THE DOWNS. 51 



Of the smaller species to be met with, I should put the Nightjar first. 

 The bird breeds upon the bleak hillsides, which are also, early in August, the 

 favourite haunt of the Silver-spotted Skipper, and is especially to be looked 

 for where a few small thorn bushes stand out upon the downs amidst the 

 remnants of defunct furze-brakes. These patches are generally bare, and 

 have sundry old flints upon them, and the dead sticks of furze themselves 

 closely harmonize with the plumage of the sitting bird. I have also put 

 them up during the daytime from the middle of the road, and more often 

 from the bracken in the copses. 



The ponds which exist here and there upon the downs are the regular 

 rendezvous of many small birds for purposes of ablution, and it is the 

 custom of juvenile fowlers to set limed straws around them in the autumn. 

 Wonderful, indeed, is the variety of a successful afternoon's bag. Wheatears, 

 Pipits, Goldfinches, Linnets, Greenfinches, Buntings, and Wagtails all get 

 entangled in the deadly snare, and after vigorous but unavailing struggles 

 are thrust into the dark box through the leg of an old stocking, which offers 

 the only means of entrance and exit from the gloomy depths of this receptacle. 

 Sometimes the birds are caught outright ; at others they take flight with 

 the fatal straw attached to tail or pinion, and after a few beats the lime 

 adheres to some other part of the body, and the victim falls helpless to the 

 ground. Immediately there is a rush of a ragged figure from the far side 

 of the pond, the captive is seized, released none too gently, and hurried 

 without ceremony into the box. 



Many of the boys, often golf caddies, who engage in this method of 

 bird-catching, exhibit considerable knowledge of the habits and notes of the 

 birds, and one cannot help sympathising with their excitement when 

 some valuable stranger is threading his dangerous path amongst the 

 snares. Wheatears and Buntings are the most difficult to secure ; Green- 

 finches rush blindly to their doom. 



From one of these ponds I once flushed a Redshank in springtime, 

 and once in the autumn a flock of shore birds, probably Grey Plover, 

 passed high over my head. 



At times during the August migration we are visited by some Tree 

 Pipits. I was once enabled to follow a flock of twenty for some miles 

 along a hillside. My attention was attracted by their soft single note, 

 not unlike that of a Spotted Flycatcher, and, on a closer inspection, I 

 saw that they were longer and more tawny than our local Titlark. The 

 light margins of the wing-coverts and tertiaries showed up clearly as 

 they ran along the ground, while the rump appeared uniform at quite a 



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