WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 297 



ceases, and the old haunts are deserted. This summer 

 I was much struck with this partial migration, perhaps 

 the more so because observed in a fresh locality. 



During the spring and summer I daily followed a 

 road for some three miles which I had found to pass 

 through a district much frequented by birds. The 

 birch coppice so favoured by nightingales was that 

 way and, by-the-bye, the wrynecks were almost 

 equally numerous ; and the question has occurred to 

 me whether these birds are companions, in a sense, of 

 the nightingale, having noticed them in other places to 

 be much together. All spring and summer the hedges, 

 coppices, brakes, thickets, furze lands, and cornfields 

 abounded with bird life. About the middle of August 

 there was a notable decrease. Early in September 

 the places previously so populous seemed almost de- 

 serted ; by the middle of the month quite deserted. 



There were no chaffinches in the elms or in the road, 

 and scarcely a sparrow ; not a yellowhammer on the 

 hedge by the cornfield ; only a very few greenfinches ; 

 not a single bullfinch or goldfinch. Blackbirds, 

 thrushes, and robins alone remained. The way to 

 find what birds are about is to watch one of their 

 favourite drinking and bathing-places ; then it is 

 easy to see which are absent. Where had all these 

 birds gone to ? In the middle of the fields of stubble 

 there were flocks of sparrows almost innumerable 

 sparrows and some finches, but not, apparently, 

 enough to account for all that had left the hedges 

 and trees. That may be explained by their being 



10 a 



