240 Wild Life in a Southern County 



CHAPTER XVI. 



NOTES ON BIRDS NIGHTINGALES CHAFFINCHES MIGRATION PACK- 

 ING INTERMARRIAGE PEEWITS CROWS CUCKOOS GOLDEN- 

 CRESTED WREN. 



THE nightingale is one of the birds whose habit of return- 

 ing every year to the same spot can hardly be overlooked 

 by any one. Hawthorn and hazel are supposed to attract 

 them : I doubt it strongly. If there is a hawthorn bush near 

 their favourite resting-place they will frequent it by choice, 

 but of itself it will not bring nightingales. They seem to fix 

 upon localities in the most capricious manner. In this 

 particular district they are moderately plentiful ; yet in the 

 whole of a large parish (some five miles across) they are 

 only found in one place. The wood, which is the roosting- 

 place of all the rooks, large as it is, has but one haunt of 

 the nightingale. Just in one special spot they may be 

 heard, and nowhere else. But having selected a locality, 

 they come back to it as regularly as the swallows. 



In another county in the same latitude there is a small 

 copse of birch which borders a much-frequented road. 

 Here the stream of vehicles and passengers is nearly con- 

 tinuous ; and the birch copse abounds with nightingales in 

 the spring. On one fine morning I counted eight birds 

 singing at once. The young birds seemed afterwards as 

 numerous as the sparrows. Never, in the wildest district 

 I have ever visited, have I seen so many. They had be- 



