ii8 MY NATURE NOTEBOOK. 



able to explain, may become fixed in the south or 

 south-west, and a genial autumn may follow the 

 most treacherous summer that you have known for 

 years, even though the signs all point the other way. 



THE ORDER OF MIGRATION. 



For the cuckoo was not alone in his warning of 

 early winter. The autumn migration of other birds 

 commenced many weeks before its time. The earliest 

 of our migrants are, of course, those which breed 

 within the British Isles. Birds which nest in Arctic 

 regions do not lay their eggs until June, and their 

 young are therefore unfitted for long voyages over 

 land and sea so early in July. Indeed, other things 

 being equal, you can tell by the date on which the 

 first migrants of any species arrive upon our British 

 coasts how far north they have been reared. Birds 

 from the next parish arrive before those from the 

 next county ; and these, again, are far in advance 

 of the voyagers from distant lands. As autumn 

 advances, however, the second broods of British birds 

 become mixed up with the first and only broods of 

 birds which nest in northern lands. 



STARLINGS AND HAWKS. 



But the fact that the earliest migrants come from 

 the shortest distance makes it the more difficult to 

 say when the migration of the season has commenced. 

 The birds of the next parish are our common English 

 birds ; and who shall say whether the thousands of 

 starlings that have been congregating throughout 

 July were reared on this or that side of a county 



