AUTUMN ON THE MOORS 191 



set out in the Migration Reports aforesaid, as clearly 

 as is that of their previous arrival from the north. 



This continued and extensive passage is confined, as 

 indicated above, to the lower and cultivated lands. On 

 the moorlands there is little evidence of it, as regards the 

 species named ; but we do witness, even more conspicu- 

 ously, on the moors, the passage of the missel-thrush, 

 which during September proceeds uninterruptedly. These 

 birds, moreover, linger considerably longer in the hill- 

 country. They are tempted to dawdle on the way by the 

 ripening rowan-berries, whose bright scarlet clusters are 

 so beautiful at this season. The small purple-black fruit 

 of the hackberry, or bird-cherry {Prunus fiadamts) is also 

 attractive, and to these two trees, as well as to the 

 service-tree, or elder, both missel-thrush and ring-ouzel 

 are specially fond of resorting. Neither, however, confines 

 his attentions to wild fruits — fain would gardeners pray 

 that they did so. Nor is it with these two species alone 

 that the luckless gardener has to reckon. He has on his 

 hands in September, the whole mobilised armies of the 

 Tttrdidce, with scouts and detachments of other genera — 

 to say nothing of the unholy taste for fruit developed 

 at this season by various other birds — finches, tits, 

 and the rest. The garden attached to sequestered 

 homes in the hill-country is probably the only bit of 

 cultivated land for miles around — a little oasis of fruits 

 for travelling birds! Hence the unfortunate owner who 

 has done all the work, can scarcely, and that only with the 

 utmost difficulty, save even a minor share of his crop for 

 himself. 



Birds display a lamentable lack of economy, wasting - 

 and destroying far more than they actually eat. Half-a- 

 dozen missel-thrushes and ring-ouzels assembling on a 



