182
Rheims, France.
1897
July 14.
  Weather precisely like that of yesterday, clear with a
warm sun and a refreshingly cool breeze. Spent most of the
morning in the Cathedral. In the afternoon visited the
[blank space], a fine old church with especially beautiful
aisles of transitional Norman-Gothic style.
  At evening spent an hour or more watching the birds come
to the Cathedral to roost. There are hundreds of Swifts,
forty or fifty Pigeons (mostly plain blue but some white or of
mixed color) as many Jackdaws and a few Sparrows but no Star-
lings. The Kestrel again appeared and dashed through the
arches.
  There is a beautiful court behind the hotel entirely sur-
rounded by buildings but filled with tall trees with a grass
plot in the middle, flowers and shrubs around the sides, and
a thatched summer house in one corner. I spent several hours
there to-day writing and smoking. House Sparrows were chirp-
ing overhead. They are much less numerous here than in Eng-
land. The female is plainly colored like our American bird
and their note is the same as in America. There was also a
bird which sang almost exactly like our Spinus tristis but
which I could not see. Still another unseen songster was, I
think, the Greenfinch.
  In the afternoon a Redstart alighted on the sidewalk in
front of the Cathedral.