LATE LINGEEEES. 5 



summer migrants that have not departed southwards are a few 

 Swallows, to be seen along the banks of the river, and two or 

 three lazy Martins that may cling for two or three weeks longer 

 to their favourite nooks about the buildings of Merton and 

 Magdalen. Last year (1884) none of these stayed to see 

 November, so far as I could ascertain ; but they were arrested 

 on the south coast by a spell of real warm weather, where the 

 genial sun was deluding the Eobins and Sparrows into fancying 

 the winter already past. In some years they may be seen on 

 sunny days, even up to the end of the first week of November, 

 hawking for flies about the meadow-front of Merton, probably 

 the warmest spot in Oxford. White of Selborne saw one as 

 late as the 20th of November, on a very sunny warm morning, 

 in one of the quadrangles of Christchurch. 



It is at first rather sad to find silence reigning in the thickets 

 and reed-beds that were alive with songsters during the summer 

 term. The familiar pollards and thorn-bushes, where the Willow- 

 warblers and Whitethroats were every morning to be seen or 

 heard, are like so many desolate College rooms in the heart of 

 the Long Vacation. Deserted nests, black and mouldy, come to 

 light as the leaves drop from the trees — nurseries whose children 

 have gone forth to try their fortune in distant countries. But 

 we soon discover that things are not so bad as they seem. The 

 silence is not quite unbroken : winter visitors arrive, and the 

 novelty of their voices is cheering, even if they do not break 

 into song ; some kinds are here in greater numbers than in the 

 hot weather, and others show themselves more boldly, emerging 

 from leafy recesses in search of food and sunshine. 



