CHAPTER VI 



How to tell Birds on the Wing 



" I can tell a hawk from a bemshaw." 



Shakespeare. 



The small perching-birds and the difficulty of distinguishing them — The 

 wagtails — The finches — ^The buntings — ^The redstart, wheatear, and stonechat — 

 The thrushes — ^The warblers — ^The tit-mice — ^The nuthatch and tree-creeper — ^The 

 spotted flycatcher — The red-backed shrike — Swallows, martins, and swifts — 

 The nightjar — Owls — Woodpeckers. 



THE experienced ornithologist apart, there are hosts of 

 people who are interested, at least, in our native birds : 

 who woiild fain call them all by name ; yet who can distin- 

 guish no more than a very few of our commonest species. 

 They are constantly hoping to find some book which wiU 

 give, in a wojrd, the " Hall-mark " of every bird they may 

 meet in a day's march. But that book wiU never be written. 

 For some species present no outstanding features by which 

 they may be certainly identified, when no more than a 

 momentary examination is possible, and this at a distance. 

 And it is often extremely difficult to set down in words, 

 exactly, what are the reasons for deciding that some rapidly 

 retreating form belongs to this, or that, species. 



n 



