COUNTRY LIFE
APRIL beyond all question is the most exciting, the fullest, of months for any naturalist, especially for those interested in bird migration ; and so far as swallow and cuckoo are concerned everyone is a student of this spring movement. May, however, is a rival, and in its latest report the excellent , British Trust for Ornithology fixes one of its special observation days on May 9th. It was thought the best for watching the passage of that swallow-like (though scientifically more hawk-like) bird the swift that our ancestors often called the devlin. More information is desired. The swift is one of the last birds to arrive and one of the first to go, resembling the ash among trees. A full report is to be published presently, but it appears that large companies of swifts arrived a few days earlier, and three out of four at once rushed for the north. Last year in my immediate neighbourhood swifts seemed to be more numerous than swallows, and they are, I think, an increasing tribe as compared with swallows. Among birds definitely said to be decreasing is the greater crested grebe, of which the population had become considerable. I can contribute one reason for this. The carrion-crow has become numerous especially near towns, and the reservoirs are favourite haunts of the grebe. On one of these the eggs are at once destroyed by the crows and breeding is impossible. In Richmond the carrion-crows have been known to kill a full-grown duck.
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