282 Wild Life in Wales 



i6th. A few Tree Pipits, many more next day ; a party 

 of five or six Reed Buntings, all males. Three Stonechats 

 near the village, curiously enough two of them being 

 females. In 1 906, quite a number, some dozens altogether, 

 of cock Stonechats arrived on 5th March, not a single 

 female amongst them, but accompanied by the single male 

 Whinchat noticed below. The Stonechats remained together, 

 scattered over the fields in little parties of from half a dozen 

 to twice that number, till near the beginning of April, after 

 which, females having arrived, they began to disperse. 

 They were all in brilliant plumage, with very red breasts, 

 and their white epaulets so clean as to be suggestive of 

 Pied Flycatchers as they flitted about from stone to stone, 

 or from pillar to post. A single male Wheatear ; a number 

 of Grey Wagtails, all in pairs. At the lake, a large flock of 

 Black-headed Gulls ; and a single Redshank, 1 which remained 

 there alone, until the 6th April, when two others arrived, 

 and a day or two later one pair had taken up their position 

 in the field in which they nested ; not till a week later did a 

 fourth bird arrive, and a second pair establish themselves. 

 These two pairs were the only Redshanks which nested here 

 this season. Over fifty Wigeons still on the lake with 

 other ducks. Weather wet and stormy, with westerly 

 winds, which have prevailed for the last few days. 



lyth. Still very stormy, a single loud clap of thunder 

 two nights ago, and to-day I saw an old ash tree on the side 

 of the lake at Llangowr, which the lightning had struck. 

 A single strip of bark had been torn off, from near the top 

 of the trunk to the ground, and lay shivered and scattered 

 around, but the tree not apparently otherwise damaged. 

 There was no visible mark on the exposed wood, and the 

 tree came into leaf in due course. The bared strip showed 

 at first a narrow and tortuous course ; but near the ground 

 it became a full span in width, and quite straight. 



A Robin's nest in the garden with one egg, well in the 



1 The Redshank in Welsh becomes Goesgoch ; the Greenshank, Goeswerdd ; 

 the Golden Plover, Cwtiad-yr-aur, etc. ; Cwtiad, or Cwtyn^ Rhostog, and 

 Brondddr twynau are applied to plovers generally ; the Lapwing being 

 distinguished as Cornicyll, Cornchiviglen, Chwilgorn-y-gwynt, and Gwai-Ji, 

 " woe is me," a name arising from its melancholy cry. 



