FLOCKS OF BIRDS 29 



finches. There must have been thousands in that field 

 alone. In autumn the numbers are even greater, or 

 rather more apparent. 



One autumn some correspondence appeared lament- 

 ing the scarcity of small birds (and again in the spring 

 the same cry was raised) ; people said that they had 

 walked along the roads or footpaths and there were 

 none in the hedges. They were quite correct the birds 

 were not in the hedges, they were in the corn and 

 stubble. After the nesting is well over and the wheat is 

 ripe the birds leave the hedges and go out into the 

 wheatfields ; at the same time the sparrows quit the 

 house-tops and gardens and do the same. At the very 

 time this complaint was raised, the stubbles in Surrey, 

 as I can vouch, were crowded with small birds. 



If you walked across the stubble flocks of hundreds 

 rose out of your way ; if you leant on a gate and 

 watched a few minutes you could see small flocks in 

 every quarter of the field rising and settling again. 

 These movements indicated a larger number in the 

 stubble there, for where a great flock is feeding some 

 few every now and then fly up restlessly. Earlier than 

 that in the summer there was not a wheatfield where 

 you could not find numerous wheatears picked as clean 

 as if threshed where they stood. In some places, 

 the wheat was quite thinned. 



Later in the year there seems a movement of small 

 birds from the lower to the higher lands. One December 

 day I remember particularly visiting the neighbourhood 

 of Ewell, where the lands begin to rise up towards 

 the Downs. Certainly, I have seldom seen such vast 

 numbers of small birds. Up from the stubble flew 

 sparrows, chaffinches, greenfinches, yellow-hammers, in 

 such flocks that the low-cropped hedge was covered 



