BIRDS -NESTING. O 



When the lengthening days give the first impulse to the 

 feathered tribes to bend their course northward for the 

 breeding-season, it is here that I listen for the first notes 

 of the chiff-chaff: here I watch for the blackcap, the night- 

 ingale, the willow-wrens, the garden warblers, the white- 

 throat ; here hour after hour have I hunted for their nests, 

 my object not being plunder, but information. Often have 

 I covered my hand with scratches, from the prickles of 

 briars and brambles, in my attempts to gain a satisfactory 

 view of a nest and its contents without causing any disar- 

 rangement, well knowing how great was the risk of deser- 

 tion if the parent birds should discover anything amiss ; 

 and when deserted, if I knew not the builders, a nest was 

 valueless. How well was I repaid for bleeding hands, if 

 1 discovered but one point in the history of a species. 

 Eggs strung on bents are rife in all country places ; old 

 nests are easy to be seen when the leaves are gone ; birds 

 are plentiful in every hedge-row, and their song is the bur- 

 then of the passing breeze : but to connect with certainty 

 each bird with its mate ; to assign it the proper nest and 

 proper eggs ; to learn the exact time of its arrival and its 

 departure ; all this is a study, a labour, rarely undertaken, 

 and affords a pleasure akin to that which must be felt by 

 a traveller exploring countries where man has not before 

 trodden. 



South of Godalming, the sand is succeeded by a deep 

 clay, extremely favourable to the growth of timber. This 

 district is densely wooded, the woods, in some instances, 

 covering hundreds of acres. In this tract is situated 

 Blunden's, a beautifully wooded place, once the property 

 of the late Henry Hare Townsend, Esq., but lately in the 

 possession of Mr. Mellersh, whose keeper and factotum, 



