A LAST LOOK. 
65 
be considered tropical, whilst many species use it as a resting- 
place on their journeys north and south in spring and autumn. 
To these may be added many who come here only occasionally, 
such as the spoonbill, bittern, avocet, and others even more rarely. 
Doubtless some of these rare visitors would stay and rest with 
us if unmolested, but unfortunately there exist persons whose 
minds can conceive no better purpose for a bird than to be shot 
at, and accordingly as soon as a rare one is noticed it is killed. 
It is difficult to know how to treat such wanton destroyers of 
bird life, .\rgument cannot sink low enough to reach them, and 
they are impervious to all humanitarian appeals. Yet much 
good might be done by our land-owners and game preservers. 
If a small fraction of the money spent on rearing pheasants and 
grouse was spent in protecting and encouraging some of these 
rarer birds our avi-fauna would soon be greatly enriched, and I 
can conceive it possible for as much pleasure and credit to be 
gained from the nesting on an estate of the golden oriole or 
hoopoe as from the slaughter of so many hundred head of game. 
A faint “chiff-chilF” reaches my ear, and I turn quickly to 
catch a glimpse of a little greenish hued bird as it disappears 
in the hedge by the wood. A glance is sufficient for me to 
recognize a chiff-chaff, and I know that one of the earliest of 
our summer visitors has arrived. 
How feeble seem to be its powers of flight, and yet those 
little rounded wings which now seem hardly able to carry it 
from tree to tree, have brought it safety across wide tracts of 
land and sea. Redwing and fieldfare may have gone, but their 
places will soon be filled by wheatear, redstart and nightingale ; 
and standing here with the rush of the wings of the departing 
fieldfares still lingering in my ears, I can in fancy see the 
countless numbers of birds on their way to fill our woods and 
hedgerows with melody and life. From the Capa may come the 
martin, from the plains of India the swallow, from the great 
lakes and forests of Africa the swift, the cuckoo and the 
nightjar, whilst from nearer homa will come the blackcap and 
other warblers. Can we picture what our country would be in 
spring and summer without these birds ? A voiceless hedgerow, 
a silent thicket, a lonely wood relieved by no wren’s songs, 
brightened by no flash of yellow wings. Why the sky would 
seem less bright, the buttercups less golden, the trees leafing to 
no purpose, and in the solemn hush of twilight, listening in vain 
for the melody of the nightingale, we should almost welcome the 
■curtains of night to shut out from us a birdless day. 
Fred, W. Ashley. 
