Late Lingerers. 



Vacation, the only summer migrants that have 

 not departed southwards are a few Swallows, to 

 be seen along the banks of the river, and half-a- 

 dozen lazy Martins that may cling for two or 

 three weeks longer to their favourite nooks about 

 the buildings of Merton and Magdalen. Last 

 year (1884) none of these stayed to see No- 

 vember, so far as I could ascertain ; but they 

 were arrested on the south coast by a spell of 

 real warm weather, where the genial sun was 

 deluding the Robins and Sparrows into fancying 

 the winter already past. In some years they may 

 be seen on sunny days, even up to the end of 

 the first week of November, hawking for flies 

 about the meadow-front of Merton, probably the 

 warmest spot in Oxford. White of Selborne saw 

 one as late as the 2oth of November, on a very 

 sunny warm morning, in one of the quadrangles 

 of Christchurch ; it belonged, no doubt, to a late 

 September brood, and had been unable to fly 

 when the rest departed. 



It is at first rather sad to find silence reigning 

 in the thickets and reed -beds that were alive 

 with songsters during the summer term. The 



