SEPTEMBER. 141 



HALTING TRAVELLERS. 



So while the swift, trailing its lightning broad- 

 arrow streak across the sky, may, with a favouring 

 wind, breakfast in England, dine in France, and at 

 sunset sight the Pyrenees, the little round-winged 

 chiff-chaff, searching for food from covert to covert, 

 or hedge to hedge, may find the way long indeed 

 from Norfolk to Essex. For the swift usually makes 

 a clean job, so to speak, of his migration, finishing it 

 with promptitude and despatch, while the chiff-chaff 

 potters along day after day though he, too, can 

 cover great distances with the north wind behind him 

 and sometimes, when weeks, perhaps, of wandering 

 have brought him to far Cornwall or Devonshire, he 

 elects to stay there for the winter, rather than risk 

 the passage of the widening sea. Blackcaps have, 

 too, it is said, been tempted to remain in secluded 

 English orchards where heaps of apples were left 

 rotting on the ground ; and now and then the whin- 

 chat will prefer to take his chance of an English 

 winter, like his cousin the stonechat. For the same 

 reason, no doubt, that weak-winged wanderer, the 

 corncrake or landrail, often chooses to winter in the 

 south of Ireland rather than cross the sea. 



A CONTRAST IN SPEED. 



One is tempted, however, to exaggerate the 

 differences of birds' flight. Watching the occasional 

 swift who remains into September, wheeling on a 

 higher plane than the circling crowd of house-mar- 

 tins, one sees how easily these arrowy, tireless wings 



