62 



SPRING 



watch the extreme ingenuity with which the growing circle 

 of the domed nest clings almost with the adhesiveness of a 

 house-martin's cradle of clay in some water-worn rock. 



Grey wagtails flash their yellow tails by some con- 

 spicuous cascade ; these birds seem drawn by the sound 

 of falling water, and nest year after 

 year, as many dippers do, by the same 

 spray-dashed fall. Wrens search with 

 their peculiar concentration and self- 

 absorption among the mosses and 

 along the waterline of the torrent's 

 bank ; and as far as the belt of rowans 

 and birches and hollies climbs among 

 the banks of bracken, the charming 

 cadence of the willow-wren is heard 

 from early April all day long. Willow- 

 wrens abound in these upland haunts, 

 as high as the trees extend ; thousands 

 upon thousands must be born each 

 spring in the cool shaws and dingles 

 of British moorlands, to penetrate a 

 few months later to inner Africa. 

 Stock-doves nest in increasing num- 

 bers in holes in trees and rocky banks 

 in their woodland valleys ; with them 

 go the heavier ring-doves or wood- 

 pigeons, lodging their open platforms 

 in hanging ivy bushes, or among the thick horizontal boughs in 

 plantations of spruce and larch. As the trees grow thin, and 

 we come to the bare rock-ledges and slopes of heather, the 

 pipe of the ring-ouzel may be heard from some lonely bend 

 of the stream, and the cock bird with its white crescent on 

 the throat may flit from one stone to another on the hill. 



GREY WAGTAIL 



