AN ARCADIAN CALENDAR 



These birds would be warmly welcomed if they could 

 be wooed from Wales and the North to our insect- 

 plagued southern shires. 



BULLFINCHES are remarkable among our finches for 

 going always in pairs in Winter and early 

 " Bully " Spring. They are among our birds which 

 attract more attention in those seasons than 

 in Summer, partly because their numbers are reinforced 

 by migratory birds. " Bully's " gay coat shows up 

 bravely against the quiet hues of the hedges he haunts 

 with his hen in their quest of dock seeds and berries. 

 The borders of large woodlands seem their favourite 

 nesting-place, and old, wild hedgerows. It is a pity that 

 the gardener's cherished buds lure them from their 

 natural haunts, often to their undoing, for by nature 

 they are stay-at-home birds, and great lovers of the 

 greenwood. 



WATER SPRITES 



ONE pair at least of great crested grebes had safely 

 fashioned their floating nest, the birds 

 A Grebe taking turns in sitting on their four rough 

 Family eggs. Leaving the nest, they were careful 

 to cover the eggs with reeds, gathered by 

 the bills, thus hiding their treasures and keeping in the 

 warmth of the hotbed of sodden herbage. A charming 

 picture is now made by the precocious chicks, as they 

 induce their parents to tow them about the pond, by 

 gripping the parental feathers in their bills (feathers 

 they are in the habit of eating) seek shelter under their 

 wings, or, in the way of cygnets and baby dabchicks, 

 clamber up for pickaback rides. 



82 



