10 SUMMER VISITORS TO THE NEIGHBOURHOOD. 



there are trees. This is Bonelli's warbler, and it is well to 

 pay especial attention to him, because he is supposed to be 

 extending his range northwards, and may perhaps reach 

 England before long. I myself saw him near Lu^on in 

 France a year and a half ago. When I was hearing him 

 continually near Meiringen more than two years ago, he 

 always seemed to have his shivering song under control, and 

 not to be carried away by it like the wood wren. 



There is one more sight of birds on migration which can 

 always be seen here in the spring, and that is the arrival of 

 the wheatears on the Downs. They do not come to stay, but 

 only rest a few hours on their way to breeding grounds on 

 other hills and moors. Very soon after the chilfchalf has 

 come, if you go up on the Downs in the morning you will see 

 large parties of wheatears — running rapidly over the ground 

 one moment, then flying and showing that white in the tail 

 as they go, then perching on a stone and becoming almost 

 invisible. By means of telegrams one year I discovered that 

 they arrive on Minchinhampton Common (about thirty miles 

 from here in a N.E. direction) before they arrive on the 

 Downs. A few pairs breed at Minchinhampton, and there 

 is a custom there — when it began I do not know — con- 

 nected with the arrival : the owner of the quarries gives his 

 workmen beer on the day on which the wheatears are first 

 seen. Consequently the quarrymen are rather keen in 

 watching for their arrival. 



By the end of April the slopes of the Downs are quite 

 crowded with numbers of visitors, who have come to nest 

 again where they spent the previous summer. And yet they 

 are not received hospitably ; a week's careful work is ruth- 

 lessly destroyed in a moment as a nest is pulled out only to 

 be thrown down beside the path. Any one who is in the 

 habit of watching the birds on the Downs cannot but be 



