Apr., 1889. 
IN SHERWOOD FOREST. 
85 
takes precedence, swimming always a few feet in advance of 
her devoted partner. Presently they take the alarm ; curr-uy 
curr-ug, now they are up and off, the duck invariably ^ again I 
quote my host, albeit having had ample opportunity of testing 
the truth of the observation) rising first, hurrying along near 
the surface of the water, with rapidly beating wings, before 
rising higher in the air, and finishing the flight upon motion¬ 
less, mucli-bent pinions, as, with a little twist or two from 
side to side, they slant downwards to pitch with a splash on 
the water. 
Black-headed Gulls, stragglers probably from one of the 
“gulleries” in the neighbouring county of Lincoln, are some¬ 
times attracted by this marshy, pool-studded belt of country. 
Even in early June I have seen this species, wearing the 
distinctive brownish-black hood peculiar to the breeding 
season, fly over quite low down, and evidently only deterred 
from alighting by our unwelcome presence. 
Many uncommon birds visit the ponds. One day towards 
the end of April, a pair of Black Terns had tarried here for a 
few hours, and were busily skimming over the water with 
the Swallows, which, in company with the delicate little 
Sand Martins, love to hawk for flies over the ponds in cold 
spring weather ; among them, on one occasion, was a Swallow 
with a white tail. When walking round the ponds early in 
August, we flushed a male Wigeon in the rufous summer 
plumage, which had probably remained there all summer. 
Thinking over the Tufted Ducks calls up recollections of fine 
bright evenings at Bainwortli in early summer, when, as we 
stand on the bank of the pool, the glow of sunset throws into 
relief every branch and leaf in the plantation opposite. 
Against the brilliant sky a “drumming” Snipe is clearly 
silhouetted, and we can distinguish the Guinea fowls roosting 
in the Scotch firs on the other side of the pond, across which 
they regularly fly at dusk. The Thrush, the Cuckoo, the 
babbling Sedge-bird, and the Grasshopper Warbler’s incessant 
reel mingle with the mellow call of the Peewit on the upland 
fallows and the drumming of the Snipe. Swallows, belated, 
and bats flit over the water, broken by the splash of the trout 
throwing themselves sportively out of the water, or leaping at 
the infrequent fly. Perhaps you may be lucky enough to see 
a Nightjar skimming on noiseless wings over the pond, in 
pursuit of the moth and chafer, and you may often catch the 
whistling sound of ducks’ wings as they fly overhead. The 
vocal chorus is continued far into the still, warm nights, and 
at midnight the “reel” of the Grasshopper Warbler, rising and 
falling, came in waves of sound ; the hedge Warbler chattered 
