MOORLAND BIRDS IN AUGUST 185 



than this — which induced such interesting birds as 

 spotted crakes and water-rails to tarry here. 



Atigust 21. — The young robins have now acquired 

 the red-breast ; but it will be three weeks or a month 

 yet before the adults attain that "fuller crimson" which 

 we have already read (p. 5) is poetically supposed to be 

 a sign of returning spring. As a matter of ornithologi- 

 cal fact, it rather betokens the approach of autumn. 



Here is another note bearing on the same subject : — 

 September 2 (1889). — Heard to-day, simultaneously, 

 the songs of willow-wren and of robin — a combination 

 of extremes that may not occur again in a lifetime — 

 the one so late, the other so early, indicating that already, 

 at this date, the robin had acquired his full plumage 

 and was proudly notifying the fact. This occurred 

 during splendid autumnal weather, at Otterburn in Reed- 

 water. Grasshoppers were chirping and bees humming 

 at the same moment. 



August 22, 1906. — -Shot a woodcock, adult, on Snab- 

 dough, North Tyne. Though woodcocks nest here and 

 the young are on the wing by May 10th, yet it is rare to 

 meet with them during the August shooting, and the 

 above is the first I have ever killed during that month. 

 This may perhaps be explained by the nature of their 

 haunts. This woodcock, for example, rose from a very 

 rough spot' — a regular jungle of heavy bracken growing 

 among rocks. Such places are seldom entered by sports- 

 men : by chance, my Irish terrier had gone in to hunt 

 rabbits "on his own" — hence this note. 



