34 FROM SPRING TO FALL. 



eyes brown. The upper parts are banded with dark 

 grey-brown and light red, the greater part of the 

 feathers being tipped with reddish-white. The 

 short wings — short compared to what they will be 

 — are mottled much after the same manner. The 

 fore-part and sides of the neck are banded with 

 blackish-brown and white, with a tinge of red. The 

 rest of the lower parts are white with dusky bars ; 

 the feet yellow. 



Nothing amiable can be said about young cuckoos, 

 for as they increase in size they compel their foster- 

 parents to slave for them. They are pugnacious to 

 a degree : if you place your finger near them, they 

 will peck at it and strike with their wings. This is 

 not a peculiarity that belongs to the swallowing 

 parasite alone ; to be just, we must state that the 

 young of the turtle-dove— that emblem of gentle- 

 ness — act in the same way as do the young 

 cuckoos. 



The snipes, or heather-bleaters as they are called, 

 have not yet quite deserted one of those old haunts 

 in Surrey that I know, where at one time they 

 could be seen all the year round in considerable 

 numbers. But in the course of next year, 1895, 



