146 RETURN OF MIGRATING BIRDS. 



our hedges and copses unperceived. If the weather be 

 bright or warm, their voices are heard ; if gloomy and 

 cold, they will lie secreted till the call of hunger or of 

 love intimates their presence. Though we rarely see 

 these birds in their transits, yet I have at times, on a 

 calm bright evening in November, heard high in the 

 air the redwing and the fieldfare, on progress to a des- 

 tined settlement, manifested by the signal-notes of some 

 leading birds to their scattered followers. These con- 

 ductors of their flocks are certainly birds acquainted 

 with the country over which they travel, their settle- 

 ments here being no promiscuous dispersion : it being 

 obvious that many pairs of birds return to their ancient 

 haunts, either old ones which had bred there, or their 

 offspring. The butcher-bird successively returns to a 

 hedge in one of my fields, influenced by some advantage 

 it derives from that situation, or from a preference to 

 the spot where hatched ; but we have perhaps no bird 

 more attached to peculiar situations than the gray fly- 

 catcher (muscicapa grisola), one pair, or their de- 

 scendants, frequenting year after year the same hole in 

 the wall, or the same branch on the vine or the plum. 

 Being perfectly harmless, and hence never molested, 

 they become 



" Enamor'd with their ancient haunts, 

 and hover round." 



I once knew a pair of these birds bring off two broods 

 in one season from the same nest. This flycatcher 

 delights in eminences. The naked spray of a tree, or 

 projecting stone in a building, or even a tall stick in 

 the very middle of the grass-plot, is sure to attract its 

 attention, as affording an uninterrupted view of its 

 winged prey ; and from this it will be in constant ac- 

 tivity a whole summer's day, capturing its food and re- 

 turning to swallow it. The digestion of some birds 

 must be remarkably rapid, to enable them to receive 

 such constant replenishments of food. The swift and 

 the swallow are feeding from the earliest light in the 

 morning till the obscurity of evening ; the quantities of 

 cherries and raspberries that the blackcap and petti- 



