266 Summer Studies of Birds and Books CHAP. 



won luxuries could not detain him long ; he was gone 

 next morning. 



We cannot be in the line of the King-ousel's travel, 

 for the only other occurrence of which I have a record 

 is that of a wanderer who was killed against the tele- 

 graph wires many years ago. I rather think that in 

 coming from the north they prefer the high ground, 

 and take the line of the Cotswolds, where I found 

 them on 1st September of last year, and so pass over 

 the Wiltshire downs to the south coast ; while the 

 Welsh birds collect in suitable cover on the south 

 coast of Wales, where I have often seen them in 

 autumn, and cross to Exmoor over the Bristol 

 Channel. But the Wheatears, which rarely or never 

 breed about here, regularly take us in their autumn 

 migration, and in much larger numbers than we see 

 in the spring. This year the first appeared on 24th 

 August, dotted about in certain favourite fields ; and 

 then for several days they were to be found together 

 with the Whinchats on the railway banks and tele- 

 graph wires. All, so far as I could discover, were 

 smallish birds, of that less handsome race which visits 

 us in spring somewhat earlier than the larger one. 1 



Meanwhile the Swallows and Martins had begun 

 to collect on sunny mornings on the roof of my house, 



1 Some birds which occasionally appear here in spring seem 

 never to return our way in autumn : e.g. the Pied Flycatcher and 

 the Common Sandpiper. 



