SEPTEMBER 161 



widgeon. Shovellers are more frequent also, as is 

 natural when the food lies spread over the surface, and 

 in 1919 I noted for the first time a pair of pintails. 

 The weed seems to suit the taste of other creatures 

 than birds, for I have often seen cattle browsing upon 

 it in the shallows of a Hampshire chalk stream. Even 

 upon anglers a visitation of Elodea is not an unmiti- 

 gated evil, for it takes such complete possession of 

 the water as permanently to choke out, or at least 

 into insignificance, such troublesome weeds as Myrio- 

 phyllum. 



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September gales have tarnished the woodland with 

 russet and amber, though sheltered glades T ne Night- 

 still preserve their virginal verdure. Autumn J ar 

 has laid a gentle touch upon the flower-borders, where 

 Nature has lulled many of her fairest children into 

 their winter sleep. She has dismissed swifts, cuckoos, 

 and nightingales to sunnier lands ; but still 15th 

 September the nightjar lingers proof that there is 

 no shortage of night-flying insects as yet. I flushed 

 one of these beautiful birds yesterday in a heathery 

 glade among the pines. Would that its habits and 

 blameless character were more generally understood 

 than was the case fifty years ago, when it figured so 

 frequently in the gamekeeper's list of vermin under a 

 variety of aliases. To quote a single instance, it is 

 recorded in the annals of a certain moorland shooting 

 in the south-west of Scotland that the keepers destroyed 

 thirty-three fern-owls in the seasons 1850 to 1854, in 



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