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 borrow- 

 ings — Species whose notes are imitated — The delight of 

 bird-watching — Varying behaviour of birds under observation 

 — A lucky accident. 



FROM Wells I went on to Bristol and thence to 

 Chepstow, where, a few miles out, I hoped to 

 find one of my rare birds, but on inquiry dis- 

 covered that it had long vanished from this haunt. 

 There was nothing for me but to extract what pleasure 

 I could from the castle, the valley of the Wye, and 

 Tintern Abbey. At Chepstow, a small parasitic town 

 much given to drink, I saw two wonderful things, 

 which the guide-book writers probably do not notice 

 — a walnut tree and an ivy tree, both growing in 

 the castle. The first must be one of the finest walnut 

 trees in the country: one of its enormous horizontal 

 branches measured eighteen yards from the trunk 

 to the end; the branch on the opposite side of the 

 trunk measured fifteen yards, giving the tree a 

 breadth of ninety-nine feet ! The other, the ivy, was 

 a tree in the ordinary sense of the word, that is to 

 say, a plant above the size of a bush which is not a 

 parasite supported by another tree but wholly self- 

 sustained. It grows near but not touching the wall, 



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