126 Railway Birds and Flowers 



track ; and the multiplication of railways through 

 the length and breadth of the land has widened 

 travel and encouraged the formation of new com- 

 munities among birds as well as men. 



The traveller by train has, as a rule, little sus- 

 picion of the unusual wealth of bird-life which is 

 concentrated upon the railway line at many points 

 of his journey. The familiar onrush of the engine 

 creates no betraying panic ; and not one bird in 

 four is to be seen by the swiftly passing eye. But 

 none the less there are certain birds which are so 

 often seen posted on the telegraph wires or the 

 hedges by the side of the line that they form 

 a special group of railway acquaintances, and can 

 be looked for with confidence year by year in their 

 haunts. The species vary to a considerable extent 

 in different types of country ; but each of them is 

 constantly visible within its own limits, though 

 little may be seen of many other of the birds which 

 are nesting simultaneously on the same overgrown 

 slopes. The yellowhammer is one of the common- 

 est birds which thus stand sentinel over the railway ; 

 its nest is found on the whole face of the embank- 

 ment, both on the drier upper slopes where the 

 larks and whinchats breed, and among the ranker 

 swards of luxuriant vegetation by the ditch or 

 stream. The tree and meadow-pipits are often 

 to be seen by the line, and both are glad to nest 

 on the embankment in the shelter of rough herbage 

 and brushwood. When the whinchat has settled 

 on the same waste slopes, his buff breast and 

 dark, conspicuous cheek-stripe frequently catch the 



