive if some o' ye dinna open the dore or the win - 

 nocks" (windows), cried a fourth. "O me ! O me !" squeaked ano- 

 ther, " I'll be stifled wi' seet (soot) if I get na air ; fat will 1 dee ? " (do). 

 Courage, however, at last prevailed, and, the door being got open, 

 relief was speedily administered to the suffocating and affrighted 

 inmates. A light being procured, judge their astonishment when, 

 instead of the Old Boy, they beheld, sitting on the edge of a stool, 

 which had been capsized during the melee, in the middle of the room, 

 the unconscious cause of all their alarm and trouble, in the shape of 

 a little and beauteous bird, a stranger, which none knew, but which 

 proved to be a waxwing ! This happened in January, 1850. 



Thomas Edward. 

 Banff, September, 1856. 



Ornithology of Switzerland. By the Rev. Alfred Charles 



Smith, M.A. 



In common with other readers of the ' Zoologist,' I perused with 

 great pleasure Mr. Bree's notes relating to the Natural History of 

 Switzerland, and I would beg leave to echo all he says of the wonders 

 of the vegetable and insect world in that most magnificent country ; 

 but I am sure that gentleman will excuse me if I ask his permission 

 to add a few facts relating to the Ornithology of Switzerland, and I do 

 not think I shall be accused of presumption in so doing, when I state 

 that I have passed several summers amidst those stupendous moun- 

 tains — have been up and down every carriage-pass save one, and most 

 of the bridle and foot-passes — and, in short, have pretty well explored 

 twenty out of the twenty-two cantons ; and as, in all my rambles, I 

 had a keen eye to birds, some of which I have searched for with my 

 gun, and others I have watched and followed with deep regret that 

 no gun was at hand, and very many of whose stuffed forms I now see 

 around my room in my collection, reminding me of glorious excur- 

 sions 'mid the forests, the glaciers, the wild mountains, and the lovely 

 valleys of that most enchanting country. 



1 think every Englishman who has travelled much on the Con- 

 tinent will have been struck, not only with Mr. Bree, at the scarcity 

 of birds in the Swiss mountains, but also generally through the whole 

 of France, Belgium, Germany and Italy : from the time he leaves 

 England till his return he may drive through the endless corn districts 





