APRIL. 57 



YOUNG AND OLD. 



That it is the young brood of these partial 

 migrants which travels is clearly shown by the im- 

 mature plumage of the flocks which come to us in 

 early autumn, though most of them, when they return 

 in spring, are resplendent in breeding finery. The 

 autumn starlings are very " brownish " birds, com- 

 pared to the sheeny, speckled creatures which gleam 

 in the spring sunshine. In the autumn flocks of 

 chaffinches there is scarcely one very rosy breast, but 

 before they leave the fields in spring every cock bird 

 is brilliant almost as a bullfinch. Thus we may take 

 it as a general rule in birddom perhaps it may be 

 extended above birds to man himself that the young 

 birds readily travel from home to seek a livelihood 

 in hard times ; whereas the old birds cling to their 

 homes as long as possible, and return to them at 

 the first opportunity. The gulls, for instance, which 

 remain in spring upon the fields along the east coast, 

 are mostly birds in immature plumage, because 

 almost all the old birds have gone back to their 

 homes to breed. It is, no doubt, from this surplus 

 of immature birds that, later in the season, an old 

 bird who happens to lose his mate so quickly finds 

 a new one. 



A NARROWING HORIZON. 



April 10. We see less, though we hear more, of 

 the birds in summer than in winter. In leafless 

 December a bird is almost as conspicuous inside a 

 hedge as out of it ; and when a thrush flies into a 



