178
Hotel de TíÈte d'Or. Dinant, Belgium.
1897
July 12.
(No. 2.)
the cliff at least 500 feet above the town and crowned with an
old fortress. Back from the cliff as far as the eye could
reach to the eastward stretched a rolling plain covered with
fields of rye, oats and other grain with one or two other houses and 
farm buildings in the distance.
  As we climbed this path late in the afternoon Swallows,
Martins and swifts dashed over and around us continually but
none of the smaller birds were seen or heard, probably because
of the heat for the face of the cliff was shut off from the
breeze and the sun's rays shone full upon it. But when we
reached the top we found the fields of ripening grain alive
with birds, chiefly Skylarks which were rising and singing in 
every direction far and near. Either I failed to appreciate
the song of the Skylark when I first heard it in England in
1891 or these Dinant birds have finer voices than their Brit-
ish cousins. At least as I listened to the former this after-
noon I became quickly convinced that in brilliancy and finish
of execution and richness, purity and tenderness of tone their
songs far exceeded anything that I had hitherto heard either
in England or America. It is true that they lacked the calm
serenity - the almost divine spirituality for which the songs
of some of our American birds, such as the Hermit Thrush and
Bachman's Finch, are deservedly famous.