246 AUTUMN FLOWERS 



flights are the progeny of parents blown hither from 

 the Continent in spring. But the visits of the clouded 

 yellow seem to be getting more frequent : we had this 

 fine insect in abundance all over Britain in 1892, again 

 in 1895, last year in smaller numbers, and now once 

 more, in 1897, it is dancing over the turnip fields in 

 the west of Scotland. Is it possible that it has come 

 to stay, and may hereafter be reckoned among our 

 resident species ? 



More obvious to casual observers than the signs of 

 departing summer offered by insects are those apparent 

 in the annual movement of the bird population. The 

 cuckoos and nightjars have departed; but just now the 

 land is full of innumerable wheatears leisurely moving 

 south. Every cyclist must surely have noticed those 

 charming birds, flitting among the roadside fence, 

 perching in front of him, whisking off with a flourish of 

 gleaming white tails at his approach, to alight again only 

 to repeat the same manoauvre times without number. 

 Here, in Scotland, the wheatear has nothing to fear 

 from man ; a nation of farmers ought to be only too glad 

 to welcome flocks of this beneficent insect-eater, but I 

 am afraid a heavy toll is taken when the flight reaches 

 lower latitudes. The shepherds of the South Downs 

 snare hundreds of them for the market. Yarrell quotes 

 the Linnean Society as authority for the statement 

 that upwards of a thousand have been taken in a single 

 day by one shepherd, and in Pennant's time the annual 

 bag near Eastbourne was reckoned at twelve thousand. 

 Still, it cannot be said that there is any apparent 



