1 6 Summer Studies of Birds and Books CHAP. 



why, Wellin'ton was a-dancin' away at a ball till 

 old Blucher come up ! " 



Where Mr. Cook got hold of these odds and ends 

 of truth I have no idea. He is now gathered to his 

 fathers, and has vanished away from us like the 

 smoke. 



March 18th. Another beautiful and sunny 

 morning, though the wind is veering round to the 

 east. A stroll through the fields brings me to a 

 hedge which has lately been lopped ; the superfluous 

 branches are lying on the grass in bundles. It is 

 one of our warmest spots, and I am always on the 

 look-out for birds there. I have just been watching 

 those birds of winter, the fieldfares, gathered in 

 numbers on some trees, and chattering excitedly as 

 if they were about to leave us. Suddenly a little 

 brown thing flits out of one of the bundles of 

 branches, hovers a minute in the air, and returns to 

 shelter. There is not a bird among all our winter 

 residents that would flit into the air like that, nor 

 one that would creep among the twigs exactly as he 

 is creeping now. Out he comes again, plays in the 

 air for a second, and alights on another bundle a few 

 yards further on. I have no longer any doubt, but 

 my glass makes assurance doubly sure; it is the 

 Chiffchaff, the first of our summer birds, the first 

 traveller to reach us from Africa and the warm south. 

 He seems to have divined that we have been early in 



