THE HOME OF THE WILLOW- WREN 43 



he returns to a more congenial latitude than 

 ours long before the swallows think of forsaking 

 the old church in the valley. In the heights of 

 the sky, where the swift loves to wheel his 

 arrowy flight, insect life becomes rare when the 

 showers of August begin to fall; and soon, on 

 wide-spread pinions, this free, bold bird of 

 summer takes his farewell, abandoning his 

 nesting-place to the chattering sparrows that in 

 winter often seek refuge in the cranny above our 

 study window; from which, each spring, they 

 are evicted with the unceremonious haste always 

 displayed by the relentless, business-like swift 

 when he returns from Africa for his brief sojourn 

 in our valley. 



The song of the willow-warbler is now much 

 louder than when he came to us in the second 

 week of April. Then it was hardly to be heard 

 at a greater distance than about fifty yards 

 from the songster, and, indeed, was not notice- 

 able, among other bird-voices, even when the 

 listener stood scarcely half that distance away. 

 Frequently, in those days, when, with every- 

 thing new and strange, yet evidently delightful, 

 in his surroundings, he waited anxiously for 

 the coming of his tiny mate, I daily watched 

 the frail songster in his summer haunt — a thick 

 hedgerow near the river — and grew to imagine 

 that his actions, in some subtle fashion, were 



