AUGUST 159 



All are agreed that the blackbird is in this respect a 

 much greater offender than the thrush. The black- 

 cap, garden-warbler and whitethroat have a special 

 weakness for raspberries, while a magpie, gobbling 

 furtively, will soon thin the produce of a gooseberry 

 bush. Be it put to the credit of the cuckoo, upon the 

 other hand, that it visits gardens in quest of the 

 saw-fly grub, — a well-known pest which often clears the 

 bushes of every leaf. Nightingales, too, often pay 

 the garden a visit, tempted not so much by the fruit 

 as by the " green fly " and other insects which are to 

 be found amongst the peas and kidney-beans. But 

 we fancy that many nightingales have left us, or at any 

 rate withdrawn towards the coast, by the end of the 

 month. For in August those of our summer birds 

 which are the first to leave are already upon the move. 

 Not only of the cuckoo is it true that " come August, 

 go he must " ; the incoming of the month brings 

 to others their marching orders. While the House 

 Martins congregate in the early mornings to bask 

 on sunny roofs and the Swallows collect on the tele- 

 graph wires as if to choose leaders and make up 

 travelling parties, the sickle-winged Swifts, which 

 screamed round the eaves, have already disappeared, 

 the twentieth of the month marking their average date 

 of departure- Thus, almost the last to come, they 

 are amongst the first to go. How different is the 

 departure of the summer birds as, unmarked, they 



