A DAY IN THE ESTEREL HILLS. 253 
Ridgway), and if one climbs up to about four or five thousand 
feet into the mountains behind Nice—I can see their snow- 
capped peaks from where I stand—one finds that this bird 
meets (and is found with) a paler and still greyer form, often so 
broadly streaked and diffused with whitish on the back that 
certain individuals have an almost hoary appearance. This is 
the Certhia coste of the older French writers, but now we are 
told to call it Certhia familiaris macrodactyla. ‘‘ Short-toed ”’ 
and ‘‘ brachydactyla,” be it remarked, are both misleading names, 
for it is the claws, not the toes, that are usually shorter in this 
group. 
Jays are not rare in the Esterels, and as I move homewards 
they advertise my progress with harsh screeches of annoy- 
ance. But not until I get among the umbrella pines that make 
Valescure so beautiful do I meet with the Magpie. Here this 
bird is very numerous, as it also is along the dry pine-covered 
slopes of the Montagnes des Maures. I would not mention this 
fact were the bird not so comparatively rare along the Riviera. 
With a few exceptions, indeed, it is uncommon in most parts of 
the Alpes Maritimes, which is probably the only French de- 
partment of which this can be truthfully said, for, thanks 
to its unpalatable flesh, it is very generally distributed through- 
out the country. 
