196 WILD NATURE'S WAYS. 



to wait, however, before my improvised perch 

 was again utihsed. 



Once I heard the sudden flick of folding wings 

 close to my head, and peering cautiously upwards, 

 was surprised to behold a cuckoo sitting on the 

 roof of my hiding-place. The bird's frayed tail 

 feathers, drooping within a few inches of my 

 face, told an eloquent tale of oversea wear and 

 tear, but at the same time made me wonder a 

 little why such shabby old clothes should be 

 worn at the height of the season of love-making. 

 I attempted to thrust a hand carefully through 

 the sticks and reeds and thus secure my visitor, 

 but although she had hitherto been entirely un- 

 conscious of my presence, she instantly detected 

 the fact that there was something coming, and 

 took wing. Altogether I exposed five plates 

 upon cuckoos that morning, and four of them 

 turned out successful negatives. 



The wee, gay, restless imitative sedge warbler, 

 or, as it used to be called in olden times, sedge 

 bird, is abundant in East Anglia, and common in 

 almost every other part of the country where sedge- 

 clad marshes or sluggish willow fringed streams 

 exist. I have met with it amongst a cluster of 

 two or three dozen sallow bushes growing in a 

 little sequestered ghyll away up in the heart of 

 the Westmoreland Fells, where it was, as usual, 

 bubbling over with song and unalloyed happiness. 



