Several times to-day (June 2) heard clamour among the birds, particularly the shrikes or butcher-birds. There was not any apparent reason like persecution from hawks of. magpies and it may Just be due to an unusually large number of individuals being within earshot. They have not showed themselves so boldly, these shrikes, witch generally. Perch on posts or treetops, and T found It hard to get a good enough view to determine accurately what Kind they. are, 'The commonest shrike here is the red-talled, or one or other of ths three varieties. The Phillppit rather less white about its face and the Indian has no white on the tail' and more on the forehead, while the Japanese has most of all. "It is not very easy in the field to be quite sure which of the three kinds one is observing. Sometimes one can examine a corpse and make sure of that individual, but am beginning to doubt whether these small shrikes really are enemies to bbe killed without scruple. They are hardly big enough to make serious war on other birds and to conduct, campaigns against insect hordes surely a work of merit.
This afternoon T watched a red-talled shrike till he disapproved of the scrutiny and flew off. He was fu the company of some common sparrows, perched upon a wire, and iter one of his forays he settled within a foot of one of them without causing him. the faintest flutter of disquiet. I could see a morsel in his beak, presumably the remains of some insect snapped up during his last swoop, Another shrike, closely hidden in thick bushes where T could not get to see him, was doing hhis best to raise his naturer raucous tones to the pitch of a really musical note—a feat of some difficulty but one in which he achieved a faint, measure of success, The shrikes gave proof again this year of the strange accuracy with Which migrant birds return on almost exactly the same day each Most bird watchers, and not among. them the "Country Diarist; have mentioned their observations of this sort of thing. Observers in Welhhalwel in recent years have nated tt thivel week in May as the first pearance of the shrikes, and sure enough this year on May 19 T heard the call of a shrike, followed it up and found that T was not mistaken, The same day another one was shot by someone more hostile to the shrikes than T am.
But why is it that the birds alone Keep so closely to our foreign calendar when the rest of Nature obediently: follows the course laid down in the Chinese Lunar one? Can, it be that they are following so, minutely an instinct passed down from ancestors whose" ways were studied by the ancients who devised our calendar? Most certainly. the ancients set great store by the movements of birds, for the auspex was highly regarded among them, and it occurs to ments in our grotesque fashion of reckening days and months. This is not a point which T raise for argu: ment, and T hope it will not be taken the text for a dispute in the Correspondence Column, get close enough to venture identification. It was surprised to see them there at all at that time year.
Tu the last week of March some friends were walking on the hills when they met a Chinese boy carr; ing to market some birds he had caught in his traps. One was the aforementioned North China tit, one was 8 brambling, a beautifully marked little bird, and there were a pair of fine red-tailed thrushes which the boy said are relished as an acceptable titbit for the menu. Another bramble ing was seen in the country west of here in the first week of May, hopping about alone, with one foot damaged. Thrushes have been quite abundant, but their furtive ways make it hard to identity them without hesitation. Indeed T never venture to do so une Jess T have either a specimen in the hand or a good look at one that is obliging enough to pose for a fairly detailed inspection. "Thrushes do not oblige in this way; they stand. not upon the order of their going. Some of the warblers and Suntings and even the flycatchers do, if one is, Quiet in one's movements, First Swatlow of the Season The Arst swallow was noticed at the end of the second week in April. There happened to be a warm spell Just then and a few swallows flew about as if to prophesy, if not to make, a summer.
These were the golden-rumped oF mosque swallow, were seen and also a blue Tock thrush on rocky slopes by the land some whitefaced wagtails.
days later there were hunt warblers and a solitary over one dull afternoon, About the end of April T was out at midday near the east fort when something few blunderingly toward me and turned out to be a bat. There was nothing, among the birds proper, worthy of special note just then, Dbut'in the dusk of evening, when one might have expected bats to be at large, I found a Blackfaced bunting (Emberiza spodocephala) which let me approach to within a yard of him as he perched in a tall shrub, One day about this time T took one uncommon early morning walks and was rewarded with the sight of a tricolor flycatcher, a very Deautiful picture in the early morning sunlight with his brilliant golden yellow throat and breast, his neat black head and the clear white mar} ings over the eye and across the wing, Other yellow-breasted birds inclu Dassing through this neighbourhood, Two independent observers noted them in Wethaiwel either in May or September and here last year at the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.