LIEUT.-COL. DUTHIE ON NF^STING OF BRITISH BIRDS. 139 
prefer more secluded spots, and occupy the waste places of the earth , 
others again, pushing farther forward, disappear into the mystery of 
the north, beyond the tread of human foot, and are not seen in their 
nesting haunts j the eggs of the Curlew-Sandpiper have never yet 
been found. 
As the various Ocean Steamboat Companies of the world have 
each their recognised highways from port to port, across the vast 
expanse of waters, invisible to the eye, but well known to navigators; 
so the birds on well defined lines of their own, wing their way twice 
a year to and fro, eastward, westward, northward, and southward 
through the illimitable air. 
They fly generally at a great height, far beyond the range of human 
vision, but sometimes in favoured spots and under favouiable circum¬ 
stances they are observed like grains of finest dust on the blue of the 
sky, and occasionally under certain atmospheric conditions they 
approach within earshot of the earth, and strange mysterious chatter- 
ings and faint rustlings of wings are heard as some vast aerial host is 
passing overhead. These sights and sounds, however, are of rare 
occurrence, for the great movements of the birds are, for the most 
part, conducted in silence and solitude, and only the results are 
revealed to us. A few Swallows, the first of the season, seen some 
morning skimming over the meadow grass, or the first note of 
the Chiff-chaff recorded in the naturalist’s diary, is all that is known 
of a great wave of migration which broke upon our shores during the 
previous night—thus smoothly and quietly. Nature carries out her 
resistless laws. 
“ Who ever saw the earliest rose 
First open her sweet breast ? 
Or, when the summer sun goes down 
The first soft star in evening’s crown 
Light up her gleaming crest ? ” 
Our home songsters, who have been singing merrily for some 
time, are now reinforced by the foreign minstrels, and a great choius 
goes up from the woods and fields and from the willows by the river¬ 
side. The Sky-Larks floating under the great blue dome of the 
heavens join in the strain, and when other birds are silent, the 
Nightingales carry on the concert during the stilly night, 
‘ ‘ With skirmishes and capricious passagings, 
And murmurs musical, and swift jug-jug. 
And one low piping sound more sweet than all. 
Stirring the air with such a harmony, 
That, should you close your eyes, you might almost 
Forget it was not day ! ” 
On the moorland also, the air is filled with minstrelsy of another 
