200 [Proc. B.N.F.C, 



food into its mouth, as is done by a thrush or a finch. The 

 necessity for this is obvious, for were birds which breed on 

 the ground obliged to feed their young when they are 

 hatched, the latter would be speedily found out by terrestrial 

 enemies, by sight and smell, and devoured. Once they are 

 hatched their mother leads them from the nest to feeding 

 grounds, and conceals them among herbage. On an alarm 

 the downy little ones separate and squat, without moving, on 

 the ground, where their colour and appearance make them 

 resemble tufts of moss or lumps of peat. And we may now 

 understand why plovers and sandpipers lay such large eggs 

 that four fill the nest exactly. It is necessary that their young 

 should attain a higher stage of development before they 

 break their shells than the little finches or thrushes, for the 

 former must at once be fit to travel in search of their food and 

 to follow their mother out of danger. Turning now to the habits 

 of the parent birds, it is found that each species has its own 

 breeding-season, which suits the time when there will be a 

 food supply for its young and other suitable conditions. In 

 February and early March the herons and ravens lay; in late 

 March and the beginning of April the rook, the thrush, and 

 the peregrine falcon lay; late in April the chaffinch and the 

 cormorant; early in May the swallows and the herring-gulls; 

 later in May warblers nest inland and guillemots lay on the 

 cliffs ; in early June, when insect life is numerous, the' fly- 

 catcher and the nightjar lay; and late in June the corn- 

 bunting nests in the fields, the terns on marine islets, and the 

 storm petrels in burrows and crevices in the rocks. The 

 attachment of a pair of birds to the same site year after year 

 is not diminished by the immense distances that some have to 

 travel to their winter quarters. Thus the martin returns, 

 after wintering in Africa, to breed in the globe of mud it has 

 built under our eaves. I have known of a nightjar shot off 

 her eggs, and the next year young nightjars were hatched 

 within three feet of the spot, probably the offspring of the 

 widowed bird by a second mate. This sort of thing is not un- 

 common. A pair of merlins will nest on the same bank in the 



