300 MY COUNTRY WANDERINGS 



" Certainly," I answered, " it is the gay-plumed 

 Chaffinch." I imitate to the best of my ability 

 that well-known Chaffinch song, and it is at once 

 identified by my friend, and, promising to honour 

 me with his pleasant company again on some 

 future occasion, we leave the woodland, listen for 

 a moment or two to the sweet cadences of soaring 

 Larks, and proceed again towards civilisation. 



IV. NOTES ON THE SPRING OF I908 



It is said that one Swallow does not make a 

 Summer, and if the old adage be true (and it must 

 be admitted we have a good deal of faith in it) 

 then it never applied with a greater truism than 

 during the Spring of 1908. True enough, I saw 

 my first 1908 Swallow on Good Friday. Whence 

 he came, and whither he went, I know not. I 

 caught just a passing glimpse of this pleasing 

 feathered ambassador from over-sea, and then he 

 was gone. On the same day I heard for the first 

 time the soft bugle-call of the Chiff Chaff in my 

 favourite copse. He, blithe little herald, has 

 never failed me these many years; but during the 

 memorable season named he must surely have 

 tarried on his journey somewhere in the sunny 

 South, for April's lease had already begun to run 

 out before I heard him. 



Not far away from the Chiif Chaff I espied my 



