8 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



the song varies. The alarm note, " pee-ip, pee-ip," is very soft 

 and low. We found a nest by watching the old birds. It was on 

 the steep sloping ground, at the foot of a hazel-stump^ and was 

 formed on the outside of dead leaves of the beech and oak, very 

 much decayed and broken, and fine dead grass, and was lined 

 with finer grass, fibrous roots, and a few black cow-hairs. It con- 

 tained four young, a few days old at most, the down on which was 

 slate-coloured (no yellow tinge), and inside of mouth bright yellow. 

 In general appearance Bonelli's Warbler is a brownish grey bird, 

 dusky (not white) underneath — a tinge of yellow perhaps on the 

 flanks. They are very restless birds : the cock of the pair to 

 which the nest belonged sang with food in his mouth. I have known 

 the Willow Wren do this. This was the common Phylloscopus 

 in the localities we visited, but it does not, I believe, go so high 

 as the Chiffchaff. Bonelli's Warbler was observed on the wooded 

 slope on the Eeichenbach side of Meiringen ; on the slopes on 

 the opposite side, in deciduous trees, to about 3300 ft., in the 

 woods between Briinig and Alpbach ; not in the woods down the 

 slopes from Engelberg to the level valley, but this was early in 

 the afternoon, and all birds seemed very silent; in orchards near 

 the woods at the side of the valley at Stansstad. I did not see or 

 hear a Willow Wren in Switzerland, but they were almost silent 

 when we left England. Mr. Fowler has observed it at Meiringen. 



Acrocephalus steperus, Keed Warbler. — One in the hotel 

 garden at Stansstad came and sang its characteristic " churra 

 churra churra" as we sat under the cropped chestnuts. It was 

 perhaps breeding somewhere among the lilacs and other shrubs. 

 We had in the morning been observing and listening to the song 

 of the Marsh Warbler : the many points of difference between the 

 two birds is very striking. 



A. palustris, Marsh Warbler. — The Marsh Warbler seems to 

 be the common "river warbler" here. Between the lakes of 

 Thun and Brienz lies a fine stretch of ground (the Bodeli), rather 

 marshy in places, in others drained by ditches. In June it was 

 covered by short hay-grass, gay with beautiful flowers, sainfoin, 

 yellow rattle, bird's-foot trefoil, viper's-bugloss, the deep violet 

 spikes of a plant of the dead-nettle tribe, so common in Swiss 

 hay-pastures, and fine spikes of Orchis incamata, varying from 

 deep purple to rose-pink. Here and there patches of reeds, 

 meadow-sweet, and low alders; narrow, wet ditches grown up 



