134 THE NIGHTJAR: OR FERN OWL. 



owl, nuthatch, and hawfinch. On many 

 evenings, when taking a two hour walk, I used 

 to make a list of the different species seen from 

 door to door; and found that it compared 

 favourably in the matter of numbers with walks 

 in far more distant places. 



All the borders and approaches to these woods 

 are haunted by nightingales, thus making a 

 walk, after ten o'clock on a calm May evening, 

 a pleasure to look forward to. 



At intervals during the day, especially in the 

 afternoon, the birds sing freely in the tangled 

 sides of Woodstock Lane, between Long-Ditton 

 and Claygate, their nests being only too readily 

 found I hope this is not adding to the know- 

 ledge of nest robbing boys in the nettle-covered 

 banks of the broad ditches skirting the road. 

 Even until the young are hatched they will 

 continue their song; although it is never so full 

 or intense after the eggs are laid. An angler 

 may take the nightingale's song as a prelude 

 to mayfly fishing. He will recall listening to 

 the nightingales answering one another, as he 

 sat on a hatch stile in the moonlight on his 

 way back to the cottage, and link it with the 

 capture of a fine brace of trout, hardly stiff in 

 his creel, taken on an alder or a Welshman's 

 button. 



Similarly, from an angling point of view, one 

 may always regard the nightjar as a bird of 

 good omen. On a fine open stretch of the 

 Itchen, where a narrow peninsula faces due west, 

 I can associate many a splendid splashing in 



