150 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



and some late apples in bloom, and the flowery meadows more 

 sweet with the scent of clover than any I had ever noticed else- 

 where. Winding valleys leading from the main one penetrate 

 the high-lying land, their sides thickly clothed with woods of 

 oak, elm, ash, and hazel, with alder in the bottoms by the 

 streams, and varied by birch, rowan, beam, and the lines of 

 spruce firs where the roads cut through the woods. The wild 

 and winding valley of the Lesse, with its rapid river now flowing 

 under spreading branches at the foot of wooded slopes, dashing 

 over boulders or washing the base of some cliff, like that on 

 which the Chateau Walzin is perched; now passing more peace- 

 fully through little meadows where the high ground falls back 

 and leaves space for farms and orchards of apple, walnut, and 

 cherry, is not easy to get about in ; like all the wooded valleys 

 and scrub-clothed heights, it abounds in Nightingales. I went 

 to Houyet in order to walk through the Royal Forest of Ardenne 

 (now, I believe, turned into a game preserve for the inhabitants 

 of the hotel, once a royal palace) by the glorious road which 

 winds with bold sweeps to the high ground at Sanzinne (about 

 260 metres). The forest is of oak, birch, hazel, some beech, a 

 kind of elm, ash, and some patches of spruce. Very fine spruces 

 line the road; the undergrowth is very thick, and there is a fair 

 number of large trees. The forest clothes the sides of a valley 

 rising rather steeply from a tiny stream. Where the stream 

 widens out into ornamental water near Houyet, swarms of 

 Edible Frogs (Rana esculenta) were holding high carnival ; and 

 on the stony banks of the road, as elsewhere, Lizards were not 

 uncommon on the side which caught the sun. I caught one in 

 another part of Belgium, which appeared to be a brown form of 

 Lacerta muralis. It escaped in my garden here ; and I turned 

 up another (the green form), bought in London, to keep it 

 company. 



Some of the birds which I did not see in the district are worth 

 remarking upon ; for although I may have overlooked some of 

 them, others are, from their habits in early June, so conspicuous, 

 that I do not think I could have failed to detect them had they 

 been present, or present in any but very small numbers. I failed 

 to see the Missel-Thrush, Redstart, Lesser Whitethroat, Long- 

 tailed Tit, Nuthatch, Spotted Flycatcher, Pied Flycatcher, Gold- 



