68 Wild Life in Wales 



some reason not very easy to understand, seem very 

 reluctant to colonise new territory. Time after time I have 

 met with a pair, in spring, in situations which, so far as 

 human eye could judge, seemed exactly suited to their 

 requirements, yet more often than not they have not 

 remained for more than a day or two. Just when they 

 appear to be fairly settled, the spirit of restlessness seems 

 to come over them, and they steal off in the night as 

 mysteriously as gipsies. Or in some instances where they 

 have actually remained, and successfully brought off a 

 brood, they have not returned in subsequent years as 

 might have been reasonably expected. I have, however, on 

 the other hand, known cases where new ground has been 

 permanently occupied, and that in more than one county, 

 so that there need be no occasion to despair of success 

 should early efforts fail to induce them to remain. 



Although two broods are not unfrequently reared in a 

 season, and though six or seven is about the usual number of 

 a clutch, the rate of increase with the Pied Flycatcher seems 

 to be always very slow. Perhaps the same remark might 

 be made with equal truth of other birds, yet it is difficult 

 to imagine why so high a death-rate as the problem suggests 

 should prevail amongst them. Comparatively few causes 

 of mortality come under our cognisance, and such evidence 

 as we possess does not seem to point to an abnormally 

 short term of natural life amongst them. Are we, then, to 

 conclude that violent death, or death from misadventure, 

 is of such frequent occurrence in the avine world as the 

 alternative view seems to suggest ? or what becomes of all 

 the young birds ? It is a question that often crops up, but 

 it is one that is not very easy to answer satisfactorily. We 

 are accustomed to think that it is the same pair of Martins 

 that returns year after year to the corner of our windows ; 

 or that they are the same Ravens that have nested in some 

 particular cliff as long as we can remember. One such 

 rock, well known to the writer, has been occupied time out 

 of mind, and is so still, although during the last thirty years 

 scarcely a young Raven has been allowed to fly from it. It 

 has been recorded that "a pair of Pied Wagtails nested 



