

292 ON SURREY HILLS. 



Df birds has had much attention bestowed on it of 

 late. My own observations concerning the matter 

 extend over a period of many years, and I believe 

 that nearly the whole of our British birds migrate 

 more or less as the seasons vary. The golden-crested 

 wrens, the smallest of our birds, certainly do. 



In hard severe weather the coast-line is the 

 locality to find bird-life, it being open and moist 

 there. I have seen blackbirds, thrushes, and 

 redwings, larks and pipits, also wagtails, feeding 

 on the saltings with the dunlins and other small 

 waders. Linnets, redpolls, and siskins I have seen 

 in numbers close to the tide. Alders grow to a 

 large size near tidal waters, at least they did so 

 in the district I am best acquainted with, and I 

 noticed that the siskins there were very numerous 

 and in fine bright plumage. They were larger birds, 

 too, than any I have seen in the alder thickets of 

 the moorlands. The lark family affect the coast- 

 line in a very noticeable manner ; the skylarks 

 come in regular armies at times, covering the flats, 

 in such a winter as the last, 1890-91 ; they do not 

 stay long, however : buntings come also. The snow- 

 bunting loves dearly the wild, bleak sand-hills and 



