CONTENTS xi 



CHAPTER XX 



PAGE 



The Lake Village ....... 192 



An enthusiastic excavator — Inhabiting two worlds at once 

 — The wind in the bulrushes — Drayton on bird life in 

 the fens — A visionary multitude of wild birds — Cross- 

 bills in the Mendips — Among the bells in St. Cuthbert's 

 tower. 



CHAPTER XXI 

 The Marsh Warbler's Music ..... 



Two remarkable trees at Chepstow — Birds at the abbey — 

 A colony of marsh warblers — Distribution of the marsh 

 warbler — Its high rank as a songster — Its artistic 

 borrowings — Species whose notes are imitated — The 

 delight of bird-watching — Varying behaviour of birds 

 under observation — A lucky accident. 



CHAPTER XXII 



Goldfinches at Ryme Intrinseca . . . .212 



Yetminster — Ryme Intrinseca — Mobbed by goldfinches — 

 Recent increase of goldfinches in Dorset — Effect of bird- 

 protection orders — Abundance of the goldfinch in 

 Cobbett's days — Goldfinches and thistles: a misleading 

 statement — Recollections of the Argentine goldfinch — 

 Caged birds — A Spanish poem about a goldfinch — The 

 translator's difficulties — A prose rendering of El Colorin 

 de Filis. 



CHAPTER XXIII 



The Immortal Nightingale ..... 228 



The barren days of early March — On the track of the absent 

 nightingale — The mystery of its return — The immortal 

 bird of the poets- — Its puzzling distribution — The 

 parish nightingale — A rector's story of a nightingale — 

 Birds striking against window-panes — The nightingale 

 a home-keeping bird — Its human enemies — The fight to 

 save our wild birds — Educating the country children. 



