THE ALPS IN JUNE.
[Illustration: The Alps in June.]
When the University year is over, usually about mid-June,
responsibilities cease almost entirely for a few weeks; and it is
sometimes possible to leave the lowlands of England and their familiar
birds without delay, and to seek new hunting-grounds on the Continent
before the freshness of early summer has faded, and before the world of
tourists has begun to swarm into every picturesque hole and corner of
Europe. An old-standing love for the Alpine region usually draws me
there, sooner or later, wherever I may chance to turn my steps
immediately after leaving England. He who has once seen the mountain
pastures in June will find their spell too strong to be resisted.
At that early time the herdsmen have not yet reached the higher
pastures, and cows and goats have not cropped away the flowers which
scent the pure cool breeze. The birds are undisturbed and trustful, and
still busy with their young. The excellent mountain-inns are
comparatively empty, the Marmots whistle near at hand, and the snow lies
often so deep upon footpaths where a few weeks later even the feeblest
mountaineer would be at home, that a fox, a badger, or even a little
troop of chamois, may occasionally be seen without much climbing. If bad
weather assails us on the heights, which are liable even in June to
sudden snow-storms and bitter cold, we can descend rapidly into the
valleys, to find warmth and a new stratum of bird-life awaiting us. And
if persistent wet or cold drives us for a day or two to one of the
larger towns, Bern, or Zürich, or Geneva, we can spend many pleasant
hours in the museums with which they are provided, studying specimens at
leisure, and verifying or correcting the notes we have made in the
mountains.
It is a singular fact that I do not remember to have ever seen an
Englishman in these museums, nor have I met with one in my mountain
walks who had a special interest in the birds of the Alps. Something is
done in the way of butterfly-hunting; botanists, or at least botanical
tins, are not uncommon. The guide-books have something to say of the
geology and the botany of the mountains, but little or nothing of their
_fauna_. I have searched in vain through all the volumes of the
_Jahrbuch_ of the Swiss Alpine Club for a single article or paragraph on
the birds, and the oracles of the English Alpine Club are no less dumb.
Not that ornithologists are entirely wanting for this tempting region;
Switzerland has many, both amateur and scientific. A journal of Swiss
ornithology is published periodically. Professor Fatio, of Geneva, one
of the most distinguished of European naturalists, has given much time
and pains to the birds of the Alpine world, and published many valuable
papers on the subject, the results of which have been embodied in Mr.
Dresser’s _Birds of Europe_. But what with the all-engrossing passion
for climbing, and the natural indisposition of the young Englishman to
_loiter_ in that exhilarating air, it has come to pass that the
Anglo-Saxon race has for long past invaded and occupied these mountains
for three months in each year, without discovering how remarkable the
region is in the movements and characteristics of its animal life.
I myself have been fortunate in having as a companion an old friend, a
native of the Oberland, who has all his life been attentive to the
plants and animals of his beloved mountains. Johann Anderegg will be
frequently mentioned in this chapter, and I will at once explain who he
is. A peasant of the lower Hasli-thal, in the canton of Bern, born
before the present excellent system of education had penetrated into the
mountains, was not likely to have much chance of developing his native
intelligence; but I have never yet found his equal among the younger
generation of guides, either in variety of knowledge, or in brightness
of mental faculty. He taught himself to read and write, and picked up
knowledge wherever he found a chance. When his term of military service
was over, he took to the congenial life of a guide and “jäger,” in close
fellowship with his first cousin and namesake, the famous Melchior, the
prince of guides. But a long illness, which sent him for many months to
the waters of Leukerbad, incapacitated him for severe climbing, and at
the same time gave him leisure for thinking and observing: Melchior
outstripped him as a guide, and their companionship, always congenial to
both as men possessed of lively minds as well as muscular bodies, has
long been limited to an occasional chat over a pipe in winter-time.
But he remained an ardent hunter, and has always been an excellent shot:
and it was in this capacity, I believe, that he first became useful to
the Professor Fatio whom I mentioned just now. He did much collecting
for him, and in the course of their expeditions together, contrived to
learn a great deal about plants, insects, and birds, most of which he
retains in his old age. There is nothing scientific in his knowledge,
unless it be a smattering of Latin names, which he brings out with great
relish if with some inaccuracy; but it is of a very useful kind, and is
aided by a power of eyesight which is even now astonishing in its
keenness. I first made his acquaintance in 1868, and for several years
he accompanied my brother and myself in glacier-expeditions in all parts
of the Alps; but it has been of late years, since we have been less
inclined for strenuous exertion, that I have found his knowledge of
natural history more especially useful to me. He is now between sixty
and seventy, but on a bracing alp, with a gun on his shoulder, his step
is as firm and his enjoyment as intense, as on the day when he took us
for our first walk on a glacier, eighteen years ago.
The mention of his gun reminds me, that though my old friend’s eyes and
my own field-glasses were of the greatest help to me, I could not always
satisfy myself as to the identity of a species; and two years ago I was
forced to sacrifice the lives of some six or seven individuals. This, it
is worth knowing, is illegal in all parts of Switzerland, and illegal at
all times of the year; and I had to obtain a license from the Cantonal
Government at Bern, kindly procured for me by another old acquaintance,
Herr Immer of Meiringen and the Engstlen-alp, to shoot birds ‘in the
cause of science.’ This delighted Anderegg; but at my earnest request he
suppressed his sporting instincts, or only gave them rein in fruitless
scrambles over rock and snow in search of Ptarmigan and Marmots.
I propose to occupy the latter part of this chapter in taking my readers
a short expedition, in company with Anderegg, in search of Alpine birds;
but let me first say something of the general conditions and
characteristics of bird-life in Switzerland.
And first of the number of species, and abundance of individuals. People
sometimes tell me that they never see any birds in the Alps. An elderly
German, whose bodily exertions were limited, and whose faculties seemed
to turn inwards on himself instead of radiating outwards, could not
understand why I should go to Switzerland to study birds—for he could
see none. And it is indeed true that they do not swarm there, as with
us; in this respect Switzerland is like the rest of the Continent. It is
a curious fact, that though we have only lately begun to preserve our
small birds by law in the breeding-season, they are far more abundant
here than they are in any part of the Continent known to me: and this is
the case even with the little delicate migrants, many of which seem to
have a preference for England in spite of the risk of the sea-crossing.
I remember taking up a position one afternoon by the side of a rushing
stream, dividing beautiful hay-meadows, and edged with dwarf willows;
and during the half-hour I sat there, I neither saw nor heard a single
bird. In such a spot in England there would have been plenty. But this
is an exception: the rule is, that you may read wherever you run, if you
will keep your eyes and ears open, and learn by experience where chiefly
to be on the look-out. Variety is more interesting than numbers; the
birds are more obvious from their comparative rarity; and their voices
are not lost, as is sometimes the case with us, in a general and
unceasing chorus. As regards the number of species in the country, I
have never seen an accurate computation of it. But looking over Mr.
Dresser’s very useful catalogue of the Birds of Europe, I calculate
roughly that it would amount to about three hundred in all; _i.e._ less
by some seventy or eighty than the avi-fauna of the British Islands.
This is, however, a remarkably large number for a country that possesses
no sea-board and very few of those sea-birds which form so large a
contingent in our wonderful British list; and it suggests a few remarks
on the causes which bring some birds to the Alps periodically, and have
tempted others to make them their permanent home.
The greatest attractions for birds, and therefore the chief agents—as
far as our present knowledge reaches—in inducing birds to move from
place to place are food and variety of temperature. Now in the Alps we
find these conditions of bird-life everywhere present, except, of
course, in the very highest levels of snow and ice. The seed-eating
birds find sufficient food in the rich hay, thick and sweet with
flowers, which covers the whole of the Alpine pastures from May to July,
and abundance of corn, flax, and fruit in the valleys: in the steep
pine-woods that usually separate these valleys from the pastures, the
larger seed-eaters enjoy an endless supply of fir-cones. The
insect-eating birds are still more fortunate. Nothing is more striking
in the Alps than the extraordinary abundance in the summer of insects of
all kinds, as we know to our cost in the sun-baked valleys; and on the
mountains it is equally wonderful though less annoying. There it is that
the beetles have their paradise. In loose heaps of stone, often
collected to clear a stony pasture; in the wooden palings used to
separate alp from alp; in the decaying lumber of the pine-forests,
beetles both small and great are absolutely swarming. A clergyman,
pastor of a valley near Meiringen, who collected them, found more than
eight hundred different species in his parish alone. All the birds shot
for me at the Engstlen-alp had been living on a diet of minute beetles
as their principal food. It is indeed wonderful to notice the strange
disproportion between the abundance of food provided and the numbers of
the birds who avail themselves of the repast: there is so much more to
eat than can ever possibly be eaten.
But we must remember that this is the case only during the warm months.
During the greater part of the year the snow is on the ground in the
regions of which I am speaking, and hardly any birds are to be found
there. A great and general migration takes place, either to the valleys
below, or out of the mountain region altogether, southward, or in a very
few cases, northward. Switzerland is, in fact, an admirable centre for
the study of migration; migration, that is, on a large scale, where the
birds leave the country entirely, and also on that limited scale which
we call in England ‘partial’ migration. I believe that the Alps will
some day win the attention of the ornithologists as being one of the
best of all positions as a centre of observation. We will pause for a
moment to glance at it in this light.
We need hardly look at the map to see that the huge mass of the Alps
lies directly in the path of the great yearly migration of birds from
south and east to northern Europe. The question arises at once, does
this immense mountain-range, with its icy peaks and wind-swept passes,
act as an obstacle to the travelling birds, or do they rise to it and
cross it, without going round, into the plains of North Switzerland and
Germany? I confess that I should like to be able to answer this question
with greater certainty; but I believe the right answer, in the rough, to
be as follows. In the first place, a large number of species never
attempt to cross the mountains, but remain in the great basin of the Po,
and in southern France, the whole summer, thus making the avi-fauna of
Lombardy distinct in many points from that of Switzerland. If we look
through the works of Dresser, Gould, or Bree, on European birds, with
the object of learning something on this point, we find that bird after
bird, especially among the tenderer kinds of warblers, gets no further
than North Italy and the southern slopes of the Alps, seldom straggling
into Switzerland proper. On the other hand, some migrating birds, such
as the Black Redstart, the Citril Finch, and some of the hardier
warblers, seem to desire a cool climate to breed in, and doubtless come
across the passes to inhabit the Alpine pastures during the whole of the
summer. How far this is also the case with the vast number of more
delicate birds, such as the various Reed- and Willow-warblers, who live
by the rivers and lakes during the summer, I cannot undertake to say;
and it is a mere guess on my part if I hazard an opinion that many of
these must come into Switzerland by way of France and Austria. Anderegg
sent me word last autumn that he had noticed the Swallows leaving
Meiringen, not southwards over the Grimsel pass towards Italy, but
_westwards_, as if they were seeking to turn the vast mountain barrier.
Yet it is a known fact that on some of the passes birds are watched and
killed in their passage.
But I have still to speak of partial or internal migration in
Switzerland; and this is what, if I am not mistaken, will prove a very
fertile source of ornithological knowledge when thoroughly understood.
As I said before, the agents which chiefly cause birds to move from one
place to another (so far as we know), are food-supply and temperature.
Now we have only to look at a raised map of Switzerland to see at once
how subject the birds must be to such incitements towards change of
place. Any one who has been to Switzerland will have noticed that the
scenery falls into three great divisions—that of the lakes and valleys,
that of the Alpine pastures and forests, and lastly, that of the regions
on the border-line of perpetual snow, running upwards to the higher
snow-fields. The professional mountaineer pays little attention to any
but the last of these; the botanist and ornithologist have, fortunately,
much reason to pause and reap a harvest in the lower levels, which are
incomparably more beautiful. For convenience’ sake I will call the
lowest, No. 1; the second—that of the Alpine pastures, No. 2; and the
highest, No. 3. The distribution of birds in these three regions is
continually changing. No. 3, in the winter, is entirely devoid of life
and food. The Eagles and the great bearded Vultures, now very rare, can
find not even a marmot to prey upon, for they are all asleep in their
burrows. The Snow-finches and the Ptarmigan, which in the summer delight
in the cool air of an altitude of 8000 to 10,000 feet, have descended to
No. 2, or even lower, compelled by want of food and water: and so too
the red-winged Rock-creeper, the Alpine-pipit and others, which may be
seen in summer close to the great glaciers. In the same way the birds
which haunt No. 2 in the summer—I am speaking of those which do not
leave the country altogether—descend in the autumn to No. 1, and there
remain till the following spring: among these are the Ring-ousel and
Blackbird, the Nutcrackers, the Titmice, the Alpine Choughs, the Alpine
Accentor, and others. Then in the spring the reverse process takes
place. As the spring advances up the mountain-slopes, which it gains
slowly, not reaching the highest region of vegetation till June or even
July, the birds follow it. Region No. 1, now peopled by the immigrations
from Africa and the Mediterranean, sends on large numbers of its winter
birds to region No. 2, where, like the cows and the herdsmen who ascend
about the same time, they enjoy cool air and abundance of food in the
well-watered pastures. Meanwhile the Snow-finches, the Ptarmigan, and
the birds of prey, who have been living during the winter in the lower
slopes and woods of region No. 2, retire upwards to breed in the rocks
and snowy crevices of No. 3. We can hardly help believing that with all
these wonderful provisions of nature for their change of scene and
temperature, these partial migrants of Switzerland must lead a life
supremely happy. Man himself and his cattle are partial migrants in the
Alps; and no day is so welcome to the herdsman as that on which the
authorities of his commune fix for the first movement of the cows
upwards. Bitter indeed has been the disappointment of my old guide, now
the happy possessor of two cows, when he has not been able to follow
them in their annual migration to the cooler pastures. He could realize
the feelings of a caged bird, unable to follow its fellows in seeking
the southern lands for which its heart yearns.
Before leaving this subject I should, perhaps, note that these three
regions are not divided from each other by any definite line; and in
respect of their bird-life I need hardly say they slide insensibly into
each other. But I think it will be found that the division is a fair one
for our purposes, and is a useful one to bear in mind in all dealings
with the natural history of the country.
I will now ask my readers to follow me mentally in an expedition which
will bring us into actual contact with many of the birds I have noticed
in Switzerland. We will choose a route which from its great beauty,
comparative quiet, and good inns, has always been a favourite of mine,
and will carry us over parts of all the three regions I have just
described, enabling us to compare their avi-fauna with that of our own
country. Starting from the village of Stanz-stadt, famous in Swiss
history, which stands on that arm of the lake of Lucerne which lies
immediately beneath Mount Pilatus, we will pass up the luxuriant valley
of the Aa, in canton Unter-walden, to Engelberg, where most of the land
and forest is owned by the monks of a great monastery, whose care for
their possessions has doubtless helped to make them a pleasant home for
the birds; then we will mount to the pastures of the Gerstni-alp, in
region No. 2, and so upwards to the Joch-pass, which in early summer is
covered with snow, and introduces us to region No. 3. Descending for an
hour to the Engstlen-alp, loveliest of Swiss pastures, we find ourselves
here, at the excellent inn, again in No. 2, but still within very easy
reach of No. 3; and then we can pass downwards through the Gentelthal,
or along the pastures that look down on it from the north—for there are
three different ways, all of them of the rarest beauty—to the deep
valley of the Aar, or Hasli-thal, where we arrive once more in region
No. 1.
On reaching Stanz-stadt, I always take a turn along the road that here
forms a narrow causeway between two divisions of the lake, and is
bordered on one side for some distance by a broad bed of reeds. Any
ornithologist would see at once that something is in store for him here,
and if I had had time or patience to stay here in the heat, I might
probably have seen more than I did see. The Bittern occasionally visits
these reeds, for the landlord of the inn showed me a very fine specimen
which he himself had shot. They are also the summer residence of those
Warblers which love reeds, and which abound much more on the reedier
lakes of Biel and Neuchâtel. On my last visit to Stanz-stadt, my
companion being in a hurry to get into cooler climes, I had only a
quarter of an hour to spend on this bit of road; but my ear instantly
caught the song of our Reed-warbler, to which I had been listening for
many weeks at Oxford, while learning to distinguish it from that of its
near relation the Sedge-warbler. It was pleasant to hear the familiar
strain the very instant my long journey was over. The Marsh-warbler, the
Aquatic-warbler, and others of their kind, are all to be seen by the
rivers and lakes of our lowest region (No. 1), rarely ascending higher;
and he who has the courage to spend a few days in the baking and biting
valley of the Rhone, for example, will find them all among the desolate
reed- and willow-beds of that, to man, most inhospitable river.
Here also, at Stanz-stadt, and all up the valley to Engelberg, and at
Engelberg itself in abundance, may be seen the White Wagtail of the
continent, which is as comparatively rare in England as our common Pied
Wagtail is abroad. The two forms are very closely allied, our Pied
Wagtail in winter very closely resembling the White bird in its summer
dress. The difficulty of distinguishing the two caused me to pay great
attention to these White Wagtails whenever I saw them. If you see a bird
in summer which has a uniform pearl-gray back, set off sharply against a
black head, the black coming no further down than the nape of the neck,
it is the White Wagtail. You must look at his back chiefly; it is far
the most telling character. The male Pied Wagtail has at this season a
black back, and the female has hers darker and less uniform in colour
than the genuine White bird. I shall have something more to say of
Wagtails in the course of our walk; but let me take this opportunity of
asking the special attention of travellers on the continent to these
most beautiful and puzzling birds, whose varieties of plumage at
different seasons of the year seem almost endless, and whose
classification is still by no means finally settled.
As we travel up the valley to Engelberg, and in the higher portion of it
in which Engelberg stands, a considerable variety of birds may be seen
which are familiar to us as British species. The Whin-chat is nestling
in the meadows, and swaying itself on the tops of the long grasses; our
common English Redstart is seen here and there, but not often, on the
walls and palings; the Creeper runs up the stems of the fruit-trees, and
the Nuthatch has its nest in holes in the maple-trees, which in these
valleys are of great size and beauty. In the woods and undergrowth you
may see the Chiff-chaff, and Willow-wren, and Garden-warbler, and here
and there a Buzzard: the Robin and Blackbird are about, but not nearly
so common as with us, and we are at first surprised at the absence of
Song-thrushes,[21] and the comparative rarity of Sparrows, Skylarks, and
Yellowhammers.
The commonest bird of all in the Engelberg valley, is one which we
seldom see in England, and never in the summer. This is the
Black-redstart, a bird which has a wide summer distribution all over
Europe, and is found in Switzerland at all altitudes, suiting itself to
all temperatures. Wherever there is a chalet under the eaves of which it
can build, there it is to be found as soon as spring has begun to
appear, even though the snow is lying all around. I have found it myself
nesting in chalets before the herdsmen and cows had arrived there, and
at a height of 6000 feet or more, it has woke me at dawn with its song:
yet at the same time it is abounding in the plains of France and
Germany, and nowhere have I seen greater numbers than in the park at
Luxembourg. It is one of the puzzles of ornithology, that in spite of
this, the bird _never_ comes to England in the summer; and that the
stragglers that do visit us always appear as winter visitants; straying
to our foggy shores as if by mistake, when they ought to be on their way
to the sunny south.
The little ‘Röthel,’ as they call him, is a great favourite with the
Swiss peasantry; he is trustful and musical, and will sing sometimes
when you are within a few feet of him. They are sorry to part with him
in autumn, and cannot make out what becomes of him. One of them told me
that twenty-two of these birds were once found in the winter fast asleep
in a cluster, like swarming bees, in the hollow-trunk of a cherry-tree;
how far the story was mythical, I will not venture to say.
The Swallow tribe have been with us all the way along the valley, but
they will follow us no further. Even at Engelberg (3500 feet) they seem
to be a little chilly in the early summer. When I first arrived there,
in cold weather, there was not a Swift to be seen; but one morning when
I woke I heard them screaming, and afterwards I always knew a fine
morning by the sound of their voices. Higher up, when we leave the
highest limits of region No. 1, we shall see neither Swift, Martin, nor
Swallow, and nothing is more striking on the ‘Alps,’ than the sense that
you have left these birds of summer behind you. The highest point at
which I saw a swallow last summer was at the glacier of the Rhone, where
Anderegg pointed me out a single straggler as a curiosity: but later in
the year they are probably bolder. Their place is taken in regions Nos.
2 and 3 by two other species, by no means common, and of great
interest—the Alpine Swift and the Crag-martin. I have not found the
latter in the district of which we are speaking, but he is always to be
seen in a place well-known to most travellers in Switzerland—the steep
descent of the Gemmi, to Leukerbad. As you wind down those tremendous
precipices, you will see a little ghostly bird flitting up and down
them, something after the manner of a bat, and reminding you of our
Sand-martin—this is the Crag-martin, which spends the summer here, and
builds in the crevices of the rocks. In the same place and others of the
kind, you may see the Alpine Swift, whose flight is probably faster than
that of any European bird; a splendid sight it is to watch him wheeling
in the sunshine, borne along on wings that expand to a width of nearly
two feet.
I have already strayed away from the valley to speak of these birds, and
it is time that we should ascend to region No. 2, by the well-known path
to the south of Engelberg. Just at the foot of the hill, where the path
begins to mount, you may hear an unfamiliar note; it is that of the Pied
Flycatcher, a bird not unfrequently seen in England, but welcome under
all circumstances. As we go upwards through the wood, we hear very few
birds: but as we suddenly emerge on a grassy slope between the pines, a
large bird comes sailing high over us, with large brown outstretched
wings, which we may believe is a Golden Eagle, so grave and silent its
flight, so huge its outline against the sky. After half-an-hour’s walk
we come out upon the Alps proper, _i. e._ the flowery pastures which
form the bulk of region No. 2. Here the bird-life begins very sensibly
to change. The Swallows, as I have said, do not venture so high: of the
warblers, the only one left is the Chiff-chaff, which sings its familiar
two notes in the underwood far up on the steep slopes above us. We are
now on the ‘Pfaffenwand,’ a very steep and stony ascent separating the
lower from the higher pastures; and here each year this tiny little bird
seems to choose for his haunt, and perhaps for his nesting-place, the
very highest bit of real cover, consisting only of stunted bushes, that
he can find in all this district. Here, too, we are not unlikely to find
a flock of Alpine Choughs; noisy chattering birds, with yellow beaks,
strong and stout and with a downward curve; their legs are bright red
and their plumage a bright and glossy black. The Cornish Chough
(_Pyrrhocorax graculus_, Linn.), is also found in the Alps, but it is
much less common; it is a larger bird, and its bill, which is long and
red, is very different from the shorter and stouter yellow beak of the
smaller species. The Alpine Chough is the characteristic _corvus_ of the
Alps, as it is also of the Apennines, and its lively chatter, breaking
suddenly on vast and silent solitudes, recalls to memory the familiar
jackdaw we left behind us in the Broad Walk at Oxford, or in the tower
of our old village church.
But as I think of those delicious pastures, nestling under the solemn
precipices, and studded in June with gentians, primulas, anemones, where
each breath of crystal air is laden with the aromatic scent of Alpine
herbage, I seem to hear one favourite song resounding far and near—a
song given high in air, and often by an invisible singer; for so huge is
the mass of mountain around us, that he seldom projects himself against
the sky in his flight, and may well escape the quickest eye. But he is
never many minutes together on the wing, and will soon descend to perch
on some prominent object, the very top twig of a pine, or a bit of rock
amid the Alpine roses—
Those quivering wings composed, that music still.
His nest is not far off, and may sometimes be stumbled on in the grass
and fern. This blithe spirit of the flowery pastures is the Water Pipit
(_Anthus spinoletta_, Linn.), a little gray and brown bird somewhat more
distinctly marked than our English Pipits, having a lightish stripe over
the eye, whitish breast, and black legs; but in other respects much like
his relations, both in habits and in his song, which is a long
succession of clear bell-like notes, slackening somewhat in rapidity and
force as he descends. He has very rarely been found in England, but may
possibly be commoner than we fancy. Should I ever meet with him, he will
surely carry me back in fancy to his true home among the Alps, where in
the common speech of the peasants he is no longer a prosaic Pipit, but
as he may well be called, the Alpine Lark.[22]
Another bird which haunts this region, though not in such numbers, and
whose habits are much like those of the Water Pipit, is the Alpine
Accentor. This belongs to a family (_Accentoridae_) which has only one
other representative in Western Europe—our own familiar little Dunnock
or Hedge-sparrow. In plumage and song the two are not unlike, though the
Alpine bird is rather larger and of a more variegated warm brown
colouring: but I cannot help pausing for one moment to point out the
remarkable instance that we have here of two very closely allied birds
developing habits of life so entirely distinct,—the one being
stationary, the other migratory; the one breeding in the road-side hedge
where it lives all the year, and the other retreating to the highest
limits of the Alpine pastures and making its nest in the holes of the
rocks. In the winter however the Alpine bird descends to the valleys,
and there finds it convenient to associate more closely with man and his
works; in the Hasli-thal it is known as the ‘Bliem-trittel,’ a term
which Anderegg explained to me as meaning that it regales itself on the
seeds of the flowers and grass which escape through the timbers of the
chalet-built hay-barns. Thus it lives on two distinct diets in summer
and winter; for in summer it feeds chiefly on the innumerable small
beetles of the pastures, while in winter it is driven to become a
vegetarian.
As our time is running short, we will now cross the snow-covered Joch, a
pass barely high enough to bring us well into region No. 3, and drop
down on the exquisite Engstlen-alp with its comfortable inn (6000 feet),
whence we can climb to the highest region at any time with ease: this
well-watered and well-timbered Alp being so placed that it stands nearly
at the top of region No. 2, with easy access to No. 3, and affords us
another glimpse at the former before we finally leave it.
As we sit at lunch after our walk, there faces us exactly opposite the
window of the salle-à-manger, at a distance of a few yards, a little
dark-brown hay-chalet; always a picturesque object, whether it stands
out on a clear day against the mighty distant mass of the Wetterhörner,
or looms huge and uncertain in the swirls of a mountain mist. This old
friend of fourteen years’ standing gained a new interest for me on my
last visit. Every now and then a pair of little greenish-yellow birds
would come and twitter on its roof, or pick up seeds and insects from
beneath its raised floor. I took these at first for the Serin-finch, the
well-known favourite cage-bird of the continent, and the near relation
of the Canary and of our English Siskin. I had no wish to shoot such
trustful and beautiful creatures, and therefore remained in ignorance of
their true nature till I returned to England, when I found from
Dresser’s work that they must have been not the Serin but the
Citril-finch. The two are closely allied, but the Serin seems to content
itself with the valleys and plains of region No. 1, while its place is
taken in the mountains by its cousin. Mr. Dresser has an interesting
account of a successful search for it on the highest summit of the Black
Forest. It builds its nest in the pine branches, but may always be
looked out for near chalets or palings at a considerable height, which
it ransacks for food; and an elaborate search for its nest which I made
in the chalet was a wild-goose chase into which I find that more
distinguished ornithologists have been misled before me.
If we now stroll out across this beautiful alp to the lake which bounds
and waters it, we shall find it alive with birds. Besides the Pipits and
the Accentors, there are families of young Ring-ousels and
Missel-thrushes, which have evidently been born and brought up near at
hand; Wheatears, of our English species, are perched on the big stones
that lie about, and in the ancient pines above them you may now and then
see a Crossbill or a Redpoll. In the broad stream that issues from the
lake you will always see the Dipper, and associated with it is the Grey
Wagtail, seemingly the only bird of its kind that affects the higher
Alps; for the White Wagtail seems to stay in the valleys even in the
summer, and to love the larger streams and the farmyard pool; and the
other species which I might have expected to meet, the Blue-headed
Wagtail (_Motacilla flava_, Linn.), did not once offer himself to my
field-glass, nor did his near relative, our common Yellow Wagtail of
spring and summer.
But it is time that we should leave the pastures and make an expedition
into the higher region of rock and snow. There is of course but little
bird-life there, but that little is interesting. The best way is to go
straight up the steep grass-slopes to the north-west of the inn, which
are carpeted in June with millions of fragrant pansies and gentians,
until we arrive, after a climb of some 1500 feet, at a little hollow
filled with snow and limestone boulders, and having on one side a
precipitous wall of rock, and on the other a series of upward-sloping
stretches of snow, interspersed with patches of rock and short grass.
Early in the season, when this desolate region is still quite
undisturbed, you may find occupation if you lie in wait awhile. In my
first walk here, no sooner did I reach this hollow, than a badger got up
about ten yards from me and shuffled away behind some boulders; and
while following up his tracks over the snow, I found them crossing and
recrossing the ‘spur’ of chamois. A little further on, I saw the
Ptarmigan creeping about among the rocks, and very soon I heard the call
of the Snow-finches. These birds, who thus live and breed almost within
the limits of perpetual snow, might be supposed, as Gould says of them,
to ‘dwell in unmolested security.’ I was soon able to judge of the
accuracy of his statement, for as soon as I had caught sight of them
with the field-glass, I saw that something was causing anxiety to the
little family. It was their alarm-call that I had heard; and as I was
cautiously watching them fluttering on or close to the ground, I
suddenly saw a small red fox make a hungry dash upon them, startling me
and causing me for the moment unwittingly to move the glass and lose the
whole scene. When I found them again the fox was gone, the finches were
greatly troubled, and I fear there is no doubt that he secured a dinner.
The Snow-finch is a beautiful bird, rather larger than a Green-finch or
Sparrow, with long wings in which the primary quill-feathers are much
longer than the rest, as in some other birds, of airy and graceful
flight. The strong contrast of jet-black and purest white in the
plumage, _e.g._ in the tail, which has two black feathers in the middle
while the rest are as white as snow, makes the bird conspicuous at a
long distance, and a more striking object than the browner Snow-bunting,
which occasionally strays from the north to the Alps. Seldom have I seen
a more beautiful sight, unless it be a flight of Plover on English
water-meadows, than the wavings and whirlings of a flock of
Snow-finches, with their white feathers glistening in the sun one
moment, while the next their black ones will show clear against the
snow.
One other bird, which loves these great heights in the summer, may
occasionally be seen within a few minutes’ walk of the place where the
Snow-finch fell a victim. This is the red-winged Rock- or Wall-creeper,
a bird so beautiful and so unique that it demands at least a passing
notice. Wherever there is a steep wall or rock which is in shadow during
part at least of the day, this bird may be looked for and occasionally
seen, even in the midst of a snow-field or a glacier;[23] for when the
rock is exposed to the sun, the heat generated is too great either to
allow the bird to work, or the insects it seeks to remain in the
crevices. To those who have not seen it, it may best be described as in
shape almost exactly like our common little Tree-creeper, the only other
European representative of the family, but larger, and instead of its
cousin’s sober brown plumage, presenting such an exquisite contrast of
colour as is hardly to be found even among the fauna of the tropics. Its
head, neck, and back, are soft ash-gray, and when its wings are closed
you would hardly distinguish it from the gray rock to which it clings;
but in an instant, as it begins half to climb and half to flutter from
crevice to crevice, you will see the brilliant crimson of its lesser
quill-feathers standing out, not unlike the underwings of a well-known
moth, against that delicate gray. Its bill is long and slender, but
strange to say, it is without the long tongue, that wonderful
far-darter, with which the wood-peckers are provided; so the insects
which it seeks in the crevices have to be rummaged for with the bill
itself, and conveyed in some mysterious manner to the tongue, which does
not reach much more than half way down it. Perhaps this may partly
account for a statement made to me by Anderegg, and positively insisted
on by him, that the bird loses the end of its bill every autumn,
regaining it in the course of the winter. I am not in a position either
to accept or refute this story. Anderegg declared that he had sent
Professor Fatio specimens in order to prove it; but the Professor, who
has studied the bird carefully, has not, so far as I know, drawn
attention to any such peculiarity. I am inclined to think the truth may
lie in the liability of the bird to wear away or even break the tip of
its bill in the course of its indefatigable efforts to obtain food, and
I have seen a specimen in the Bern Museum whose broken bill may possibly
be a confirmation of this explanation. The peasant mind is apt enough to
elevate an accidental circumstance into a law of nature.
We must now leave region No. 3 altogether, and descend from the
Engstlen-alp westwards towards the Hasli-thal, passing through long
stretches of the pine-forests which so often separate the upper pastures
from the valleys. There are two families of birds to be met with in
these forests, of which I must say a very few words,—the Woodpeckers and
the Titmice. The former are not abundant, and it needs much patience to
find them. I was to have visited a nesting-place of the Great Black
Woodpecker (that awe-inspiring bird, which has borne its name of _Picus
Martius_ ever since it was the prophetic bird of Mars[24]), but fate
decreed that I should have to go that day in an opposite direction. The
three Spotted Woodpeckers—great, middle, and lesser—all occur, but our
familiar green bird, which does not seem at home among the pines, is
less common. Rarest of all is the Three-toed Woodpecker, with yellow
head, which dwells—so Anderegg told me, and I find from the books that
he was right—only among the highest and most solitary pine-woods.
At intervals, as in an English wood, the trees will be astir with
Titmice. The Cole-tit and the Marsh-tit, the Blue-tit and the Great-tit,
are all to be seen here, the last two undistinguishable from the British
form, while the Cole-tit has a bluer back than ours, and the Marsh-tit
in these higher levels differs, according to Professor Fatio, even from
the same bird when found lower down, and approaches rather to the
Scandinavian form. This single fact is enough to show how interesting
would be a persevering study of this particular family. I will not
venture to say whether these slight differences in plumage are enough to
justify a specific separation of the forms. In the case of the
continental Long-tailed Tit, which is decidedly different in colouring
from ours, even amateurs may perhaps see a sufficient reason; but will
prefer to suspend their judgment as to the other two.
There is yet a Titmouse, nearly always to be heard and seen between the
Engstlen-alp and the Gentelthal, which is even more attractive to the
ornithologist than any of its cousins. This is the Crested-tit
(_Lophophancs cristatus_, Linn.), now so rare even in Scotland, and,
according to Anderegg, not too common even in these pine-forests. It
needs a vigilant eye and ear to detect it, so closely does it resemble
its relatives (and especially the Blue species) both in voice and
appearance, until you catch the well-marked crest on the head, and the
additional shade of melancholy in the note. So close indeed are this
bird and the Blue-tit in form, habits, and note, that I am astonished
that the crest by itself (a few feathers raised on the head) should have
been thought a sufficiently strong character to raise it into a separate
genus—_Lophophanes_. If we notice the Blue-tit carefully, we shall find
that he also often elevates his head-feathers into something like a
crest; imagine this a little larger, and the bright colouring of the
Blue-tit sobered into a soft bluish gray, and you will get a very good
idea of the appearance of the male Crested-tit. His lady is brown rather
than gray, causing Anderegg to make one of those mistakes to which the
peasant-naturalist is liable; he assured me that there were two species,
answering to the two prevailing tints.
I never can forget the spot where my old friend’s sharp ear first caught
for me the quiet note of these little birds. If any bird-lover should
chance to walk from Engstlen down to the Hasli-thal, he should stop near
the foot of the first rapid descent among the pines, where the stream
which he has lately crossed tumbles over a ledge of rock into a deep
dark pool. At the very edge of this pool stand a few black pine-trees,
and among the thick branches of these the Tits were playing. Above us
were vast mountain walls, and at our feet was the mossy grass, damp with
the spray of the fall; among the gray boulders the alpine rhododendron
was coming into bloom. At a little distance a robin was singing its
ever-welcome song, mingling its English music with the sound of alpine
cow-bells from the pasture further down the valley. Such scenes linger
for ever in the memory, and are endeared to us by the thought of the
blithe creatures who live and sport among them during a long golden
summer, long after we have returned to the land of misty meadows and
miry ways.
But we must now leave these woods and pastures, and descend to the deep
valley of the Hasli-thal, where we shall end our journey at Meiringen.
If, instead of following the ordinary path, we skirt along the heights
to the north towards Hasliberg, and so keep in cooler air, enjoying
endless views, we shall finally descend by a very steep winding path,
which is the only means of communication between the population of the
valley and that of the higher slopes. In the willows and hazels among
which this path winds, and also on the opposite side of the valley on
the way to Rosenlaui, I have always heard a little warbler whose voice
was quite strange to me. More than once I have done all I could to
obtain a good sight of it; but the restless caprice of these little
birds, who flit rapidly in and out of the bushes while the ornithologist
waits with his head in a burning sun, only to lose sight of the tiny
creature the moment the glass is upon him, defeated my purpose of
finding out his species beyond the possibility of error; and Anderegg
was as unwilling to use his gun so near the village, as I should have
been to sacrifice a joyous life to the spirit of curiosity. But I have
every reason to believe that my little tormentors belonged to a species
with which I shall hope some day to make a closer acquaintance; it bears
the name of the Italian naturalist Bonelli, and is a very near relation
of our friends the Chiff-chaff and Willow-wren (_Phylloscopus
Bonnellii_, Vieill.).[25]
Our walk is now ended, and this chapter is already quite long enough.
Were we to take another, we might see many other species not less
interesting than those we have met with on the way from Stanz-stadt; we
might find Hawks of several species, Nutcrackers in the pine-woods, the
Golden Oriole, the Hoopoe, or the beautiful Blue-breast. But I have
thought it better to be content, for the most part, with the birds I
have actually met with in the walk we have chosen to take, rather than
to furnish a catalogue of all those we might be lucky enough to meet
with if we stayed some weeks in the country. And thus I hope I may have
given my readers some little idea of the impression left by the birds of
a well-known alpine district on the memory of a rather hurried
traveller, who has not been always able to go or to stay as his own
inclination would prompt him.
[Illustration: Bonelli’s Warbler.]