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Suppose, then, that two Chiffchaffs establish themselves in adjoining territories; or suppose that a male settles in a territory already occupied; what is the result?
Just before then just as the first leaves are opening the chiffchaffs come. The first spring I had any knowledge of this spot was mild, and had been preceded by mild seasons. The chiffchaffs arrived all at once, as it seemed, in a bevy, and took possession of every birch about the furze, calling incessantly with might and main. The willow-wrens were nearly as numerous.
Yesterday I saw the ploughman and his team, and the earth gleam smoothed behind the share; to-day a butterfly has gone past; the farm-folk are bringing home the fagots from the hedgerows; to-morrow there will be a merry, merry note in the ash copse, the chiffchaffs' ringing call to arms, to arms, ye leaves!
Small parties of Chiffchaffs pass through a district on their way to other breeding grounds, flitting from hedge to hedge as they move in a definite direction with apparently a definite purpose; Reed-Warblers settle in a garden or plantation, eminently unsuited to their requirements, and disappear; Wood-Warblers arrive in some old haunt, and finding it no longer suitable for their purpose, seek new ground.
The bevies of chiffchaffs and willow wrens which came to the thickets in the furze, the chorus of thrushes and blackbirds, the chaffinches in the elms, the greenfinches in the hedges, wood-pigeons and turtle-doves in the copses, tree-pipits about the oaks in the cornfields; every bush, every tree, almost every clod, for the larks were so many, seemed to have its songster.
In addition to the four pairs of Reed-Buntings, there were in the spring of 1915, six pairs of Whitethroats, one pair of Lesser Whitethroats, four pairs of Willow-Warblers, one pair of Sedge-Warblers, two pairs of Grasshopper-Warblers, one pair of Chiffchaffs, three pairs of Hedge-Sparrows, two pairs of Tree-Pipits, one pair of Skylarks, one pair of Whinchats, one pair of Flycatchers, two pairs of Song-Thrushes, one pair of Blackbirds, one pair of Redstarts, three pairs of Chaffinches, and one pair of Wrens in all, thirty-five pairs, whose young were mainly dependent for their living upon the insect life of that meadow and the ground immediately surrounding it.
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