PAT ARRIVALS.
A naturalist who now dwells in a country cottage has for years taken exact notes of the arrival of the swallows in her garden. Last year a pair distinguished itself, as was recorded at the time, by bringing up no fewer than four successive broods in one nest. This year a pair, probably one of last year's friends—arrived one day earlier than last year ; and this margin of difference is about the normal. Our migrants are punctual indeed; and very little influenced by weather. This spring, in my experience, the cuckoos, which came pat to the moment, are quite inordinately numerous, unless it is that they are more hilarious, more insistent to " beget the golden time again." They have been singing—with apologies for the word—night and day for a week or so in every parish
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