AN ARCADIAN CALENDAR 



which suggests it is for ever on the point of taking a 

 header. Courting rites make a quaint spectacle, since 

 each sex is demonstrative, and the two lovers will rear 

 themselves high out of the water to display their 

 gleaming white breasts. In Norfolk the birds are now 

 expected to return to their old haunts on the Broads 

 of which it is well said they are the greatest ornament. 



THE TRUANTS 



THE wheatear is often first among our truant birds to 

 come home from winter quarters. Now it 

 The First is a matter of days before it may be ex- 

 Migrant pected on sheep-walks by the sea. A 

 northern name is steindepill, or stone- 

 dapple, signifying a dapple-mark on a stone, for which 

 the bird might pass on a stone-flecked down. Our 

 name signifies white-rump, from the martin-like patch 

 on the back. In John Ray's " English Proverbs," the 

 wheatear, or English ortolan, is described as " one of 

 the good things of Sussex." The description is true, 

 though one may disapprove of the inference that it is 

 especially good when roasted in vine-leaves. 



Now that the stone curlew, with its wailing cry, is back 

 from Winter quarters their whereabouts 

 A Spring its secret Spring cannot be far behind. It 

 Note is remarkable that though endowed with 



three common names, not one rings true. 

 Stone curlew is apt only because it haunts stony up- 

 lands and because it cries " Cur-lwee! " Norfolk plover 

 is right in that Norfolk is among its summer head- 

 quarters, and wrong in that it is no true plover. And 



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