54 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS 



where, a week ago, there were hundreds. Instinctive 

 perception of dates rarely fails. Their appointed season 

 has arrived, and these birds know it to a day — they know 

 that the wastes and tundras of Northern Europe and 

 Asia are ready for their reception, and they have gone. 



The foreign-bound curlews, too, have now disappeared 

 from the coast. My winter puntsman (specially instructed 

 to watch them) wrote that April 2>otk was the last day on 

 which he observed them in any quantities on the sand- 

 flats where they had spent all the winter and spring. (On 

 the same date, by a mere coincidence, we found the first 

 nest of the year, with four eggs, on the moors.) The above 

 corresponds with the known arrival of curlews and plovers 

 in the far north. I have a note of the arrival: of plovers 

 at Langnses, Tromso, on May 12th, and on the 18th a 

 curlew's nest was found — considered there exceptionally 

 early ; yet three weeks later than here, on the Borders. 



Thus the month of April witnesses not only the arrival 

 of nearly all the summer-birds, but also the departure of 

 our winter visitants. Fieldfares, it is true, linger on into 

 May ; so do golden-eyes. But the great majority have 

 gone. Jack-snipes collect in little wisps in March and 

 linger but little after that ; long before one hears the 

 first half-song of the sandpiper, they, and the hooded 

 crows, have vanished. 



A singular combination marks the close of the month. 

 Everywhere, from the same trees, you may hear simultane- 

 ously the chattering of fieldfares and the merry trill of the 

 willow-wren. The latter, a fortnight before, was at home 

 in Africa ; a fortnight hence, the fieldfares will be nesting 

 by the Arctic circle. 



April 29. — Spring-salmon, male, 17 lbs., Gold-island 

 stream, Houxty — the earliest record here. The first 



