54 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



the cuckoo's mate, or maid, or messenger, the 

 iquaint and beautiful wryneck? There are few 

 British birds, perhaps not one — ^not even the 

 crafty black and white magpie, or mysterious 

 moth-like goatsucker, or tropical kingfisher — 

 more interesting to watch. At twilight I had 

 lingered at the woodside, also in other likely 

 places, and the goatsucker had failed to appear, 

 gliding and zig-zagging hither and thither on his 

 dusky-mottled noiseless wings, and now this still 

 heavier disappointment was mine. I could not 

 find the wryneck. Those quiet grassy orchards, 

 shut in by straggling hedges, should have had 

 him as a favoured summer guest. Creeper and 

 nuthatch, and starling and gem-like blue tit, found 

 holes enough in the old trunks to breed in. And 

 yet I knew that, albeit not common, he was there; 

 I could not exactly say where, but somewhere on 

 the other side of the next hedge or field or 

 orchard; for I heard his unmistakable cry, now 

 on this hand, now on that. Day after day I fol- 

 lowed the voice, sometimes in my eagerness 

 forcing my way through a brambly hedge to 

 emerge with scratched hands and clothes torn, like 

 one that had been set upon and mauled by some 



