24 Summer Studies of Birds and Books CHAP. 



Bellevue at Thun, where there is an extensive 

 garden. Next morning I was out before breakfast 

 in this garden, and soon heard a voice that was 

 new to me. If this happens after May, when all 

 the foliage is out, I know I may be teased for a 

 while, and so it happened that morning. Wherever 

 I went, there was the mysterious voice clearly 

 that of a very small bird, feeble and shrill, though 

 contented and unobtrusive. Five little syllables of 

 different length were constantly repeated, getting a 

 little higher in pitch towards the end : "twee-twee- 

 tw-twee-t." It was late in the morning when I 

 found that it was nothing in the world but our 

 common little Tree-creeper. Now, I can count on 

 my fingers the number of times that I have heard 

 the Creeper sing, and on those rare occasions in 

 England I have never heard the notes I have just 

 described. But there is no doubt that birds speak 

 with a different accent in different localities ; the 

 Chaffinch, for example, will do so, and I have been 

 puzzled for a whole morning in Italy by a Chaffinch 

 with a strange call-note, who would not show him- 

 self. Let us note, by way of a possible explanation 

 of this uttterance of the Creeper, which I have since 

 heard elsewhere in Switzerland, that this bird does 

 not migrate, but probably remains in the same 

 district all' his life. Surely it would be more natural 

 for non- migrating birds to develop some new habit 



