MARCH 



A Story of Miration Mediterranean Springs Drought 

 English Skies &quot;Precocious Spring 



I. 



SARCH is much the most exciting of the months ; 

 |and among its special excitements none equals 

 sto the naturalist the search for the first spring 

 visitors. All the village is agog to see the first swallow 

 or first hear the cuckoo. The migrants come like mes 

 sages from the unknown. Some of us were discussing 

 this mysterious way of a bird across the seas when a 

 personal experience was told, the true and perhaps the 

 most unexpected tale of migration in the chronicles. In 

 a Berkshire garden in 1931 a young cuckoo was hatched 

 just before the arrival of a guest who was an ardent 

 &quot; ringer &quot; : one of that increasing company who spend 

 much of their leisure in the early summer in affixing 

 aluminium rings to the legs of likely birds, especially of 

 nestlings. The young cuckoo gave an opportunity not 

 to be resisted. The ring was fixed, and in due season the 

 young cuckoo set forth on his long journey to some quite 

 unknown bourne, was it South ? was it West ? Even the 

 Continent was conjectural. Was it Europe or Asia or 

 Africa ? 



The young cuckoo from Eton was to solve a problem, 

 or a part of a problem, by a not undramatic sacrifice. 

 Just eighteen months later it was seen perched on the 

 bough of a tree by a native of the French Cameroons. 

 He made a stealthy approach and with curious skill killed 



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