1919.] REPORTS. 167 



lines from the writer I quoted in the opening paragraph of 

 this report. He says, speaking of April, " there is a bustle 

 of activity astir among the birds. Love songs are heard on 

 every side. Each hedge seems to be posted with invisible 

 placards to the effect that it is an 'eligible building site.' Robins 

 are complimenting themselves on the fact that they so wisely 

 build in banks, and can begin at once, without waiting for the 

 tardy leafage of hawthorn and bramble, as the blackbird and 

 thrush must do. But the blackbird and thrush are not dis- 

 consolate ; soon, very soon the hedges will be dense and safe." 



Alas ! for the density of some Guernsey hedges and for 

 the fact that there are foolish as well as wise birds in our 

 midst. I was taking my way through the lanes towards my 

 home at St. Martin's one evening in the early summer of this 

 year when, quite casually, my eye fell on a small patch of 

 dried twigs, leaves, etc., plainly visible as such in a hawthorn 

 bush, by the green leaves of which and some ivy it was 

 indifferently surrounded. Nobody was about, and, with an 

 exclamation of " you foolish little bird," I gently inserted my 

 hand at the spot, and, sure enough, it was the nest of a thrush 

 and it contained one Qgg. To conceal the nest was impossible, 

 and I went on sorrowful, wondering how long it would escape 

 the eyes of boys on the prowl. 



The next day was Saturday, and to my agreeable surprise 

 I found the nest unmolested that evening, and, of course, a 

 second egg was inside. I passed that way again on the 

 Monday morning anxious as to what might have happened on 

 the Sunday. What I feared had indeed come to pass — the 

 too trustful little builders had been robbed of their property, 

 and the home of the youngsters that would have been lay in 

 ruins on the ground at my feet. 



This particular pair of thrushes showed great ignorance 

 certainly in the important art of camouflaging their nest, and 

 I wonder if, at any rate, they learned a lesson from this sad 

 experience in the equally important matter of selecting a 

 building site at once more dense and safe. 



To those members of the Society and some friends, who 

 have helped me with observations embodied in the following 

 notes, I tender grateful thanks. 



Chiff-chaff. — I heard and saw a chiff-chaff in the Fermain Bay lane in the 

 morning of March 17th. In twelve years this is by two days my earliest 

 date for noting the arrival of this "little bird. The chiff-chaff always 

 comes in time to be a witness to the last snows of winter, if there be any 

 about, as was the case this year, for shortly after daybreak on April the 

 1st (a fortnight after I had first heard the bird) the island lay thickly 

 covered with snow — the only snowstorm of the 1918-19 winter here. 



