CHAPTER XX 



Ground-building birds Voles, Mice, and Shrews Carnivorous Goose 

 Welsh names Twites Cuckoos Superstition Plumage of Cuckoo. 



IN a country so closely grazed as this is by sheep during 

 winter, and where all the fields are nearly as bare as the 

 proverbial board before the spring comes round again, the 

 herbage protected between the railway fences offers a 

 welcome harbour to many of the small ground-building 

 birds. And not to habitual ground-builders only ; for 

 even birds like Blackbirds and Thrushes, which usually 

 choose the elevation of a bush for their nests, here com- 

 monly prefer the greater security which the railway enclosure 

 affords, and build either in the ground itself, on a more or 

 less steep bank, or upon some lowly ledge where the 

 obstructing rock has been cut through. In a walk between 

 Llanuwchllyn and Bala, in the course of an afternoon, I have 

 seen as many as half a dozen of their nests so placed, some 

 of them being on the sides of the ditch which usually 

 borders the line, and thus actually below the general surface 

 of the ground. In seeking thus to avoid the undesired 

 attentions of school children, and ruminants, the birds 

 frequently find themselves only escaping the rock Scylla 

 to fall into the whirlpool of Charybdis, their nests upon 

 the ground being always more liable to be raided by 

 weasels, stoats, or mice, than when a more elevated site is 

 selected. Amongst the latter depredators must be included 

 the Voles, both Arvicola agrestis and A. glariolus^ which, 

 though more strictly vegetarian in diet, and less prone to 

 take to arboreal habits than the more nimble Field Mouse 

 (Mus syfoaticus), do not always decline the luxury of eggs to 

 breakfast, when fortune throws them in their way. Shrews 



