away before breeding-time. This was the only felt he had ever seen
breeding in this country, and he "didn't believe that no man had ever
seed such a thing before." He would not climb the tree to see the eggs,
or even go very near it, for fear of disturbing the birds.

This man, Caleb said, was a great one for birds: he knew them all, but
seldom said anything about them; he watched and found out a good deal
about them just for his private pleasure.

The characteristic species of this part of the down country, comprising
the parish of Winterbourne Bishop, are the pewit, magpie, turtledove,
mistle-thrush, and starling. The pewit is universal on the hills, but
will inevitably be driven away from all that portion of Salisbury Plain
used for military purposes. The mistle-thrush becomes common in summer
after its early breeding season is ended, when the birds in small flocks
resort to the downs, where they continue until cold weather drives them
away to the shelter of the wooded, low country.

In this neighbourhood there are thickets of thorn, holly, bramble, and
birch growing over hundreds of acres of down, and here the hill-magpie,
as it is called, has its chief breeding-ground, and is so common that
you can always get a sight of at least twenty birds in an afternoon's
walk. Here, too, is the metropolis of the turtledove, and the low sound
of its crooning is heard all day in summer, the other most common sound
being that of magpies--their subdued, conversational chatter and their
solo-singing, the chant or call which a bird will go on repeating for a
hundred times. The wonder is how the doves succeed in such a place in
hatching any couple of chalk-white eggs, placed on a small platform of
sticks, or of rearing any pair of young, conspicuous in their blue skins
and bright yellow down!