Small wild birds are scarcely ever seen. I have counted up six sparrows fluttering about or chirping in the trees; but a sparrow, like every other small bird, is in France a _rara avis_. Three broad–shouldered men, dressed in blouses like labourers, go out daily with guns to shoot them. One could almost wish a visitation upon France of the Colorado beetle, or if birds do not feed on it, of some other insect plague, to open the eyes of the French to the impolicy of allowing these small birds to be shot. One of the most pleasing diversions in Mentone is to sit and watch the flock (perhaps now only two or three hundred in number) of sea–gulls which frequent its shores. While you are witnessing the joyful flights of these beautiful birds, suddenly you hear a shot fired, and the whole flight rises and skims away, leaving perhaps a distressed comrade, who has probably had its wing broken by a bullet. It is making frantic attempts to rise or to get out to sea. With right good–will could one pitch into the fellow who had done this wanton, cruel harm. I believe that the consequence of the shooting is that the poor birds find their muster roll greatly reduced, and they may in time disappear or migrate to some safer locality. There is one animal which everybody could more readily wish to disappear, and that is the mosquito. I have previously mentioned that we did not find this plague so great at Mentone as at Cannes and Hyères. This may partly have arisen from our having visited these other places earlier in the winter; but I think a good deal also is due to Mentone being better drained, or at least to the drains not being so offensive. At Cannes we were also more plagued than at Mentone with flies. These little animals are very impudent. They walk over your face and hands, nibbling as they go, and play at hide–and–seek in your hair. They are not to be deterred by the most stringent prohibitions; and while one has no mercy on mosquitoes, you hesitate to inflict the extreme penalty of the law upon a fly—nay, rather help your tormentors out of their scrapes when they tumble into water, milk, treacle, or the like. * * * * *