May 10-—Early May sees wave upon' wave lof migrating birds pouring into the Shanghai tarea for the breeding season, and their behar viour upon arrival must be of interest to all who leave to watch birds, however casually. For the ast week conspicuous flights of graceful while Egrets have streamed across the sky, almostunnoticed by most of us....too. busy watching colour-taunting Oriole and loud.voleed Cuckoo, All such new arrivals for the summer season fare just taking up the tasks of reproduction, while staid old residents like Magpie, Blackbird, Dove and Titmouse, have already. hatched out young. Just how and when do migrant birds select their mates and start married life? Nobody can say exactly and, so far as T can 3 be one for speculaly accepted theory concerning /smait birds, summer visitors to England, i that the males usually arrive first and take up sult. able positions—net too close together—so that each will have a reasonable territory: inside this ttle space of half an acre or s0 the male selects a perch and sings until he Is joined by female. Such a habit fs, I am reasonably sure, followed by our local Bush-warbler the of the monotonous water-pouring eall)—and the little females, much smaller than the males, have leven now joined their newly-found spouses. once thought that golden Orioles followed the same procedure, but this year I have seen without a shadow of doubt that the greenish females arrived with and that from the very first day of May the latter could be. observed performing acrobatic feats, after the manner of parrots, and whispering their little love-songs attract the females. But how about the Buntings and other birds which winter with us and [go North for their breeding season? They begin {shelr singing and wheedling here before they [start on their northward journey: do. they travel with their selected males, or do they take their chance of meeting at the Does the little singer of meet his ladylove somewhere Ju Siberia and [say to her *T have been faithful to thee, Cy {in'my fashion"? Nobody knows....and. perhi Ws just og well—es.w. always grateful for fo tell me about the birds they have seen; in this way I believe that every: thing which les is brought to my notice at some time or another: the only trouble is that people often see things which do not exist, and my powers of credulity have to be somewhat 8 charming lady said to me the other day, "You know what a Blue Jay.
don't you?": so, knowing that what she meant was on Azure-winged Magpie, I said, "yes." "Well", she said, "I saw a pure white one today with a black' cap." Now, I cannot go round this town calling pretty ladies liars, but can think a lot: the extent of anyone's credulity "must "be comparative with existing circumstances; and when a. Scottish farmer comes home and says, "Oh, the No. 3 Nazi leader has just landed ili our' cornfield"—and later proves it to be true—I say that you must be prepared to believe anything: If somebody had come to me a week ago and said "We've got Adolf Hitler in our coal-cellar," T would have called him a liar, but if he said that to me today I would merely take another: sip of beer and say, "Oh?—Where did you find him?" So when this lady said to me that she had seen a pure white Azure-wing I merely said, "Oh," (once more)—and burbled something about unusual specimens, such as a white Blackbird, arising from a case' of albinism. But this morning, ast walked my early rounds, the graceful long, white body of a Para Jcatcher Cin the while phase) came gliding through the trees; the "black cap" described by the lady was obviously the deep bronze helmet worn by these beautiful birds: the bird she had seen, being something over three years of age, thod entered the "white phase"—dropping his deep red trimmings and. adopting the "pure white plumage of dignified old age. Lady! You are not a liar; what you saw was an Ince's Paradise Flyeatcher—not at all unlike a white JAzure-winged Magpie. (Note: 1 am prepared itor anything, but T must warn Goering that my fawn is a bit narrow fora man of his size)
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.