176 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
mountains of Savoy, the Jura, and the Vosges. Whether those 
that breed in the Central Alps also come this way I cannot say. 
At Bordighera, in 1895, they were travelling eastwards along the 
coast on April 19th. This year, on the 8th, another party passed 
over us at Avignon. While almost all the smaller migrants 
seemed to be behind their time this year, the Swallows and Alpine 
Swifts were able to disregard the Mistral, which was not only 
strong but sometimes extremely cold. At Orange I saw no other 
migrants, and our zoological experience was limited to a dish of 
Roman Snails (Helix pomatia), very appropriately offered us for 
lunch in this ancient Roman town. Luckily they were not *he 
only item on the menu. 
The 5th and 6th were extremely cold, with very strong wind, 
and I searched in vain for anything fresh. On the 7th I found 
a Willow-Wren at last in the island, and on the 8th I came on 
one or two more; these were quite silent, and it was not till the 
10th that I heard the familiar song, only once or twice repeated. 
The silence of all the birds was most striking to an Englishman ; 
the Blackcap alone seemed quite at home and comfortable. I 
did not meet with the Chiffchaff until the 18th, when we had 
moved to Lausanne. The Nightingales began to arrive this week, 
the first appearing on the 4th, but all they did in the way of song 
was to break out now and again with a few harsh loud notes, as 
if the Mistral disagreed with their vocal organs. In 1895, ona 
hot day (the 11th), they were settling down to sing at leisure. 
The Garden-Warbler was here on the 10th, and in song, and on 
the 8th in 1895. An Acrocephalus of some kind seemed to be 
lurking in an osier-bed on the 8th, but slipped away silently 
before I could identify it. 
For the Yellow Wagtails I was a little too early, though J 
saw one with a very dark head by the Lake of Geneva on the 
18th. The various forms of this species seem to cross the 
Mediterranean for Central Europe in the second and third weeks 
of April; at Gibraltar, as Colonel Irby tells us, their passage 
begins earlier, and lasts from Feb. 20th to April 20th. At 
Avignon, in 1895, they did not appear till the 12th, when 
M. flava was in considerable numbers in the island; at Aigues 
Mortes, near the mouths of the Rhone, I had seen M. cinerei- 
capilla two days earlier, and at Bordighera on the 14th they 
