CHAPTER XVIII 



AUTUMN ON THE MOORS 



(2) October 



Early this morning-, October 1st, a chiffchaff was singing 

 in precisely the same trees where we first heard his note 

 on March 31st. This little songster thus spends six 

 months clear with us ; whereas the closely-allied willow- 

 wren only stays but little more than four- — arriving" on 

 April 20th and leaving- about August 25th. Yet so 

 alike are these two, in plumage, form, and habit, that 

 at ten yards' distance I cannot see safely to distinguish 

 one from the other. In their notes, of course, they are 

 totally dissimilar, as well as in their manner of nesting. 

 Next morning, the chiffchaff was gone. 



The month of October is often inaugurated on the 

 moors by the appearance of the wild - geese, which pass 

 overhead in clanging V-shaped skeins soon after harvest. 

 Their course, hereabouts, is invariably to the westward, 

 and rarely do they alight or afford to the gunner the 

 slightest opportunity of identifying their species. Forty 

 or fifty years ago, before the universal drainage of the 

 moorlands, and when the flowes and mosses of North 

 Tyne and elsewhere in Northumberland often stood in 

 sheets of shallow water, the case was different. The grey 



L'15 



