58 FIELD-STUDIES OF RARER BIRDS 



roads " Girls," in common with many other 

 species which exhibit a similar trait, dislike being 

 too shrewdly inspected. For instance, should you 

 detect one singing, or even if it fancies that you have 

 it under observation, the performer will at once 

 fly off, perhaps for as much as a hundred yards, 

 though more usually for from thirty to fifty, when, 

 alighting in another tree, it " tunes up " afresh. All 

 the same, after a lapse of some minutes it may ven- 

 ture again to the selfsame and favourite perching- 

 place. I have ascertained that there are nearly 

 always one or two trees in any given haunt which, 

 for some reason patent only to the birds themselves, 

 specially commend themselves to a ' Cirl ' as 

 splendid stages for its vocal accomplishments : and 

 a Cirl Bunting, so long as it imagines itself 

 unobserved, will sing, all unheeding and with 

 maddening persistency, from a tree at the base of 

 which you are reclining. 



The " Cirl," then, is not always to be 

 interviewed on really familiar terms, and especially 

 does this apply to the female who, except when 

 flushed from eggs, caught building, or feeding 

 young, is comparatively seldom seen during the 

 breeding-season : she shelters so much in the big, 

 leafy timber trees, and, naturally, does not betray 

 her whereabouts by song. 



I have dealt at some length with the song and 

 singing-habits of the Cirl Bunting, not only because 

 the ditty seems to cause quite unnecessary confusion 



