if you lie quiet, may come quite close to you. He is not so handsome a bird as our Green Woodpecker; the colour he shows you is chiefly gray, with conspicuous yellow above the tail.
But it is time to begin our walk from Meiringen to the Engstlen Alp, and to escape, if we can, from the swarms of horse-flies which have been distracting us in every attempt to hold the glass steadily while looking at a bird; for in a warm June Switzerland has its drawbacks as well as its delights. With these was a larger bee-like fly, the bite of which was no light matter; and in 1893 these two pests were not only in the valleys, but at six and even seven thousand feet were still there to tease us, though in diminished numbers. Fortunately we found many insects on our route of a more friendly disposition. Butterflies showed themselves in marvellous numbers, if not in great variety. Before we began the first steep ascent, the Camberwell Beauty and the two species of Swallowtails, with the larger of the two Apollos, were the most conspicuous; then the Black-veined White (now almost extinct in England, though I used to catch it in Wales some thirty years ago), and the delicate little Wood White; Fritillaries, Arguses, and ringlets were also in abundance.
But the most astonishing of them all, in numbers at least, was the tiny little Bedford Blue (Polyom-
