io6 
NATURE NOTES. 
again. He came up quite close to us, and then hopped back to 
the border near, and there on the edge were two fluffy young 
chaffinches, and Chink strutting about with an air of great im- 
portance. It seemed exactly as if he wished to show us his 
little offspring. He then picked up the crumbs and fed them. 
Sometimes he arrives with his beak full of little green cater- 
pillars, but I suppose the little chaffinches like bread with their 
caterpillars, for Chink carts off a huge lump at the same time. 
Poor Chink gets much persecuted by the sparrows, who besiege 
him when he gets a lump of bread. They imitate his cry, and 
really their sagacity is remarkable, for they fly up to the window 
just as Chink does, flutter for a few seconds in the air, and then 
down on to the path. When the weather is warm and the sofa 
is drawn up close to the window. Chink will come on the window 
ledge inside the room and eat quite fearlessly. But I have never 
succeeded in stroking him, although in all other ways he seems 
so tame. His last habit is to sit in the basket hung out for the 
tomtits on the trellis work outside the dining room and sing to us. 
The chaffinches disappear for about a month after their first 
brood, then return, and when the second brood is hatched and 
comes to a mature age, they leave for about two months or only 
appear at intervals. But about October Chink begins to come 
again pretty regularly. I do not know to what age small birds 
live, but we have known Chink for eight years. There can be 
little doubt as to his identity, as he has his special ways of 
attracting our attention and knows all the favourable spots for 
food. He has a last meal provided after the sparrows have gone 
to roost. We think his plumage is a shade less bright than the 
younger birds’, the only signs of old age at present. I fear I must 
admit that, owing to our bounty. Chink has become a thorough 
little mendicant ; but when 5’ou see him sitting on the window- 
sill or on the creeper close to the window, looking so smart and 
confiding, it is quite impossible to resist giving him something. 
Our visitors are at once attracted by the confiding little “chink” 
and petition for biscuits in their bedrooms in hopes of enticing 
him on to their window-sills. Chink shows full confidence that 
having once done him a friendly act we shall remain his friends 
for life. 
A. M. Greenwood. 
Summer Migrants. — I was rather surprised and disappointed not to see 
any reference in the May “ Notes” respecting our summer migrants. My record 
is as follows : — Chiff-chaff, March 21; redstarts, April 10; willow-wren, nth; 
swallows, nth ; yellow wagtail, nth ; ring ouzel, nth (shot as a “ rare ” bird) ; 
cuckoo, 17th; titlarks, 17th; whitethroat and lesser whitethroat, i8th ; grass- 
hopper-lark, 20th ; nightingale, 23rd (one was heard in the neighbourhood a 
week before date) ; corncrake, blackcap, whinchat, and sedgewarbler, 28th ; 
sandmartins, 29th ; May i, housemartins ; garden-warbler, 7th. 
Astivood Bank, Worcestershire. J. HlAM. 
