TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
79 
sexes were noticed day after day in January, exploring the ground under a line of 
beech trees in West Somerset, whither they had probably migrated from the 
Midlands. The cirl bunting began to whistle in the shelter ol the gardens on 
February i6, and changed his quarters to the hillside on March 9. The next day 
the bass voice of the reed bunting came from the reed bed in the marsh, but that 
was the first visit paid to him, so he may have begun before. Lastly, the very 
first day of the struggling thaw, we heard the cheery laugh of the old green 
woodpecker, which meant that for him, at least, times were beginning to mend. 
Malvern IVells. W. A. F. 
Bird Notes from High Altitudes. — Refuse wheat, such as is sold for 
feeding fowls, has been soaked over night, and spread with bread and bits of fat 
for the birds’ breakfast. The long note of a starling and the chittering of 
sparrows and chaffinches have showed how the birds were waiting. We have 
many chaffinches here, sometimes twenty feeding at once. They fight with each 
other — the cock birds — but not generally, so far as I have noticed, with sparrows. 
One chaffinch will quarrel with one sparrow, against whom it seems to have a 
special grudge. A whole flock of starlings settling on the feeding place does not 
disturb the small birds, while the descent of a jackdaw sends them off at once. 
But if a passer-by causes them to fly up into the tree, one or two brave birds (I 
wonder if always the same) remain till he is close upon them. Why do starlings 
wait on the tree when they are hungry, the food before them, and no one near? 
They eat with amazing rapidity, with quick looks, as if expecting danger. Both 
magpies and Jackdaws snatch away the food as if they knew they were thieves. 
Do the small birds in severe weather leave their usual haunts for warmer places ? 
In East Cumberland we have scarcely seen the earth or green grass for two 
months. This morning (March 5), in a ramble of four miles among fir groves, 
and in secluded glens, I have looked in vain for birds, the only sign of one being 
the “pink, pink ” of a chaffinch among some trees. With another correspondent 
I ask, “ Where are the tits ? ” also the robins, the blackbirds, thrushes and wrens. 
Alston, Cumberland. I. E. Page. 
TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
B. P. and R. C. C.— Read Rule 4. 
M. C. B. — See Rule 5. 
A. M. Gr . — Please send the account of “ Spink.” 
A. C. E. — Yes, it is the golden-crested wren. 
R. C. C. — Will R. C. C. send his name and address to R. H. Gurney, Esq., 
II, Egerton Gardens, S.W. 
Erratum, p. 48. — The first word of the paragraph on Peafowls should be 
“ The,” not “All.” 
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