Lisp in Bird Language. 287 



After the haymaking in the vale is finished, the 

 itinerant families turn towards the lighter soils, 

 where the corn crops are fast ripening, and soon 

 leave the scene of their former labors fifty miles be- 

 hind them. A few perhaps straggle back in time to 

 assist in the latter part of the corn harvest on the 

 heavy lands, if it has been delayed by the weather. 

 The physicians say that change of air is essential to 

 health : the migration of birds may not be without 

 its effect upon their lives, quite apart from the search 

 for food alone. 



The dry walls which sometimes enclose corn fields 

 (built of flat stones) are favorite places with many 

 birds. The yellow-hammers often alight on them ; 

 so do the finches and larks ; for the coarse mortar 

 laid on the top decays and is overgrown with mosses 

 so that it loses the hard appearance of a wall. 

 When the sparrow who has waited till you are close 

 to him suddenly starts, his wings, beating the air, 

 make a sound like the string of a bow pulled and re- 

 leased, to try it without an arrow. 



The dexterous way in which a bird helps itself to 

 thistle-down is interesting to watch. The thistle has 

 no branch on which he can perch ; he must take it 

 on the wing. He flies straight to the head of the 

 thistle, stoops as it were, seizes the down, and 

 passes on with it in the bill to the nearest bough 

 much in the same way as some tribes of horsemen 

 are related to pick up a lance from the ground whilst 

 going at full speed. 



Many birds twirl their ' r's ; ' others lisp as the 

 nightingale, and instead of ' sweet ' say ' thweet, 

 thweet.' The finches call to each other, ' Kywee, 



