THE TRUANTS 



the name thick-knee should read thick-ankle. It is a 

 bustard-like bird, with the bustard's tricks of crouching 

 and running, and the large round eyes proclaim a bird 

 of twilight. 



THE chiffchaff is due, to cry his own name to the 

 woods, at the end of this week, and he is 

 Chiffchaff usually punctual. He is the first of the 

 Summer song-birds to appear in gardens, 

 and is the smallest of the garden choir they make up. 

 Naturalists hail him as the truest Spring herald. A 

 modest and midget bird, in quiet olive-green, with 

 black legs, his two notes, " chiff " and " chaff," rarely 

 varied by a " chiwy-chawy," are as eagerly listened 

 for as the call of cuckoo himself. He comes with the 

 sweet violets, and all sweet things of what our fathers 

 called the Primaveral Reign the season between 

 snowdrop and cowslip. 



ONE of the most fascinating birds of early Spring is the 

 wryneck. Rarely seen in its beautifully 

 The pencilled greys and browns (a living picture 



Cuckoo's of tree-bark), its high, kestrel-like note 

 Leader compels attention, and has a message when 

 first heard, since the wryneck is the ac- 

 credited " cuckoo's leader." The ancients were im- 

 pressed by the flashing of the bird's long tongue, which 

 never flashes out for ants' eggs in vain, and concluded 

 that it had uncanny powers of fascinating its prey. In 

 sorcery it became a love-charm, hence it has figured in 

 literature (in " Hereward the Wake"). A lovelorn maid 

 would sacrifice a trapped wryneck to the tune of the 

 invocation, " Wryneck, bring my man to the house." 



39 



