HARBINGERS 



THOUGH the chiff-chaff has not come yet, signs are 

 plenty that the diastole has begun that sets half the 

 birds of the earth fluttering over unmeasured dis- 

 tances of land and sea. Expansion is the law of 

 spring. The starling flocks have split into family 

 parties, and these are shedding happy pairs, first 

 claimants to eligible knot-holes in beech or elm, or 

 to builders' carelessnesses in the walls of our dwelling- 

 houses. The rickyards, lately congested with finches 

 and buntings, have scattered their guests among the 

 hedgerows. The tit bands have burst with a blaze 

 of nuptial colour. 



Nobody knows, or ever will know, how much the 

 individuals of our resident species change ground in 

 autumn and spring. It is easy enough to follow the 

 seasonal migrations of a few of them, such as the 

 plover, heron, and kestrel, which wholly disappear 

 from their summer haunts and come back en masse 

 shortly before nesting-time ; not so easy to say which 

 is the chaffinch that has been on hand in a far field 

 all the winter and which is the one that has just 

 returned from the rickyard. But we marked the 

 day last January when the wagtail, absent since late 

 October, began again to be seen about the farmyard. 



