AN ARCADIAN CALENDAR 



foot Indian way. The robin settles for the winter at the 

 sign of the garden croft. Blue tits, growing daily more 

 yellow and blue, begin again to patronize the sign of the 

 swinging coconut. After long silence it is touching to hear 

 a revival of the willow-wren's song, that little grace he 

 offers up before slipping overseas. Sportsmen, going 

 out after partridges on some lonely sheep-walk, en- 

 counter the mistle-thrushes that nested in their 

 orchards, their roaming bands feasting heartily to-day 

 at the sign of the hawthorn bush. 



As Autumn waxes many birds have a way of attracting 

 our special attention, having been some- 

 Finch what lost to sight in the crowded summer 



Lovers days ; thus the bullfinch is now conspicuous 

 as it haunts the wayside hedge, searching for 

 dock-seeds and fruits, showing a special weakness for 

 privet berries. Migratory bullfinches come in to swell 

 the numbers of this most handsome species, so musical 

 in voice and so engaging in manner. Unlike their tribe 

 in general, it is rare to find more than a pair of bull- 

 finches together. And no finch is more deeply devoted 

 to his mate than Bully : all through the Winter they are 

 inseparable. 



WHERE a family of seven swallows settled in July on a 



sunny barn-roof near a village, their age-old 



Swallows trysting place, three to four hundred now 



Mustering gather of a morning, filling the air with 



their warbling. All will fly as one on what 



can only be a joy-flight, rising to an immense height, 



as if hopefully looking for the sea. Other flights are 



from fear. Every swallow on the roof takes instantly to 



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