FIRST COMERS 3 



which rabbits avoid it chooses places where split rocks and 

 scattered stone-heaps give it harbourage. Such screes and 

 stony labyrinths are also favourite refuges of the stoat ; much 

 can be seen of both bird and animal in and under the rocks 

 if we lie and watch for a while on the airy hillsides ; and no 

 doubt the hunting stoat is the wheatear's chief enemy during 

 the nesting season. 



Chiffchaffs arrive, on the whole, a little later than wheat- 

 ears, although a few stray specimens are sometimes reported 

 from the south-western counties very early in the year. By 

 the end of the third week in March they begin to appear in 

 their usual haunts, and in most parts of the south and west 

 of England they are regularly present in small numbers 

 before the end of the month. When the weather, as often 

 happens, is cold and wintry, they do not sing ; but although 

 they may be overlooked for a few days longer than when 

 they announce their presence, it is by no means difficult to 

 catch sight of them at this time of year. After the leaves 

 come out in April, and the chiffchaffs are joined by willow- 

 wrens and many other birds of similar habits, it is by no 

 means always easy to identify them, except by their song. 

 In March it is very different. We can see even a small bird 

 plainly among the naked boughs, for chiffchaffs prefer 

 deciduous trees, and do not often take shelter among Scotch 

 firs or other evergreens, like tits or goldcrests. When the 

 winds are cold and blustering and loaded with hail, chiff- 

 chaffs take refuge from the blasts and their pattering bolts 

 in snug lanes and the warmest corners of the copses. Such 

 spots are marked out by the earliest primroses and robins' 

 nests, and various other forms of early spring life ; and here 

 it is not difficult to find the delicate chiffchaff hunting singly, 

 or with a mate or rival, among the lower branches, and full 

 of the restlessness of spring. The slenderness and grace of 



