MUIR FOWL 



The watching the eviction of the cornfield's 



Miniature summer guests as the reapers make their 

 Partridge rounds. This week, from a south country 

 field, the harvesters, some onlookers, and a 

 watchful gamekeeper were surprised to see a quail head 

 away before the machine. The bird was very taking to 

 the eye, " as purty as a partridge," as one man said: in 

 many ways it is a miniature partridge. The decrease of 

 quail in this country (though in some seasons it is more 

 abundant than in others) is put down to the bird-netters 

 of Southern Europe. 



AN old idea among country folk is that the yellow 

 hammer sings loudest in the afternoon, 

 Afternoon about three and four o'clock. While young 

 Songs grouse now face the music of the butts, 



young partridges are about to come of 

 age, and young swifts set sail overseas, the yellow 

 hammer still has helpless young, or hopefully sits on 

 eggs, being one of our latest nesters, though beginning 

 betimes. This may account for it singing on through 

 August by the hour together. Its monotonous chant is 

 a fitting accompaniment to the drowsy heat of a corn- 

 field in the afternoon, when the harvesters rest in the 

 hedge for the refreshment known as " fourses." 



MUIR FOWL 



GROUSE, crouching in heather, mingle so magically 

 with the stems and blooms that a stranger 

 The on the fells fails to see one close at hand. 



Bonnie But the moorland keeper's trained eyes 

 Muir-hen detect birds at a distance by the least 



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