i8 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



not see. It was not ray ambition to make a long list. 

 My greatest desire was to see well those that inter- 

 ested me most. But those who go forth, as I did, to 

 look for birds that are a sight for sore eyes must 

 meet with many a disappointment. In all those 

 fruit and shade trees that covered the village with a 

 cloud of verdure, and in the neighbouring woods, 

 not once did I catch a glimpse of the green wood- 

 pecker, a beautiful conspicuous bird, supposed to be 

 increasing in many places in England. Its absence 

 from so promising a locality seemed strange. Another 

 species, also said to be increasing in the country, 

 the turtledove, was extremely abundant. In the 

 tall beech woods its low, monotonous crooning note 

 was heard all day long from all sides. In shady 

 places, where the loud, shrill bird-voices are few, 

 one prefers this sound to the set song of the wood- 

 pigeon, being more continuous and soothing, and 

 of the nature of a lullaby. It sometimes reminded 

 me of the low monotone I have heard from a Pata- 

 gonian mother when singing her " swart pappoose " 

 to sleep. Still, I would gladly have spared many of 

 these woodland crooners for the sake of one magpie 

 — ^that bird of fine feathers and a bright mind, which 

 I had not looked on for a whole year and now hoped 

 to see again. But he was not there ; and after I had 

 looked for myself, some of the natives assured me 

 that no magpie had been seen for years in that wood. 



