AN ARCADIAN CALENDAR 



Viewed on a chimney-pot in December sunshine, he 

 seems to demand admiration for his greenish-black 

 plumage, wonderfully glossed and burnished with 

 purple, green and violet reflections, changing in 

 different lights ; and his spots show bravely. These he 

 presently discards, to put on his more sheeny wedding- 

 coat, while his mate remains spotted and speckled, and 

 is less brilliantly iridescent. The sign of the old English 

 starling, the " stare," is his green-glossed head, and he 

 is now a scarce bird in relation to the hordes of Con- 

 tinental immigrants. 



BIRD TRAVELLERS 



SEVERE winter weather drives in flocks of the Brent 

 goose to the East coast, a wary species, and 

 The much prized by connoisseurs in the gastro- 



Scotch nomy of wildfowl: " A Brent for your life, 

 Goose on the table! " has been recorded as the 



emphatic opinion of East Anglian punt- 

 gunners. This goose, in sooty grey, has a distinctly 

 snake-like head. The blackness of the head and neck are 

 relieved by the white neck-patches. It is our commonest 

 wild goose in Winter. Hardly larger than a common 

 duck, it is a Tom Thumb beside the magnificent, 

 yard-long greylag, a bird for which we have a special 

 regard in that its ancestors gave us our Christmas geese. 



ANYONE fortunate enough to see a swallow at this time 



need not refuse to believe his eyes. The 



The December swallow is not a wonderfully 



December rare bird in the West Country. When people 



Swallow report very late or early swallows they are 



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