THE DOWNS. 51 
Of the smaller species to be met with, I should put the Nightjar first. 
The bird breeds upon the bleak hillsides, which are also, early in August, the 
favourite haunt of the Silver-spotted Skipper, and is especially to be looked 
for where a few small thorn bushes stand out upon the downs amidst the 
remnants of defunct furze-brakes. These patches are generally bare, and 
have sundry old flints upon them, and the dead sticks of furze themselves 
closely harmonize with the plumage of the sitting bird. I have also put 
them up during the daytime from the middle of the road, and more often 
from the bracken in the copses. 
The ponds which exist here and there upon the downs are the regular 
rendezvous of many small birds for purposes of ablution, and it is the 
custom of juvenile fowlers to set limed straws around them in the autumn. 
Wonderful, indeed, is the variety of a successful afternoon’s bag. Wheatears, 
Pipits, Goldfinches, Linnets, Greenfinches, Buntings, and Wagtails all get 
entangled in the deadly snare, and after vigorous but unavailing struggles 
are thrust into the dark box through the leg of an old stocking, which offers 
the only means of entrance and exit from the gloomy depths of this receptacle. 
Sometimes the birds are caught outright; at others they take flight with 
the fatal straw attached to tail or pinion, and after a few beats the lime 
adheres to some other part of the body, and the victim falls helpless to the 
ground. Immediately there is a rush of a ragged figure from the far side 
of the pond, the captive is seized, released none too gently, and hurried 
without ceremony into the box. 
Many of the boys, often golf caddies, who engage in this method of 
bird-catching, exhibit considerable knowledge of the habits and notes of the 
birds, and one cannot help sympathising with their excitement when 
some valuable stranger is threading his dangerous path amongst the 
snares. Wheatears and Buntings are the most difficult to secure; Green- 
finches rush blindly to their doom. 
From one of these ponds I once flushed a Redshank in springtime, 
and once in the autumn a flock of shore birds, probably Grey Plover, 
passed high over my head. 
At. times during the August migration we are visited by some Tree 
Pipits. I was once enabled to follow a flock of twenty for some miles 
along a hillside. My attention was attracted by their soft single note, 
not unlike that of a Spotted Flycatcher, and, on a closer inspection, I 
saw that they were longer and more tawny than our local Titlark. The 
light margins of the wing-coverts and tertiaries showed up clearly as 
they ran along the ground, while the rump appeared uniform at quite a 
E 2 
