ROUND A LONDON COPSE W^^K 



flooded the corner. It cost half a sovereign to 

 repair the damage, but it did not matter; the star- 

 lings had been happy. It has been a disappoint- 

 ment this year not to listen to their eager whistling 

 and the flutter of their wings as they vibrate them 

 rapidly while hovering a moment before entering 

 their cavern. A pair of house-martins, too, built 

 under the eaves close to the starling's nest, and 

 they also disappointed me by not returning this 

 season, though the nest was not touched. Some 

 fate, I fear, overtook both starlings and house- 

 martins. 



Another time it was the season of the lapwings. 

 Towards the end of November (1881), there 

 appeared a large flock of peewits, or green plovers, 

 which flock passed most of the day in a broad, 

 level ploughed field of great extent. At this time 

 I estimated their number as about four hundred ; 

 far exceeding any flock I had previously seen in 

 the neighbourhood. Fresh parties joined the main 

 body continually, until by December there could 

 not have been less than a thousand. Still more 

 and more arrived, and by the first of January (i 882) 

 even this number was doubled, and there were 

 certainly fully two thousand there. It is the habit 

 of green plovers to all move at once, to rise from 

 the ground simultaneously, to turn in the air, or to 

 descend and all so regular that their very wings 

 -183- 



