210 
NATURE NOTES 
To complete my experience of their operations it only re- 
mained for me to try and witness their departure from their 
lodgings in the morning. This, I knew, must happen about 
daybreak ; but unluckily in these hot days the valley was filled 
in the early morning with a dense white mist which would have 
made it impossible for me to see anything of them. At last, 
however, on the morning of the 18th, the weather had changed, 
and a little before six I started for the osier-bed. I arrived in 
the very nick of time. As soon as I came in sight of it I saw 
that the birds had just left it ; some were rising as I looked, but 
the great mass were already high up in the air. At that very 
moment the much-needed rain began, and low dark clouds 
drifted over the valley, soon hiding the birds ; but I saw that 
they rose to a great height, drifting slightly to the northward 
with the strong south wind, and then slowly turned in the 
opposite direction, making their way towards the south. How 
many of them will return next spring ? How many will fall 
victims to the cruelty of the southern peoples who lie in wait 
for them on the shores of the Mediterranean ? 
W. Warde Fowler. 
A FIELD CLUB RAMBLE. 
HE Field Club of the Selborne Society paid a visit on 
the afternoon of Saturday, September 24, to Banstead 
Heath and the immediate vicinity. Some of the 
prettiest parts of Surrey are unfortunately the worst 
situated so far as railway accommodation is concerned, and 
trains being proverbially late on Saturday afternoons, the party, 
twenty-four in number, did not reach Cheam until about half- 
past three. This was the first visit of the ramblers to the 
neighbourhood, the aim of the local (Croydon) Branch being to 
open up fresh country, so far as is possible, each year. From 
Cheam the route was taken southward towards Banstead by 
a pleasant lane which some two miles away led out on to 
Banstead Heath. At this time of the year the “finds” were 
principally in the form of fruits, only a few wild flowers in 
blossom being met with. Those found included Bladder- 
Campion ( Silent Cucubalus), ragwort ( Senccio Jacobaa), common 
calamint ( Calamintha officinalis), wild basil (C. Clinopodium), toad- 
flax (Linaria vulgaris), mignonette ( Reseda lutca), field scabious 
( Scabiosa arvensis), small scabious ( 5 . Columbaria), and the knap- 
weeds ( Centaurea nigra and C. Scabiosa). 
In the sandy lane leading to Banstead Heath the spindle-tree 
( Euonymus curoperus) was found to be showing its four-lobed 
fruits, each seed being clothed in a scarlet lining ; buckthorn 
[Rhamnus catharticus), Privet, and Elder, all three with black- 
