WILD BIRDS THROUGH THE YEAR 185 



recalled that I had heard the bird at the beginning 

 of another year in 1905 at Longparish, on the 

 river Test ; when the country was quite white 

 through a light fall of snow. 



What sets my ring dove singing in midwinter when 

 the grass is crisp with white frost or coated with 

 snow ? Next morning he was cooing again in the 

 white fog. I doubt not that what happened in this 

 part of Sussex among birds was happening else- 

 where : ring doves must have been cooing in many 

 places in England soon after dawn on the first day 

 of the year. Later in the morning, when the sky 

 was overcast, and it was cold and cheerless after the 

 sunshine of early morning, I heard a chaffinch not 

 only crying " pink, pink ! " but trying to sing. A 

 wild chaffinch in song on January the first was wholly 

 new for me. This bird, two or three times whilst 

 I was listening, ran through that chaffinch ripple 

 which we value so much on the first mild morning 

 in March. It was feebly rendered, but one could 

 not mistake it. It surprises me as much to hear 

 the chaffinch's ripple at the very start of the year, 

 however feeble it be and low, as to be told of the 

 blackbird's flute in December. 



This chaffinch was a garden, not a woodland or 

 wayside, bird ; I think the earliest chaffinches to 

 sing, like the earliest song-thrushes, and the earliest 

 or latest blackbirds, are those about our homes 

 rather than about wild spots. Fat feeding and good 

 quarters make for music. Besides, these home 

 birds are single or paired ; whereas the finch in the 



