16 The Naturalist in Siluria 



1881 they reappeared thickly over the sward, and ever 

 since there has been a nightly renewal of them. 



In the ornithological world these alternations are 

 equally observable. The blackbird and song-thrash lead 

 an undisturbed life in my grounds, where for years past, 

 during their season of song, there was no day, scarce even 

 an hour, without tbe strain of one or the other being 

 heard. But, strange to say, throughout the spring and 

 summer of 1881 it was something unusual to hear the 

 note of either merle or mavis ; all the stranger, from the 

 fact of both birds seeming to be about in even more than 

 their usual numbers. 



The yellow-hammer is known to be a gregarious bird; 

 but, so far as I have observed, oftener consorting with 

 other species than exclusively with its own kind ; even 

 then being in the minority, its lemon-coloured crest and 

 breast appearing in an assemblage of other fringittidw 

 but as one to five or six. In the autumn of 1881, how- 

 ever, and up till now, I have frequently observed flocks 

 of yellow-hammers, numbering two to three dozen indi- 

 viduals, in various places, and quite apart from birds of 

 other species, their abundance seeming to me as strange 

 as this segregation. 



If we turn to the starlings, we find a like variation at 

 different periods of time. During the breeding season 

 of the years 1878-79-80, after the eggs had been hatched, 

 a glance cast skyward above my house and grounds was 

 almost sure of being rewarded by the sight of a starling 

 on return to its nest with a grub in its beak, or taking 

 departure therefrom in quest of another. Yet in 1881 

 these journeyings to and fro were so seldom witnessed 

 that it seemed as if this, one of our commonest birds, had 

 become a rara avis ! 



