232 ANNALS OF BIRD LIFE. 



is over much longer than others. It is also worthy 

 of remark how many of the accidental visitors to 

 this country have been shot out of flocks of very 

 different species : the Red-breasted Goose among 

 the Brent and Bernacle Geese, and the White- 

 winged Lark among the Snow Buntings may be 

 cited as cases in point. 



I know of few things more pleasing at this 

 time of year than to stand and watch the move- 

 ments of these mixed congregations of bird life, 

 say, as the sun goes down behind the distant hills, 

 setting the painted woods aflame, and glinting 

 on the branches of the forest monarchs, causing 

 the bark of the fir trees to glow like purple fire ; 

 or on the moors or mud-flats at break of day. 

 Ah, those autumn mornings and evenings! How 

 I love them ! What stirring scenes among the 

 birds I can recall ; what stores of notes I made ! 

 How vividly some of them return ; incidents of 

 twenty years ago, among what were peaceful fields 

 and wooded valleys then, but now, alas, the busy 

 centre of a score industries. All those mighty 

 trees, where the Rooks and Ring Doves bred, 

 have bowed their noble heads before the axe ; all 

 the brushwood and the thickets and close-set 

 hedgerows, where the Warblers and Finches 

 nested, are gone ; all the tangled ditches and 

 hollows, sacred to the Grasshopper Lark, and the 

 Jack Snipe, levelled away! Reader, pardon this 

 digression ; but to write on bird congregations is to 

 bring back from the past a whole train of memories 



