42 



nesting-places. 



SPRING 



Swifts sail high round the church towers, 



suddenly appearing as if they had always been there, and 

 the interval since last August had been an illusion. Night- 

 jars purr on the sides of the woods at dusk, or flit off like 

 shadows, with their owl-like cry, ' Ke-wick, ke-wick.' Wood- 

 wrens, with their curious shivering trill, become plentiful in 

 the woods chosen by them for the season. Sometimes they 

 will leave a haunt of many years' standing and form a new 

 settlement elsewhere. The tall woods which wood-wrens 



frequent do not alter 

 like the nightingales' 

 copses ; their move- 

 ments seem purely arbi- 

 trary. Lesser white- 

 throats slip through the 

 thorn-bushes, showing 

 their slaty backs and 

 pale bellies, and crying, 

 Mil, 111. lil, 111," with 

 none of the common 

 whitethroat's noisy con- 

 tumaciousness. Cock 

 butcher-birds flit con- 

 spicuously along the quick hedges in search of their mates, 

 spreading their tails wide, and displaying the white patches on 

 their outer webs. In the valleys of Wales and the north the 

 beautiful pied flycatcher flits restlessly in the oak-woods and 

 shady gardens, passing on to his summer home not far away. 

 Almost last of all our summer visitors, the spotted flycatcher 

 comes back to the garden palings and the trellis by the porch 

 where last year's nest still clings. He is a sad-looking little 

 bird, far duller and quieter than his piebald brother of the 

 Welsh valleys ; but his delicate and faithful ways make him 



PIED FLYCATCHER 



