Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/233

Rh with which not a little of the popular literature of the every-day bird-life of our islands is overburdened.

The song of the Whinchat is not unlikely to escape notice amidst the conflicting strains of various warblers, and, even if heard, may easily be mistaken by careless listeners for that of the Redstart. There is a peculiar harshness, not by any means unpleasing, about it; but, though I am very familiar with it, and never deem a few minutes' delay in order to listen to it as time ill-spent, I have presence of mind enough to know how feeble most attempts are that aim at reducing the songs of birds to writing. Syllables suggestive of the call-notes are all very well and frequently instructive, as, for instance, the late Mr. Seebohm's felicitous rendering of the Lesser Redpoll's call-note by the French word henri; nevertheless, attempts to give the full song of a bird on paper must more often than not end in fiasco. That of the Whinchat is interspersed with some beautiful flute-like strains, but the harsher tones predominate in the refrain which is not disappointingly curtailed, and is repeated again and again from some elevated perch where the performer takes up a conspicuous position on the topmost twig for minutes together. The performance is usually accompanied by a fanning motion of the tail.

My impression is that Whinchats' nests need not be looked for much before the end of the second week in May; my earliest recorded date is on May 12th for the first egg, and some other dates run thus: May 21st, May 26th, May 27th, May 28th, and May 29th; and it is partly on this account—late nesting—that I decline to accept the apparently irresponsible statement that the species rears two broods every year. The young of the first nest cannot be taught to provide for themselves all in a moment, and though some birds undoubtedly have two or three broods in the course of a summer, they are chiefly those that nest in our gardens and orchards, and whose young are out of the first-laid eggs before some of the migrants have reached our shores. Again, if these alleged second broods were so common, the males would surely treat us to a second edition of their May concert in June, which, as a matter of fact, they do not. Towards the end of this latter month, to my mind, it is quite melancholy to take a stroll through the woods—almost every voice is hushed.