102 BIRDS AND MAN 



garden warbler had failed to appear, and the few 

 nightingales that visit the neighbourhood had 

 settled down in a more secluded spot a couple of 

 miles away, where the million leaves in coppice 

 and brake were not set a-tremble by the melodious 

 thunder of the cathedral chimes. 



Nevertheless, there was another still to come, 

 the one I perhaps love best of all. On the last 

 day of April I heard the song of the wood wren, 

 and at once all the other notes ceased for a while 

 to interest me. Even the last comer, the mellow 

 blackcap, might have been singing at that spot 

 since February, like the wren and hedge-sparrow, 

 so familiar and workaday a strain did it seem to 

 have compared with this late warbler. I was 

 more than glad to welcome him to that particular 

 spot, where if he chose to stay I should have him 

 so near me. 



It is well known that the wood wren can only be 

 properly seen immediately after his arrival in this 

 country, at the end of April or early in May, when 

 the young foliage does not so completely hide his 

 slight unresting form, as is the case afterwards. 

 For he, too, is green in colour ; like Wordsworth's 

 green linnet, 



A brother of the leaves he seems. 



