The Coming of the Birds 41 



hills and open ground, though wheatears prefer 

 tracts of smooth turf, and whinchats some bed of 

 dense furze or rough slopes sprinkled with thistles 

 and fennel. Stonechats are partial migrants which 

 often reappear in their summer haunts in early 

 April, from winter quarters in sheltered valleys or 

 on the coast ; and they too scrape out a thin moor- 

 land tune which is seldom heard after April. Pied 

 flycatchers occasionally appear in the south of 

 England in the second half of April, passing on to 

 their usual breeding quarters in Wales and the north- 

 western counties. They are always scarce, except 

 in the circumscribed spots where they nest, and are 

 seldom seen in the east and south except on passage. 

 The cock pied flycatcher is parti- coloured like a mag- 

 pie, and is a far more striking bird at first sight than 

 the sober spotted flycatcher, which all through the 

 summer haunts our gardens. As the pied flycatcher 

 reaches its breeding quarters it grows restless, and 

 searches for its mate in the woods and spinneys ; 

 it utters a thin, mouse-like cry as it flits from bough 

 to bough, and sometimes breaks into a snatch of 

 song which recalls the redstart's. 



Nightingales are shyer birds than whitethroats, 

 whose haunts they often share when they are not 

 too dry and open ; and they wait till fuller cover 

 shoots in the fringes of the thickets before settling in 

 their English haunts. They come, as a rule, about a 

 week later than the whitethroat, though the interval 

 is not so long in the south-eastern counties, where 

 they first enter England. Later migrants follow at 

 their appointed time, when their appropriate food 



