FIRST COMERS 5 



a threefold shape as ' chiff, chaff, chiff,' before returning to 

 the old pendulum swing. 



The chief winter home of the chiffchaff is in Morocco, 

 Spain, and other countries in the Mediterranean basin ; and 

 as this is comparatively near at hand for one of our summer 

 visitors, it is not surprising that the bird returns to its 

 English haunts very early in the season. Occasionally it 

 lingers through the winter in our own country, especially in 

 the extreme south-west of England and in Ireland ; and the 

 chiffchaffs, which are reported at the end of February or early 

 in March, may in many cases be birds which did not leave 

 our shores in autumn, but have sheltered in some warm 

 corner throughout the winter months. The wheatear's 

 winter home is further to the south, in tropical Africa, and 

 there is little or no trustworthy evidence of stragglers of this 

 species remaining in Britain during the winter. Wheatears 

 are sometimes met with late in autumn, when the majority 

 of their species have already fled ; but in many cases these 

 are specimens of the large northern race or variety known 

 as the Greenland wheatear, which is a bird of passage in 

 these islands, traversing them in a leisurely manner in spring 

 and autumn on its way to and from its breeding-places in 

 Greenland and other parts of the Arctic regions. Besides 

 this northern race, a number of the common wheatears seen 

 in spring and autumn are also birds of passage, migrating to 

 summer quarters in Norway ; and they too, as well as our 

 own birds from the north of Scotland, are likely to turn up 

 as belated wanderers in various parts of the kingdom on 

 their southward course. Many birds appear to be much 

 more leisurely about their autumn migration than when 

 they are driven onwards by the restlessness of spring. 



A less qommon summer visitor which often appears 

 before the end of March is the stone-curlew or Norfolk 



