70 A "FAIRY" STORY. 



" Each portion of the Sahara the rocky ridges, 

 the sand drifts, the plains has its peculiar ornitho- 

 logical characteristics. But by far the most inte- 

 resting localities are, as might have been antici- 

 pated, the dayats and the oases. Here are the 

 winter quarters of many of our familiar summer 

 visitants. The chiff-chaff, willow-wren, and 

 whitethroat hop on every twig in the gardens 

 shadowed by the never-failing palm ; the swallow 

 and the window martin thread the lanes and 

 sport over the mouths of the wells in pursuit of 

 the swarming mosquitoes." 



When spring returns, these smaller birds are led 

 by instinct to re-cross the Mediterranean and seek 

 their European haunts where the temperature has 

 again become sufficiently mild to enable them to 

 find insect food and rear their families of nestlings. 



The sharp clicking note, like two stones jarred 

 together, which this bird makes when excited, we 

 constantly hear in our furze-bushes and hedges, 

 proving that the whitethroat exists in some numbers 

 in Middlesex ; and now that my " Fairy " has begun 

 to sing, I find it is a strain with which I am quite 

 familiar. My curiosity had often been excited by 



