We are at a date in the year when it
is difficult not to think of birds. Though the cult of birds, opening with Gilbert White a hundred and fifty years ago, has galloped into popularity of late, our most rural population were praising daffodils because they came " before the swallow dares," four hundred years ago. How comes it that, for once in a way, swallows have this year reached the daffodils' daring ? Last autumn they dared too long a stay ; and falling numbed were transported in battalions across the cold Alps by the kindly Austrians. This spring they have dared to come too soon ; and again the Austrians are faced with a problem, a more dillicult problem, how to save the precocious invaders. It is common in England for winter visitors to come south too late. Many a redwing and a few plovers pay the death penalty ; but premature arrivals in spring are of the rarest. On the other hand, our home birds are often overbold in nesting. Hundreds of such die in most years of precocity. They emerge before the necessary insect food ; and this year even tits have made the same mistake.
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