CHAPTER V. 



BIRD-LIFE IN FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



THE abundance of small birds in Devonshire 

 can be largely attributed to the exceptional 

 quantity of cover of all kinds. The luxuriance 

 of vegetation in this favoured south-western 

 county is proverbial, the mild equable climate 

 and the humid conditions producing an excess 

 of verdure. Nowhere in the country are the 

 fields greener (we had almost said as green), the 

 hedgerows more dense and luxuriant. Devon- 

 shire is essentially a grazing county a vast 

 chess-board of green pastures and red earth 

 fields, threaded by an endless maze of secluded 

 lanes, and marked off from one another by 

 hedgerows so dense and matted and luxuriant 

 as to form unrivalled retreats and nesting places 

 for birds. In summer these fields ?and hedgerows 

 abound with a migrant population, while in 



