44 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS. 



below Wallington, ou the banks of the Wansbeck. My 

 brother afterwards discovered them nesting in another part 

 of Northumberland and found a nest with six eggs on June 5th 

 (" The NaturaHst," 1886, p. 341.) This handsome little 

 bird appears to be increasing in numbers, and was evidently 

 very numerous in the year named. 



These sudden, and more or less irregular incursions of 

 what are otherwise scarce birds, are a well-known feature in 

 ornithology. An example occurred at Silksworth in the 

 spring of 1882. In that case it was the Grasshopper 

 Warbler, a bird we had never before seen or heard there, — its 

 most extraordinary note could hardly have escaped us had 

 it ever occurred. We heard it for the first time on May 

 3rd, and for some time could hardly believe it was produced 

 by a bird at all. The strange rattling flow of sibilant 

 sound resembled rather the voice of a reptile or an insect — 

 most of all a grasshopper, but we had no grasshoppers there. 

 We afterwards observed several others in the neighbourhood, 

 and on May 15th obtained a nest with four eggs. Except 

 in that year (1882) I have never seen this bird at Silksworth, 

 before or since. 



May 20th. — The Wheatears are now laying : a nest in the 

 heart of an old stone-dyke at Elsdon has four eggs. Two or 

 three pairs of Whinchats also are breeding in the rough ferny 

 banks at the Grasslees, but they are not a very common 

 species on the moors. 



Maij list (1887). — After several days of bitter cold and 

 continuous northerly gales, the hills lay quite white with 

 snow this morning — only a month from midsummer day ! 



May 24^/f. — The first young Grouse seen on the wing. 

 They can hardly be ten days old, and no bigger than Sparrows ; 

 yet with the wind under their tiny wings, and the fall of the hill, 

 one or tAvo of them went at least 200 yards. This rapid 

 development of the power of flight in the game-birds is a 

 noteworthy feature, and the means by which Xature attains it 

 are singularly elaborate. I am indebted to Mr. C. M. 

 Adamson for permission to extract the following admirably 

 careful observations on the subject from his " Scraps about 

 Birds." Speaking of the Partridge, Mr. Adamson writes 



