BIRDS AND THEIR VOYAGES 81 



package. Sometimes he will drop off the disc to a 

 stem of one of the coarse, fading leaves, and draw out 

 the kernel there, to flit up at the disc again a minute 

 later for another nut. Two, even three, titmice blue 

 and black bonnets mixed may cling at the same 

 time to a disc; it is worth growing such a coarse 

 thing as a giant sunflower to see this mixture. Every 

 movement is natty, every note quick and sharp. I 

 have watched a pair of chiff-chaffs in a tree by the 

 sunflower bed hunting for food, and the contrast 

 between titmouse and warbler has been very striking. 

 The chiff-chaff can be fleet, fleet as a thought, when 

 it will. See the pair chasing or toying with each 

 other for a few seconds they will whip round the 

 tree, or in and out among the branches, fast as tit- 

 mouse ever travelled. They can take an insect in the 

 air, above their tree, deftly and sure as the wagtail 

 takes insects just above the grass ; or several insects 

 at each flight, turning from side to side in short and 

 swift jerks, like the wagtail. For all this, the restless- 

 ness of the chiff-chaff is almost restful compared with 

 the marsh titmouse. The chiff-chaff has elegance : a 

 titmouse was never elegant. The chiff-chaff, warbler- 

 like, gives the idea of frailty: a titmouse looks a 

 tough, tight birdlet, not to be buffeted much by wind 

 or weather. 



To realise what an essential feature of autumn is 

 the redbreast one should go among the high moorland 

 farms in a more northern county, such as Derbyshire. 



