nearly all lost their smaller globular clusters of silvery stamens, and have swollen into a far larger ball of polished green fruits. The reeds are still in the perfection of their beauty, waving their glossy vinouspurple plumes over their masses of grey-green leaves; and the dull pinkish heads of the hemp-agrimony are still in flower. On the bank the coarsely-serrated, yellowish-green leaves of the gipsy-wort have the whorls of small, white, purple-spotted flowers at their bases; and the soft, downy water-avens hangs over the water, the too little known beauties of its spreading cup-like flowers shaded with yellow, orange, and pink, and contrasting with its reddish-brown calyx. In the north or west of Britain we might hope to see here the pink clusters of the shrubby willow-leaved Spirea, or the golden globes and segmented foliage of the globe-flower, though it is late in the year for either to be still in flower. Here, floating on the water in a comparatively stagnant corner, are the vivid green masses of the gutling, a fresh-water alga of remarkable form, in an irregularly inflated and contracted tube; and here, along the bank, the tansy still bears some of its bright clusters of golden, button-like flower-heads above its coarse-growing masses of feathery, fern-like leaves. The bitter fragrant character of these leaves is now forgotten, and tansy-cakes, tansy-candy, and tansy-pudding, once very generally eaten, are now hardly known even by name.

October

BIRD LIFE IN OCTOBER

THE Swallows which we have been watching as they gathered in long lines, drilling the younger birds and apparently instructing them as to the long journey that lies before them, find that their insect food now fails them, and go they must. A few may still be seen, stray laggards, or possibly pairs that have had a late brood, for young nestlings have been found as late even as October, but this is very exceptional. A Brighton poet, Emily Hughes, who has been watching the domestic arrangements of these graceful and interesting birds, sends me a wordpicture of her own which has not yet appeared in print. I hope our readers may appreciate it as I do.

"When I rise from the softness of sleep
Comes a liquid twitter and cheep
From the swallows beneath the eaves;
A stir and flutter within the nests,

A raising of heads, a ruffling of breasts-
Over the curved clay ridge they peep.
One, with crown as smooth as a friar,
Eyes askance, 'neath its sable hood,
My upward glance (not quite understood)
Questioning my intent and desire.
Then a dive, a sweep, a rise, a fall,
A poise, and back at the babies' call!
Look at the little clamorous things!
Obliquely balanced the mother-bird clings
To the dusty knots of the dry mud wall.
Black beak, yellow beak, touch and part;
A chirp of content, then, cleaving the air
With many a bounding arc in the light,
With many a sudden slant and turn,
'Neath pearly drifts and beams that burn;
Anon returning, anon departing;
Soaring, swaying, dropping, darting,

Flash the forked tails and pointed wings."

The subject that suggests itself most prominently for our consideration during the month of October, is the autumnal migration of our feathered summer visitants. The different species of warblers, the pipits and the fly-catchers, as we noticed last month, have already left us; the sand dunes, where the brightly-marked wheatear has been making his home in some deserted rabbit burrow, are enlivened no longer by his active flittings to and fro and his note of "chackechacke!" Whinchat and stonechat flit no more from one golden gorse-bush to another, and the willow-wrens have left the low trees and coverts to the possession of the more clamorous tits.

Great flocks of the golden-crested wren, the tiniest of all European birds, arrive at times during the autumn on our eastern coast, to spread themselves all over England and across to Ireland. In 1882 there was a wonderful migration noted, which commenced on August 6 and lasted for ninety-two days, reaching from the English channel to the Faröes. The two following years the migratory waves were almost equally great. "On such occasions bushes in gardens on the coast are covered with birds as with a swarm of bees; crowds flutter round the lanterns of lighthouses, and the rigging of fishing-smacks in the North Sea is thronged with weary travellers."

Lately golden-crested wrens have increased much in Scotland, on account of the greater cultivation of fir and larch woods, which suit this little bird. In Heligoland, in the autumn of 1882, Mr Gätke recorded, "A perfect storm of goldcrests we have had-poor little souls! perching on the ledges of the window-panes of the lantern of our lighthouse, preening their feathers in the glare of the lamps; on the 29th all the island swarmed with them, filling the gardens everywhere, and all over the cliff-hundreds of thousands; by 9 A.M. most of them had passed on again." And of the rush of migrating starlings, those common birds of our towns and pasture lands that appear to most such prosaic creatures, the same naturalist says that he watched them early in October of 1883 "in astounding flights, thousands upon thousands"; on the 12th again "considerable numbers of astounding flights, both overhead and in distance"; again he notes, "still passing, astounding numbers all day," "myriads," "immense," and so on; and large waves strike our own coast in equally astonishing numbers.

In the autumn the migratory flight of the birds is slower than it is in the spring; they rest here and there as they find food suitable for

them. Having built their nests, and hatched out the eggs, and fed their young with us during the summer months, they are not pressed, and they take things easily, making more of a holiday of the whole business, until they reach the sunny south, the goal of their desires.

In reading what has been written on the subject of the migration of birds one notices many discrepancies in the statements, which is not at all a matter of surprise, since nothing connected with their natural history has been so involved in mystery, from the time when the prophet wrote that "the stork in heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming." In our own country the cuckoo was once supposed to change into a hawk during the winter, and swifts and swallows, it was firmly believed, fell into a torpid state, and slept in the mud until the summer approached again. Even now many a rustic will gravely tell you that such is the case with these two birds.

In writing on this subject I must state frankly that I have availed myself of the information gained by others during long years of research; one interesting book that is within reach of most is "The Migration of Birds," by Mr Charles Dixon; and there are many others.

With the approach of colder weather the little snow-bunting comes to us, appearing on the eastern shores in October to return again northwards in March or April. During the summer months snow-buntings frequent the Arctic regions. Pairs of these birds are to be seen now and again on some of the higher mountain regions of Scotland, where they are said to breed. Their nests with young in them have been found in Sutherlandshire. During the summer both the old and the young birds feed chiefly on insects; but in the autumn and winter they need seeds, and they are said to do harm amongst the newlysown corn. In our country they can do little in this way though, for their habitat is in those inaccessible regions where the ptarmigan gather, on barren mountain ranges.

Large flocks of linnets may now be seen on the east coasts; these are migrants that come to us from the Continent.

Others that are to be noted as they cross the stubbles in large parties are our own home-bred birds, which are now migrating to the south, where they put on the warm crimson tints on breast and head. Rose-linnets these are often called.

In a few districts the ring-ouzel, it has been proved, has stayed all

through the year; but as a rule it leaves us in October, if not as early as September. During the autumn they are most frequently observed in our southern counties, appearing now in one district and again in another, to feed on the wild autumn fruits. On the Continent it is very partial to grapes. The only place where I have observed it is, as I believe I have stated before, along the sides of a hill stream that ran past the large fruit gardens of one of the great summer resorts in Perthshire.

The cheery yellow-hammer still utters his song of "A little bit of bread and no chee-ese "; a favourite with our country children this bird always is. Some tell me it is becoming more scarce; but I have noticed plenty in my wanderings during this summer.

From the middle of September and through this month, the fieldfares, blue-felts, dandy-felts, or felfers, as they are variously called, will have been arriving. They never nest in our country, but flocks of them come to feed in our fields and pasture lands until frost sets in, when they take to the hedgerows and coverts in search of berries and the fruits that they now feed on. The slate-grey of the head has given the name of blue-felt. The young birds are spotted like the young of other thrushes, but they have moulted before they come to us. mantle is chestnut-brown, and the rump again slate-grey.

The

Colonel Irby, who has studied the subject of migration from Gibraltar and Tangier-both of them possess posts well adapted for the purpose-writes, "Most of the land birds pass by day, usually crossing the Straits in the morning. The waders are, as a rule, not seen on passage, so it may be concluded that they pass by night, although I have occasionally observed peewits, golden plover, terns, and gulls passing by day.

"The autumnal or return migration is less conspicuous than the vernal; and whether the passage is performed by night, or whether the birds return by some other route, or whether they pass straight on, not lingering by the way as in spring, is an open question; but during the autumn months passed by me at Gibraltar I failed to notice the passage as in spring, though more than once during the month of August, which I spent at Gibraltar, myself and others distinctly heard bee-eaters passing south at night, and so conclude other birds may do the same."