ORIGINAL SKETCHES OF BRITISH BIRDS. 207 



with which not a little of the popular literature of the every-day 

 bird-life of our islands is overburdened. 



The song of the Whinchat is not unlikely to escape notice 

 amidst the conflicting strains of various warblers, and, even if 

 heard, may easily be mistaken by careless listeners for that of 

 the Redstart. There is a peculiar harshness, not by any means 

 unpleasing, about it ; but, though I am very familiar with it, and 

 never deem a few minutes' delay in order to listen to it as time 

 ill-spent, I have presence of mind enough to know how feeble 

 most attempts are that aim at reducing the songs of birds to 

 writing. Syllables suggestive of the call-notes are all very well and 

 frequently instructive, as, for instance, the late Mr. Seebohm's 

 felicitous rendering of the Lesser Redpoll's call-note by the 

 French word henri ; nevertheless, attempts to give the full song 

 of a bird on paper must more often than not end in fiasco. That 

 of the Whinchat is interspersed with some beautiful flute-like 

 strains, but the harsher tones predominate in the refrain which 

 is not disappointingly curtailed, and is repeated again and again 

 from some elevated perch where the performer takes up a con- 

 spicuous position on the topmost twig for minutes together. The 

 performance is usually accompanied by a fanning motion of 

 the tail. 



My impression is that Whinchats' nests need not be looked 

 for much before the end of the second week in May ; my earliest 

 recorded date is on May i2th for the first egg, and some other 

 dates run thus: May 21st, May 26th, May 27th, May 28th, and 

 May 29th ; and it is partly on this account — late nesting — that I 

 decline to accept the apparently irresponsible statement that the 

 species rears two broods every year. The young of the first nest 

 cannot be taught to provide for themselves all in a moment, and 

 though some birds undoubtedly have two or three broods in the 

 course of a summer, they are chiefly those that nest in our 

 gardens and orchards, and whose young are out of the first-laid 

 eggs before some of the migrants have reached our shores. 

 Again, if these alleged second broods were so common, the males 

 would surely treat us to a second edition of their May concert in 

 June, which, as a matter of fact, they do not. Towards the end 

 of this latter month, to my mind, it is quite melancholy to take 

 a stroll through the woods — almost every voice is hushed. 



