BIRD-HAUNTED LONDON 99 



if the weather keeps open and humid, but let a cold 

 snap occur and the numbers of the starlings are 

 dwindled, some of them no doubt going overseas 

 without more ado, while other species spring into 

 notice like mushrooms. I have been out one day 

 and seen a meagre sprinkling of wagtails, larks, green- 

 finches, chaffinches and pipits, and gone out three or 

 four days later with winter snatching autumn roughly 

 to his embrace, to find ten and twenties for pairs. 

 Autumn repulses her Esau, and the birds are back 

 in their original numbers. By December the larks 

 are assembled in thirties and forties, and the pipits 

 running and fluttering over the weedy patches. Should 

 a frost dig its nails in hard, they will make for the 

 river and pick about among the stones and mud like 

 their cousins, the rock-pipits on the seashore.' Dun- 

 nocks prefer holding on to the allotments and the 

 apology for a hedge round the orchard, and even 

 adventuring among the virgin forests of artichoke in 

 default of more congenial surroundings. I become 

 more and more convinced of the elasticity of bird- 

 life and readiness to change its habits when occasion 

 demands. Among the higher animals, instinct, un- 

 coupled by a vigilant intelligence, would poorly serve 

 the needs of daily life. I once was present at an 

 upheaval in the mild dunnock world, when half a 

 dozen of them assembled to shoo a cat away in a 

 chorus of alarm-cries. The cat yielded the field to 

 the reinforcement of my little red dog, and one of 

 the vicarious victors at once burst into song, less in 

 triumph than relief, albeit a savage east wind was 

 sweeping the plain. 



Apart from the skylarks, the kindest sight among 

 the small birds hereabouts are the greenfinches and 

 wagtails. Now and again I have seen as many as 

 thirty of the former in a single flock, undulating 

 through the air and uttering their glad, inflected 



^ The pipits pair as early as February, though they do not 

 remain to nest ; and the larks, if the weather is not too severe, 

 disband about the middle of the same month. " Internal rhythms " 

 respond to " external periodicities." 



