PAIRING AND EARLY SONG 353 



accustomed spring haunts, and resume the partnership which 

 their winter wanderings have interrupted. So far as the 

 adult birds are concerned, the winter flocks may be an 

 aggregate of pairs rather than of individuals : and many 

 pairs may keep together through all their wanderings, and 

 be ready to settle down either in the old haunt or in some 

 new one when the weather begins to grow springlike. 

 Chaffinches separate in autumn into flocks composed almost 

 exclusively either of cocks or hens ; and in their case the 

 chance of the same pair meeting again might seem small. 

 Yet even in their case there would be little difficulty about 

 it, if each bird returned to its last year's home ; and the 

 records of marked birds of other species show that this 

 happens sufficiently often to make it probable as a general 

 rule. 



The first birds to settle down in couples are naturally 

 those which have been most stationary during the winter. 

 Conspicuous among these are the hedge-sparrows, house- 

 sparrows, robins, song-thrushes, blackbirds, wrens, pied 

 wagtails, and a few other species which haunt gardens and 

 other sheltered spots. With most of the species just named 

 the resident birds are only a small minority. The most 

 stationary species are the house and hedge sparrows and the 

 wren ; but even they indulge a proportion of wanderers, 

 which pair and settle down a good deal later than the 

 regular dwellers in our gardens. By early February, and 

 often earlier, the usually unobtrusive hedge-sparrows are 

 beginning to chase each other along the hedges and 

 through the shrubberies with shrill pipings, and to show 

 watchful interest in the particular corner where they intend 

 to nest. Blackbirds drift apart into special clumps in the 

 shrubberies ; and timid hen thrushes are seen in the shelter 

 of the bushes where the cocks sing more and more loudly 



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