82 
NATURE STUDY. 
all the evening. Later, they were driven away by the supersti¬ 
tious sailors, who regard them as harbingers of bad weather. 
As we passed the lovely Azores, unfamiliar birds appeared, 
and others met us at the Straits of Gibraltar. Off the southern 
coast of Sardinia we were visited by numerous flocks of birds, 
many of whom alighted in the rigging. They were about the 
size of our bluebird, yellow, with brownish markings, and their 
bills were long and slender. In flight and song they somewhat 
resembled the goldfinch. In the absence of available sources of 
information we were unable for the most part to identify the 
oceanic birds. 
While the approach to Europe by the southern route is by 
far the more enjoyable one it has the disadvantage, to the bird 
lover, of presenting the fewest objects of interest at the outset. 
On landing at Naples and in journeying through Italy the 
ornithological fact which most impressed us was the extreme 
scarcity of birds. What has become of them all ? Surely, in 
leafy June one would expect to find them in abundance. There 
were, to be sure, plenty of sparrows (Passer italiae), slightly 
differing from our common house sparrows, and a few birds of 
the genus Corvus occasionally enlivened the fields along the 
railway. 
The first interesting land birds we were able to identify were 
at Rome, and at the Colosseum, of all places in the world. 
There were the Jackdaws (Corvus monedula), small cousins 
of the crow, noisy and familiar birds, flying in and out of their 
hiding places in the walls of the old Roman theatre. In size 
and appearance they resemble our Crackle, and they are said 
to be very useful as destroyers of injurious insects. We fre¬ 
quently observed them following sheep and cattle in the fields, 
after the manner of our Cow-birds. Their favorite diversion, 
and one which greatly entertained us, was to alight on the backs 
of the sheep and relieve them of certain insect pests, a bit of 
entomological research to which the sheep submitted not only 
without protest but with evident satisfaction. 
Our first impression regarding the scarcity of birds in the 
Italian peninsula was confirmed as we journeyed on through 
