74 
THE BIRDS OF HAMPSHIRE. 
than thirty years, and tells us that he discovered this 
bird in Selborne in the year 1848, "when a pair built 
in a large maple in my grounds, and brought up a brood 
of five young ones. They bred near the same spot 
in several following years, and were remarkably tame, 
allowing us to approach within a few yards of them, 
without exhibiting any signs of fear." 
Mr. Hudson visited Selborne in July, 1901, and in his 
charming " Hampshire Days " writes — " At about four 
o'clock each morning the lively vigorous song of the cirl 
bunting w^ould be heard from the gardens or grounds 
of the Wakes, at the foot of the hill. From four to six, 
at intervals, was his best singing time ; later in the day 
he sang at much longer intervals. There appeared to be 
three pairs of breeding birds : one at the Wakes, another 
on the top of the hill to the left of the zig-zag path, and 
a third below the churchyard. The cock-bird of the last 
pair sang at intervals every day during my visit from 
a tree in the churchyard, and from a big sycamore 
growing at the side of it I was often at Farringdon, 
a village close by, and there, too, the churchyard had 
its cirl bunting, singing merrily at intervals from a perch 
not above thirty yards from the building. And as at 
Selborne and Farringdon, so I have found it in most 
places in Hampshire, especially in the southern half of 
the county ; the cirl is the village bunting whose favourite 
singing place is in the quiet churchyard or the shade-trees 
at the farm ; compared with other members of the genus 
he might almost be called our domestic bunting. The 
yellow hammer is never heard in a village ; at Selborne 
to find him we had to climb a hill and go out on the 
common, and there he could be heard drawling out his 
lazy song all day long. 
