IDENTITY OF THE MALE 47 



rare, and they are valuable since they place 

 the identity of the individual beyond dispute. 

 I can recall the case of a Willow- Warbler whose 

 song was unlike that of its own or any other 

 species, and of a Redbreast whose voice puzzled 

 me not a little. I can recollect also a male Yellow 

 Bunting whose foot was injured or deformed. 

 Of this bird's behaviour I kept a record for two 

 months or so ; and inasmuch as it inhabited a 

 roadside hedge, and was of fearless disposition, 

 the deformed foot could plainly be seen when- 

 ever it settled upon the road to search for food. 

 Identification is not, therefore, a difficulty. 

 There is always some small difference in colour 

 or in song, or some well-defined routine which 

 makes recognition possible. 



Owing to their great powers of locomotion, 

 birds have generally been regarded as wanderers 

 more or less ; anything in the nature of a fixed 

 abode, apart from the actual nest, having been 

 accounted foreign to their mode of life ; and 

 even the locality immediately surrounding the 

 nest has not been apprehended as possessing any 

 meaning for the owner of that nest. No doubt 

 the supply of food determines their movements 

 for a considerable part of the year ; they seek 

 it where they can find it, here to-day, there 

 to-morrow — in fact few species fail to move 

 their quarters at one season or another, so that 

 there is much truth in the notion that birds 

 are wanderers. Yet to suppose that every 

 individual one sees or hears — every Lapwing 

 on the meadow, or Nightingale in the withy 



