88 A BIRD COLLECTOR'S MEDLEY. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

 THE OLD DECOY, EASTBOURNE. 



EASTBOURNE itself is hardly the place one would select for the study of 

 ornithology, though I have known a Red-legged Partridge captured in the 

 College football-field, and seen a Kestrel hovering over it, and a Nightjar 

 fly down Blackwater Road. A Goldfinch, too, was slain with a brick in 

 Carlisle Road, and Wood-Pigeons breed freely in some of the gardens round 

 the Devonshire Park. To one, however, who is desirous of going further 

 afield, there is no lack of interesting places in the neighbourhood. 



In former times the most popular of these places was the Decoy Wood 

 at Willingdon, more familiarly known as " The Decoy." This delightful 

 piece of marshy woodland is now transformed into a public park ; but though 

 the naturalist will fain cry " Ichabod " when he visits it, a short description 

 of its former glories may perhaps on that account be all the more welcome 

 if it catches the eyes of any who happen to have been at school at Eastbourne, 

 and to have known the Decoy in its palmy days. 



You entered the Decoy by one of the numerous gaps in the hedge, and 

 found yourself at once in a species of small birds' paradise, the equal of 

 which I have never seen elsewhere. Timber of all sorts abounded, from the 

 tall elms of the extensive rookery to the delicate sallow and hazel bushes, 

 where the Nightingale concealed her nest. The first patch of brambles was 

 almost sure to produce something, perhaps a Blackcap's or a Whitethroat's 

 nest, and then we stumble on a disused Wren's nest hidden away amidst the 

 moss and ivy that garnish a decaying stump. One always seems to find three 

 abandoned Wrens' nests for every one with eggs, so fastidious or suspicious 

 is the architect of these domed abodes. 



As we get deeper into the thicket, the melodious note of the Nightingale 

 breaks upon the ear. One's first Nightingale's eggs how every schoolboy 

 longs to find them ! How many are the tiring and exasperating hunts among 

 the herbage, while the male bird does his best to muddle you by singing 

 desperately in the adjoining brake. But at last they are found ; our hands, 

 torn by thorns and stung by nettles, have pushed aside the fragile covering, 

 and at the foot of some hazel or sallow bush there lie revealed at length 

 those pale brown eggs. Near Cambridge I once found a clutch dark green 



