^42 Wild Life in a Southern County 



ing each other, and the fowler takes advantage of it to 

 snare them. Now this man said that these chaffinches 

 sold for 6s. the dozen, and that when the birds were ' on,' 

 as he called it, he could catch five dozen a day. In a walk 

 of four or five miles I passed half-a-dozen such fellows, 

 with cages and stuffed chaffinches. This alone proves that 

 cock chaffinches are very numerous in spring. Where, 

 then, are they in winter, if the flocks of chaffinches at that 

 period consist almost exclusively of female birds ? Pro- 

 bably they fly in small bodies of three or four, or singly, 

 and so escape observation. But this division of the sexes 

 presents a curious resemblance to the social customs dis- 

 covered amongst certain savages. During the winter the 

 birds separate, and the females ' pack.' In the spring the 

 males appear, and, after a period of fighting for the mastery, 

 pair, and the nests are built. After the young are reared, 

 song ceases, and the old haunts are deserted. This summer 

 I was much struck with this partial migration, perhaps 

 the more so because observed in a fresh locality. 



During the spring and summer I daily followed a road 

 for some three miles which I had found to pass through a 

 district much frequented by birds. The birch coppice so 

 favoured by nightingales was that way ; and, by the bye, 

 the wrynecks were almost equally numerous; and the 

 question has occurred to me whether these birds are com- 

 panions, in a sense, of the nightingale, having noticed 

 them in other places to be much together. All spring and 

 summer the hedges, coppices, brakes, thickets, furze lands, 

 and cornfields abounded with bird life. About the middle 

 of August there was a notable decrease. Early in Septem- 

 ber the places previously so populous seemed almost de- 

 serted ; by the middle of the month quite deserted. 



There were no chaffinches in the elms or in the road. 



