596 
Mr. L. Griscom on the 
[Ibis, 
with Dr. Chalmers Mitchell crystallized anew this determin¬ 
ation ; and a week’s leave of absence around Christmas of 
1918 gave me the longed-for opportunity. Stopping long- 
enough in Paris to procure Crespon’s hook, I arrived at 
Les Saintes Maries the morning of 29 Dec., and remained 
until the afternoon of 1 Jan., 1919. It was a somewhat 
strenuous vacation, as the number of hours in the field each 
day was exactly the number of hours of daylight with a 
liberal margin at each end for a good start and a return. 
The country within five miles of the village to the north and 
east was thoroughly explored. On 31 Dec., 1 left the 
village shortly after dawn in a two-wheeled wagon with the 
manager of a bull-farm about three miles west of the centre 
of the Etano- de Valcares, where we arrived an hour later. 
He was a local Provencal poet of note, and while my teeth 
rattled in my head, he favoured me with specimens of his 
art, and it did not discourage him at all that I disclaimed any 
knowledge of the language ! At the bull-farm I changed 
ver}^ thankfully to horseback, and we rode to the edge of 
the Etang, where there was a farmer living in a picturesque 
stone manse which his ancestors had built six centuries ago. 
He became my guide to the haunts of the Flamingo and the 
islands at the south end of the jEtang de Valcares. It was a 
great disappointment to miss this famous bird, who^e tem¬ 
porary absence was accounted for by the natives as due to 
the low water caused by a long drought. In every other 
respect, however, the day was one of the most eventful 
ornithologically I have ever had. Hot the least interesting- 
part of the day was the return after dark. The owner of the 
horse assured me that its home was Les Saintes Maries, 
and that it would get there without any assistance from me. 
It did. We started about 8 p.m. without a moon, with not 
even a track or a bridle-path the first two-thirds of the way. 
The only sign of life was a lighthouse twenty-five miles to 
the south-west. The wind sighed over the plains, an occa¬ 
sional flock of Geese honked overhead, or a Lapwing com¬ 
plained at our approach. Even the horse seemed to fee] 
the loneliness, as it would occasionally stop, look round, 
