Page:Bird Life Throughout the Year (Salter, 1913).djvu/134

trees on the edge of the heath, alighting sometimes on a branch where it sits lengthways, producing the strange churring noise which has earned for it in some places the name of "spinning wheel," and which may be compared to the distant sound of a lawn-mower. With this mysterious bird of the twilight ends our list of the regular summer migrants, or those which may be looked for with certainty. That dashing little falcon, the long-winged Hobby, comes to nest in a few favoured woodlands, arriving in the latter half of the month. Sometimes, but not every year, we hear the liquid three-fold whistle of the Quail, coming from a field of springing corn. Probably a May never passes in which a few Hoopoes do not land upon our shores to strut and bow and spread their fan-like crests, while a brightly-plumaged Oriole flashes, all gold and black, from treee to tree. But such visitors are too conspicuous to allow of their remaining unmolested. If permitted to breed, they would no doubt return with their progeny in increasing numbers from year to year. It is noticeable that the migrants which are latest to appear, such as the flycatcher and shrike, begin to nest within a few days of their arrival, while the earlier ones proceed in a much more leisurely manner. A feature of the month is the reappearance of some of those bird associations which are merely broken up for the nesting season. For the Long-tailed Tits, as soon as they have left the nest, begin