THROUGH THE YEAR 129 



wondrous type of wren's nest which I associate 

 largely (though not entirely) with such places ; 

 I mean the nest compact of bits of dead bracken 

 hung somehow in ruined masses of dead bracken. 

 I know such commons wherein every large hassock 

 or thicket seems to harbour a nesting wren in 

 spring and summer. 



The presence or absence of men and their works 

 and buildings seems not to matter at all to wrens. 

 There are other birds of which the same is true, 

 blackbirds, song-thrushes, redbreasts even; but 

 hardly to the same extent. There is one spot, how- 

 ever, where I have long watched the wren with 

 special interest the great wood. Most of our 

 English birds are roamers at some time in the year. 

 Besides the regular migrants, as the warblers, 

 there are many partial migrants which change their 

 haunt once in the season. There is no place which 

 shows this better than a large wood. The song- 

 thrushes, which are found throughout the wood 

 in spring and early summer, disappear in late summer 

 and early autumn. It is not only that we do not 

 hear them sing at these seasons they are not there 

 to sing. I have satisfied myself of this in more 

 than one large, quiet wood. Of the blackbirds I am 

 not so sure, but I believe they thin in numbers at 

 the close of summer, going out into the hedgerows 

 and elsewhere. At the beginning of September 

 I find scarcely any birds in the large wood but ring 

 doves and wrens. Thrushes and missel-thrushes are 

 clean gone ; the very jays are scarce. Yellow-ham- 



