Getting Ready 



seen the process described, and even of bird-lovers 

 but few, I fancy, notice it ; so it may not be amiss 

 to put it dov?n here. It is usually in the first week 

 of February that I catch the first feeble effort, on 

 some sunny morning in the Broad Walk at Oxford ; 

 but if the weather is fine I listen even earlier, and 

 this year I heard the welcome sound on 31st 

 January in the same place. To show how a single 

 warm day will produce the same effect in different 

 places, I may mention that a letter but just now 

 received tells me that it was on the same morning 

 that the Chaffinch began to sing at Cheltenham. Mr. 

 E. J. Lowe, writing from Chepstow to Nature, a short 

 time ago, stated that his chaffinches never quite 

 dropped their song all this last warm winter ; and 

 in South Wales I have heard a fragmentary version 

 of it as early as 18th January. 



Very fragmentary indeed is it when I first hear 

 it at Oxford. Let me explain it by a comparison 

 which may be startling, but is none the less useful. 

 Some of my younger friends who have learnt a song 

 or two from me know the Chaffinch as " the bowling 

 bird," because the only strain it can sing resembles 

 the normal action of a bowler at cricket. Two 

 slowish steps, three or four quicker ones, and a 

 delivery made with some effort, describe fairly the 

 bowler's action ; two slowish notes, three or four 

 quicker ones, and a jerk or twist of the voice — a 



