183
Rheims, France.
1897
July 15
  Another fine day a little warner than yesterday with less
wind. To Coucy-le-Chateau with E.R.S. starting at 8.45 A.M.
and getting back at 9 P.M. The country between Rheims and
Laon chiefly open and rolling with fields of grain in attrac-
tive stripes or patches of strongly constrasting colors, the
oats pale glacous, the rye deep russet, some kind of legume a
very deep dark green. The oats and rye are not as tall as
with us but they are much more heavily fruited. In these
fields I saw Larks, two Kestrels, a pair of Red-legged Par-
tridges, forty or fifty Rooks and a few Turtle Doves. Magpies
were numerous wherever there were hedges or clusters of trees
in grain fields. After passing Laon the country became more
broken and varied with very much more woodland. The woods in
places, especially where they were bordered by meadows or pas-
tures, closely resembled those of eastern Massachusetts.
Probably the trees had been all planted but they were not in
rows nor was there the usual association of those of the same
kind, the pines, birches, spruces, larches, beeches, oaks,
chestnuts, lindens, etc. intermingling just as they do in our
own woods. Most of the pines were Scotch or Austrian but I
saw a few vigorous specimens of our P. strobus.
  Throughout this wooded country Magpies were abundant. We
saw them every few minutes singly, in pairs, and in families of