Cornfield Walls. 299 
After the haymaking in the vale is finished, the 
itinerant families turn towards the lighter soils, where 
the corn crops are fast ripening, and soon leave the 
scene of their former labours fifty miles behind them. 
A few perhaps straggle back in time to assist in the 
latter part of the corn harvest on the heavy lands, if 
it has been delayed by the weather. The physicians 
say that change of air is essential to health: the 
migration of birds may not be without its effect upon 
their lives, quite apart from the search for food 
alone. 
The dry walls which sometimes enclose corn fields 
{built of flat stones) are favourite places with many 
birds.) The yellowhammers often alight on them, so 
do the finches and larks; for the coarse mortar laid 
on the top decays and is overgrown with mosses, so 
that it loses the hard appearance of a wall. When 
the sparrow who has waited till you are close to him 
suddenly starts, his. wings, beating the air, make a 
sound like the string of a bow pulled and released — 
to try it without an arrow. 
The dexterous way in which a bird helps itself to 
thistle-down is interesting to watch. The thistle has 
no branch on which he can perch; he must take it 
on the wing. He flies straight to the head of the 
thistle, stoops as it were, seizes the down, and passes 
on with it in the bill to the nearest bough—much in 
the same way as some tribes of horsemen are related 
¥ 2 
