FLOCKS OF BIRDS 



they were in the corn and stubble. After the nest- 

 ing is well over and the wheat is ripe, the birds 

 leave the hedges and go out into the wheatfields ; 

 at the same time the sparrows quit the house-tops 

 and gardens and do the same. At the very time 

 this complaint was raised, the stubbles in Surrey, 

 as I can vouch, were crowded with small birds. 



If you wallced across the stubble, flocks of hun- 

 dreds rose out of your way ; if you leant on a gate 

 and watched a few minutes, you could see small 

 flocks in every quarter of the field rising and set- 

 tling again. These movements indicated a larger 

 number in the stubble there, for where a great 

 flock is feeding some few every now and then fly 

 up restlessly. Earlier than that in the summer 

 there was not a wheatfield where you could not 

 find numerous wheatears picked as clean as if 

 threshed where they stood. In some places the 

 wheat was quite thinned. 



Later in the year there seems a movement of 

 small birds from the lower to the higher lands. 

 One December day I remember particularly visit- 

 ing the neighbourhood of Ewell, where the lands 

 begin to rise up towards the Downs. Certainly, I 

 have seldom seen such vast numbers of small birds. 

 Up from the stubble flew sparrows, chaffinches, 

 greenfinches, yellowhammers, in such flocks that 

 the low-cropped hedge was covered with them. A 

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