SOME GARDEN BIRDS 



more nor less. Of course accidents happen, 

 and many youngsters come to untimely ends 

 soon after leaving the nest : then there is the 

 autumn migration, when many more get lost. 

 A few wagtails stop with us throughout the 

 winter, but the greater number go south, 

 crossing the English Channel, and making for 

 the Mediterranean region. That pied wagtails 

 seen in Portugal and the south of France during 

 the winter, are the same birds that were in 

 England for the spring and summer, has been 

 proved by putting small rings on the legs of 

 nestlings. A wagtail thus marked at Cheadle 

 in Staffordshire was taken the winter follow- 

 ing the spring in which it was ringed in 

 Portugal. 1 But for being captured this bird 

 would almost certainly have come home 

 the next March not only to England, and one 

 particular county, but to the very spot where 

 it was born and bred ! We may well wonder 

 how birds find their way ! 



Yet the weest of birds manage these long 

 journeys. Take, for instance, the little willow 

 warbler, or willow wren, that tiny atom of 

 grey-green feathers, which every April comes 



1 Riiiged at Cheadle, Staffordshire, by Mr. J. R. B. Masefield, 

 18th June 1915, and recovered at Vieira de Leiria, Portugal, in 

 January 1916. See British Bird*, vol. x. p. 61. 



197 



