ROUND A LONDON COPSE. 157 



they had finished a storm descended, and the rain, 

 thus dammed up and unable to escape, flooded the 

 corner. It cost half a sovereign to repair the damage, 

 but it did not matter ; the starlings had been happy. 

 It has been a disappointment this year not to listen 

 to their eager whistling and the flutter of their wings 

 as they vibrate them rapidly while hovering a moment 

 before entering their cavern. A pair of house-martins, 

 too, built under the eaves close to the starling's 

 nest, and they also disappointed me by not return- 

 ing this season, though the nest was not touched. 

 Some fate, I fear, overtook both starlings and house - 

 martins. 



Another time it was the season of the lapwings. 

 Towards the end of November (1881), there appeared 

 a large flock of peewits, or green plovers, which flock 

 passed most of the day in a broad, level ploughed 

 field of great extent. At this time I estimated their 

 number as about four hundred; far exceeding any 

 flock I had previously seen in the neighbourhood. 

 Fresh parties joined the main body continually, until 

 by December there could not have been less than a 

 thousand. Still more and more arrived, and by the 

 first of January (1882) even this number was doubled, 

 and there were certainly fully two thousand there. 

 It is the habit of green plovers to all move at once, 

 to rise from the ground simultaneously, to turn in 

 the air, or to descend and all so regular that their 

 very wings seem to flap together. The effect of 

 such a vast body of white-breasted birds uprising 

 as one from the dark ploughed earth was very re- 

 markable. 



