54 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



the cuckoo's mate, or maid, or messenger, the 

 quaint and beautiful wryneck? There are few 

 British birds, perhaps not one not even the 

 crafty black and white magpie, or mysterious 

 moth-like goatsucker, or tropical kingfisher 

 more interesting to watch. At twilight I had 

 lingered at the woodside, also in other likely 

 places, and the goatsucker had failed to appear, 

 gliding and zig-zagging hither and thither on his 

 dusky-mottled noiseless wings, and now this still 

 heavier disappointment was mine. I could not 

 find the wryneck. Those quiet grassy orchards, 

 shut in by straggling hedges, should have had 

 him as a favoured summer guest. Creeper and 

 nuthatch, and starling and gem-like blue tit, found 

 holes enough in the old trunks to breed in. And 

 yet I knew that, albeit not common, he was there ; 

 I could not exactly say where, but somewhere on 

 the other side of the next hedge or field or 

 orchard; for I heard his unmistakable cry, now 

 on this hand, now on that. Day after day I fol- 

 lowed the voice, sometimes in my eagerness 

 forcing my way through a brambly hedge to 

 emerge with scratched hands and clothes torn, like 

 one that had been set upon and mauled by some 



