134 
NATURE NOTES. 
A TWO-MILE WALK. 
HE following mental notes on ornithology were made 
on April i8, during a two-mile walk through a tract 
of country where one comes across some birds not to 
be seen everywhere and every day. I had spent the 
afternoon with a congenial spirit, and my walk home was 
through a highly preserved estate, composed of copses here and 
there (locally called plantains) and of open country, partly 
covered with heather and gorse, while the low lands were 
marshy, with a stream some two hundred yards off. Game 
of the usual kind was in abundance, and here let me say that 
since I have lived in the eastern counties I have proved the 
error of the somewhat prevalent idea that “ Frenchmen,” or “red 
legs,” are inimical to the well-being of the common partridge. 
Judging by the numbers of both that are in these parts, one 
would say that they get on well enough together. For one fight 
between French and English, I believe there are dozens where 
Britishers are the sole combatants. 
In front of my friend’s door was a redstart, who had only just 
arrived — a beauty he looked, and in such splendid plumage. 
A hundred yards further on I heard a bell-like note to which 
I was unaccustomed — a great tit. I’ll be bound, who had taken 
up some fresh fad, only to drop it in a day or two, when some- 
thing else has come into his head. And so it was, for on the 
top of one of the few tall poplars left by the late gale, were 
two great tits busily prying into the opening buds. On the 
edge of the plantation I heard a nightingale for the first time 
this spring. There are only a few here yet, and in a day or 
two they are sure to be singing in my garden. The open 
heath is a favourite spot for wheatears. It was here I saw one 
on March 15, 1893, the spring of that year was so severe that 
great numbers perished. Indeed, from the few that I saw the 
other day, I should say they had not yet recovered from its 
effects ; for you must remember that the wheatear is one of 
our earliest migrants, and they ought all to be here by the 
middle of April, or nearly so. 
To my right was a large level tract, which seems to produce 
nothing but a crop of flints. It is, however, a favourite haunt 
of the Norfolk plover. Here I heard their weird cry, and saw 
them on the wing and on the ground. I must get the owner of 
the estate to forbid his keepers to shoot them. If one speaks 
directly to a keeper about not killing a creature, he looks on 
you as a born idiot, as I have found before to-day ; so I shall 
go to head quarters. Over the marshy ground the snipe were 
“drumming” by the half-dozen at a time. Few persons have 
had better opportunities of watching this performance than 1 
have had for the last ten years, and often have I availed myself 
of them. It is, I suppose, impossible for me to add anything to 
