2 76 The Field Naturalist' s Quartei'ly Nov. 



now unnetted garden small fruits, and sampled the first 

 windfalls of the early ripening apples, betake themselves for 

 the most part to the glaucous swede-fields, especially um- 

 brageous this autumn, and therefore perhaps all the more 

 abounding in such slug, worm, and insect food as is beloved 

 of the Merulidae. 



The naturalist patroniser of St Partridge day must per- 

 force particularise upon the scarcity of Larks to be met 

 with at this season of the year. The Sparrows have come 

 from the towns and the villages and farmsteads, but the 

 Larks have unobservedly departed from the cornlands, to 

 be soon replaced in greater numbers by the representatives 

 of a more northern and hardier race of these lofty songsters, 

 whose arrival on our stubbles may be diurnally observed 

 during the early part of October, just previous to the great 

 influx of Continental Corvidae, Snipes and Woodcock, 

 Short-eared Owls and Golden-crested Wrens. 



Following hard upon the incoming Larks, a Merlin or 

 two may be looked for, and a few Widgeon may also be 

 expected. Even the Great White Swan sometimes rears 

 his stately head and " honks " upon our waters before the 

 end of chill October. The truly wild Cygnus once prev- 

 iously identified may ever after be easily recognised at a 

 distance from the Mute Swan, whilst settled, by the carriage 

 of his head and neck. The latter is less arched than in the 

 tame bird, and the beak is borne at right angles to his body. 

 The smaller Bewicks keep much closer together on the 

 water than the Hoopers, are a more lumpy, gooselike bird, 

 and appear to be more sociable. 



Here is a tale showing what arrival of autumnal migrants 

 is, or at any rate used to be, most anxiously anticipated in 

 Broadland. One Sunday afternoon during service a sport- 

 ing squarson's serving-man rushed in his shirt-sleeves into 

 church, waving his coat over his arms, and shouting, 

 " They're come, sir! they're come ! " meaning that the first 

 whisp of foreign Snipe had settled upon the adjacent 

 marshes ! a proceeding less justifiable, if not less authentic, 

 than the shouting of the names of the first three horses in 

 the Derby of 1879 by a Cambridge undergraduate in the 

 Senate-house during: exam, time ! 



