A DORSET DIARY 153 



biology, which so inimitably expands the wonder and 

 enhances the mystery of life, the extinction of a high 

 species by the arbitrary action of man seems terrible 

 to me. A species is "a sort of visible fugue wander- 

 ing about a central theme," and to scratch out a beauti- 

 ful note in it is irreparable. These gaily plumaged 

 bullfinches of mine took short flights, were heavy on 

 the wing, extremely conspicuous both at rest and in 

 motion (the white rump being as plain to the sight in 

 flight as that of the house-martin and greenshank), and 

 not at all wary. Their alarm-cry, too — a low and grate- 

 fully melodious pipe — once heard, cannot fail to be 

 recognized. They were feeding on the haws and the 

 black currants of the wild madder, an abundant ever- 

 green in patches in the south-west, and very conspicuous 

 as it climbs among the naked twigs with its dark berries 

 and whorls of glossy green leaves. That is your bull- 

 finch. He goes about the world, like a wandering 

 minstrel, making colour tunes. 



November 20th. — In a spinney of mixed spindle and 

 dogwood, with yews growing in it (I usually avoid woods, 

 so empty are they of wild life), I believe I saw goldcrests, 

 but I could not be sure, they were so high up. I 

 would I had been, for the goldcrest was all but scratched 

 off the list of the English avifauna in the winter of 

 1916-17.' I flushed a woodcock, the only one I have 

 seen in this part of the country. The wren was singing 

 mightily, and his song took on a kind of enchantment, 

 almost a fantasy among the silent trees — not at all 

 belonging to its normal, bright, busy, work-a-day quality. 

 Thus do birds' songs differ, not only from individual 

 to individual of the same species, but according to the 

 mood of the day, the season of the year, and the 

 character of the place in which they are sung. It is 

 interesting to note how often a bird's song is the 

 precise expression of the bird's temperament — robin, 

 chaffinch, willow-warbler, wren, dunnock, blue-tit, sparrow, 

 linnet, and yellow-hammer, for instance. 



In Mr. Boraston's book {Birds by Land and Sea) 



^ They are, however, recovering, and I have seen them in 

 numbeis since in different parts of the country. 



