The Latest Arrivals
The Ice-saints see the arrival of the latest migrants. Birds arrive on our shores in all months of the year. There is a to and fro passage that is continual, very nearly continuous ; but there are " rush hours " or days and by the second week of May all species of summer visitors, though not all the individuals, should be with us. It is a little surprising that some of the last to come are the first to go. The swifts resemble the ash trees that come into leaf late and arc among the first to surrender to autumnal chills. Swifts were seen (in Oxford) in the first week of May ; but they are still few in number. The tribe has tricks of migration that are especially mysterious. Swifts, of a sort, are common in the nesting period in South Africa where I saw a pair in possession of a swallow's nest ; but while their summer habits are well known, there is no good evidence, I believe, about their winter homes. The journey is at any rate a very long one, though perhaps not so long as that of the pair of swallows that journeyed between the Cape and Aberdeen.
* * * *
Previous page
