276 HAMPSHIRE DAYS 



still mornings I could hear one bird's song very dis- 

 tinctly at a distance of two hundred and fifty yards. 

 The only good description of the cirl bunting's song 

 as well as the best general account of the bird's habits 

 which I have found, is in J. C. Bellamy's Natural 

 History of South Devon (Plymouth and London), 1839, 

 probably a forgotten book. 



The best singer among the British buntings, he is also 

 to my mind the prettiest bird. When he is described 

 as black and brown, and lemon and sulphur - yellow, 

 and olive and lavender-grey, and chestnut-red, we are 

 apt to think that the effect of so many colours thrown 

 upon his small body cannot be very pleasing. But it is 

 not so ; these various colours are so harmoniously dis- 

 posed, and have, in the lighter and brighter hues in the 

 living bird, such a flower-like freshness and delicacy, 

 that the effect is really charming. 



When, hi June, I first visited the cottage, my host 

 took me into his dressing-room, and from it we watched 

 a pair of cirl buntings bring food to their young in a 

 nest in a small cypress standing just five yards from the 

 window. The young birds were in the pinfeather stage, 

 but they were unfortunately taken a very few days later 

 by a rat, or stoat, or by that winged nest-robber the 

 jackdaw, whose small cunning grey eyes are able to see 

 into so many hidden things. 



The birds themselves did not grieve overlong at their 

 loss : the day after the nest was robbed the cock was 

 heard singing and he continued to sing every day from 



