MARCH. 49 



The love note of the Partridge is a curious one, I must 

 confess. It disturbed a couple spooning this morning by the hedge- 

 side. It is quite impossible to write a description of the note. 

 It is a deep, complaining sort of guttural note. That is the best 

 I can do. 



The Song Thrush's nest I reported on the llth March, as ready 

 for eggs, I again visited to-day. It contained four eggs! The other 

 nest referred to in my diary of the same date turns out now to be 

 another Song Thrush's, and not a Blackbird's; and this, too, is now 

 ready for eggs. These are two of the earliest nests of this bird that I 

 have ever found, especially as t the season this year is by no means 

 early. 



How glad it makes one feel to again see those beautiful blue 

 eggs, ink spotted over; it spurs one on for brighter days. 



The Nuthatch was to be seen at work on the tall trees skirting a 

 drive. What a curious zig-zag sort of flight it possesses! I watched 

 a pair of Mute Swans on a farm pond to-day; they looked cold and 

 miserable, and by no means in the best of tempers. One or other of 

 them, and sometimes both, had a leg right across the back is not 

 the structure of a Swan's leg very wonderful to enable it to do this ? 

 as if resting it, and with the head nestled in the wing looked a picture 

 of abject misery. 



I wathed a Chaffinch flitting on and off the rails of the cattle- 

 pens. What an example of animal intelligence! The wee little bird 

 went within an inch or two of a great black, fierce-looking Bullock 

 time after time, and the only living things it seemed to be frightened 

 of were my friend and myself studying it through the glasses. 



Ice on troughs frozen; the cattle in the fields came up and broke 

 the ice, and quaffed to their hearts' content. 



Yellow Bunting singing "A little bit of bread, and no cheese." 

 Many Rooks dibbing on some land sown with Winter Oats. Were 

 they after the grain or the grub? The bailiff with whom I 

 rambled to-day signified his \ disapproval by firing at "the black 

 devils." He owned, however, that for the most part Rooks are 

 highly beneficial birds. 



The number of Song Thrushes about to-day, extraordinary; they 

 cropped up at every turn. Much more prevalent then Blackbirds. 

 Wood Pigeons "flopping" through the tall Firs; Lapwings on the 

 pasture lands, wheeling round and crying "Peewit." Green Wood- 



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