Chapter Eleven: Salisbury and Its Doves


Never in my experience has there been a worse spring season
than that of 1903 for the birds, more especially for the
short-winged migrants. In April I looked for the woodland
warblers and found them not, or saw but a few of the commonest
kinds. It was only too easy to account for this rarity. The
bitter north-east wind had blown every day and all day long
during those weeks when birds are coming, and when nearing the
end of their journey, at its most perilous stage, the wind had
been dead against them; its coldness and force was too much
for these delicate travellers, and doubtless they were beaten
down in thousands into the grey waters of a bitter sea. The
stronger-winged wheatear was more fortunate, since he comes in
March, and before that spell of deadly weather he was already
back in his breeding haunts on Salisbury Plain, and, in fact,
everywhere on that open down country. I was there to hear him
sing his wild notes to the listening waste--singing them, as
his pretty fashion is, up in the air, suspended on quickly
vibrating wings like a great black and white moth. But he was
in no singing mood, and at last, in desperation, I fled to
Salisbury to wait for loitering spring in that unattractive
town.

The streets were cold as the open plain, and there was no
comfort indoors; to haunt the cathedral during those vacant