A Recently Established Bird Migration

Abstract

BURIED in the heart of a newspaper article of the 4th inst., on incorporated Worthing, is a statement which, if it may be relied on, seems to me of curious, if not unique, interest, inas-much as it dates very closely what seems now an annual migration of birds. After speaking of West Tarring as dividing with Lancing the title of the capital of English Figland, the journalist (Daily Telegraph, September 4) goes on to say, “There it was that Thomas A'Becket planted the first slip—now a mouldering stump—whence, it is said, all these shady alleys, redolent of syrupy sweetness, derive their origin. There is no handsomer shrub-tree than the fig, spreading forth its many-veined, broad leaves in grateful shade, while the fruit, varying from juicy green acorns to great purple bulbs—I bought some yesterday four inches in length—peer boldly forth from every available twig. Even that discriminating bird, the Italian beccafico, has become aware, in some mysterious way, of the existence of the Worthing fig-gardens, and comes over to spend a pleasant six weeks among them, just as we go (or change of air to Switzerland or the Black Forest. This is the time for his arrival, and if I may judge by certain well-picked figs on the Tarring trees, I should say that he had taken up his quarters somewhere in the immediate vicinity of the noble thirteenth century church.”