Summer 0isitars 

 to tijc Hci0ljIj0iirlj0otr nf §ristal 



By H. C. PLAYNE, M.A. Oxon. 



r I iHE paper which I am going to read to-nighfc is, I am 

 -*- afraid, not very scientific, but only some rather ram- 

 bling words about a few of the small birds which come to 

 this neighbourhood to spend the summer. These small 

 creatures, as you probably know already, come some thou- 

 sands of miles from the countries in which they have spent 

 the winter, and yet they manage to arrive with almost un- 

 failing regularity by routes and methods about which only 

 little is as yet known, I will ask you, then, to imagine that 

 it is towards the end of March, when the weather is alread}^ 

 warmer, and the Leigh Woods and slopes of the Downs are 

 full of the songs of the hardier birds who have spent the 

 winter with us. The chaffinch, who has been practising his 

 song so diligently all through February, has now reached 

 perfection, and is producing that unvarying strain of his at 

 the rate of six or seven times a minute. 



At this time the robin is so deceptive that, as we walk 

 along the Downs, he continually makes us imagine we have 

 heard a redstart or a blackcap a fortnight before he is due. 

 Whether the deception on the part of the robin is inten- 

 tional or not, I am unable to say. 



