140



The Lady William Cecil,



place. In nearly every pine in the more open country the little

“ Chouette ” (Scops) Owl may be heard calling in high-pitched

voices, “ ay-oo,” “ ay-oo,” to his neighbours. On the hill-side, or

near the cultivated farm-lands, a Hen Harrier; or the rarer Lanner

Falcon circles and swoops, or a Sparrow Hawk hovers and drops on

its unsuspecting prey.


There are literally hundreds of Magpies, who chatter con¬

tinually from March to June, after that, like the good little girls in

the nursery rhyme, they are generally “ seen and not heard.” The

Chouettes too are nearly silent in the summer.


In the mountains, Ravens croak and flap their sable wings

and I have seen Jackdaws at Rocquebrune, but they are rare and I

think only stragglers.


Perhaps the most numerous of all our bird-neighbours in the

spring and early summer are the Nightingales, from sunset to dawn,

and often too in the daytime, they sing, and sing, and sing ; and at


night close to our windows,


“ Philomel with melody,


Sing in our sweet lullaby.”


sometimes so loudly, and so constantly that they keep us awake

while they hold their concerts, and “ one cannot choose but hear ! ”

I think the same pairs often return to their old nesting-places, and

the male bird sings from the same branch to his mate as she sits

snug on her nest in the long grass below. For several years we

knew one Nightingale with a little “ catch ” in his voice, who sang

every evening and most of the night in a tree close to the house,

near the dining-room window. Last year he was there again, and all

April, and for the first two weeks in May he bravely sang '* Jug, jug,

jug ! ” but finished his melody with a tiny squeak, which seemed

more pronounced each day ; aud one morning we found him under

the tree, quite dead ! If one may judge by claws and bill he must

have been a very old bird.


On opening your windows some morning in early April, you

may hear ‘ Hoo, Hoo, Hoo,’ oft repeated, then you know that the

Hoopoes have arrived, and a few minutes walk will take you to the

tree where the first pair invariably rest on their journey from the

South to this district. The Hoopoes stay with us all the summer,

and if warm weather continues, sometimes to the middle of October



