in Among the Birds in Wales 67 



manner of the birds and the peculiar pose of their 

 heads kept me pretty steadily to the conviction that 

 I had Flycatchers before me. 



A few years ago it was hardly known that this 

 beautiful bird is so regular a visitor to many parts of 

 Wales ; but recently some attention has been paid to 

 Welsh birds, and good ornithologists are at work 

 there. Much, however, remains to be done, and we 

 can but hope that it will be done without letting in 

 the harpies to spoil with their noisome feasts the 

 secluded homes of the Pied Flycatcher and the Wood- 

 lark. The Birds of Wales, when such a book is written, 

 will greatly exceed in interest the monographs of the 

 ornithology of single English counties, if only because 

 Wales is a natural division of this island and not 

 merely an artificial one. Such a work will have to 

 be one of slow growth, and must be the result of 

 organised combination and division of labour. But 

 I should not be surprised, were I to live long enough 

 to see it completed, to find that some remarkable 

 discoveries had been made among those wilder hills 

 which the tourist has not found out, and where the 

 smaller birds are despised or overlooked by the 

 sportsman. 



For myself, I confess that when I find myself 

 among these hills the evil propensities of former 

 days are apt to get the better of me, and by a deep 

 dark pool, well ruffled by the mountain breeze, I 



