CHAPTER XVI. 



Notes on birds Nightingales Chaffinches Migration Packing 

 Intermarriage Peewits Crows Cuckoos Golden-crested 

 wren. 



THE nightingale is one of the birds whose habit of 

 returning every year to the same spot can 

 hardly be overlooked by any one. Hawthorn and 

 hazel are supposed to attract them : I doubt it 

 strongly. If there is a hawthorn bush near their 

 favourite resting-place they will frequent it by choice, 

 but of itself it will not bring nightingales. They seem 

 to fix upon localities in the most capricious manner. 

 In this particular district they are moderately plentiful ; 

 yet in the whole of a large parish (some five miles across) 

 they are only found hi one place. The wood, which is 

 the roosting-place of all the rooks, large as it is, has 

 but one haunt of the nightingale. Just in one special 

 spot they may be heard, and nowhere else. But 

 having selected a locality, they come back to it as 

 regularly as the swallows. 



In another county in the same latitude there is a 

 small copse of birch which borders a much-frequented 

 road. Here the stream of vehicles and passengers is 



