8 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS 



ment springs. Oases in a desert they may be in many 

 cases ; but not for that reason is their advent the less 

 welcome and delightful- — quite the reverse. I am not 

 alluding to those deceptive spring-like days when brilliant 

 sunshine co-exists with a biting north-easter ; when April 

 showers descend in fine snow or cutting hailstones ; when 

 one is baked in the shelter and frozen in the shade. 

 Such days are as false and illusory as they are common 

 at this season, and though, perhaps, preferable to fog 

 and rain, they bear no comparison to the grateful 

 hours when winds blow soft and warm from the west 

 and south, with the first touch of the zephyr in their 

 breath. 



On such mornings as these, when sunshine bathes 

 the water-logged moor in unwonted warmth, drying the 

 dripping heather and moss, every creature appears in- 

 spired by the spirit of the season. The moor-birds pipe 

 and whistle in a wholly different key to their querulous 

 notes of yesterday, and visibly revel in the genial change. 

 Under the cold and humid conditions of atmosphere 

 which have hitherto prevailed, one can hardly enjoy any 

 very close acquaintanceship with them : one only hears 

 their wild alarm notes, as they spring, unseen in the fog, 

 far away. Now, under the influence of warmth and a dry 

 atmosphere, they cease to resent man's intrusion on their 

 domains, and go about their domestic duties almost 

 regardless of his presence, though close at hand. The 

 wilder spirits — those irreconcilables that are impregnated, 

 as it were, to the very marrow with inherent fear and 

 suspicion of our race — such as the mallard and the curlew 

 ■ — may still think it necessary to keep a gunshot or two 

 away from the intruder ; but even these seem to do so 

 half unconsciously— merely from force of habit and asso- 



