416 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



10th. — Heard the Chiffchaff as I was dressing, and several 

 more about Milcomb gorse later in day. 



11th. — Five Kestrel's eggs, considerably incubated at this 

 early date, were found in Fifield Heath Wood to-day, and shown 

 to me later in the season. 



12th. — Several Willow-Wrens in song, and one Swallow. Put 

 a Crow off her nest high up in the small branches of an elm. 

 Greenfinch feeding on larch-cones. 



13th. — To Watlington for a few days to look at the bird-life of 

 the Chilterns. 



The way in which the chalk downs jut out into the plain- 

 like valley of the Thame, like headlands on the sea-coast, is very 

 curious. They rise in some cases five hundred feet above the 

 plain. Standing on Beacon Hill, and looking north, the hills, 

 thickly wooded at the top, are seen to describe a concave curve to 

 where the bare chalk down of Crowell Hill stretches out into the 

 plain right up to the ancient Icknield (or "Hackney") Way. 

 Inside this curve lies a characteristic bit of the plain ; bare arable 

 fields (whitey-brown this dry weather) with hardly anything in 

 the way of hedges, and those in long straight lines separating 

 farms rather than fields, and no trees save some shelter-trees 

 round the farmhouses. Further from the foot of the hills the 

 country is more wooded. Peewits are fairly numerous on this 

 ground, and the Corn-Bunting is common, as also on the arable 

 land on the hill-tops. Larks are very abundant, and to a less 

 extent on the downs also ; the amount of song in spring is 

 wonderful. 



When any attempt has been made to cultivate the downs it 

 seems to have been generally a failure, and a miserable barren 

 appearance has been produced ; the natural turf having been 

 destroyed, not even a decent growth of weeds can be got. How- 

 ever, it suits Larks, Peewits, and a few Stone Curlews. The 

 tongue of Beacon Hill, mossy and thyme-grown under foot, 

 and thickly dotted with juniper-bushes up to six or seven feet 

 high, is liked by Eed-legged Partridges ; and I have seen 

 a Bullfinch's nest in quite a low juniper-bush on the hills at 

 Chinnor. 



Stonechats are not so common as they were years ago ; I 

 saw four pairs this year. Linnets are very abundant, and 



