BIRDS OF THE WOODLANDS 91 



usually by some flower or bird. A day arrives when 

 the tardiest tree is covered with leaf ; when the Swifts 

 are soaring in the cloudless sky and the Corncrake 

 calls from the meadow ; then we say, careless of the 

 calendar, that summer has come. Soon now the 

 fields are swept bare of lush grass, and the corn 

 ripens to the harvest. Still it is summer, for the 

 Swallows are flying high, and the later roses are 

 hardly yet coming into bloom ; it is only the earlier 

 singing-birds that are hushed in the wood. No; 

 roses and Swallows notwithstanding, the summer is 

 gone. A Robin from a barely yellowing bough 

 proclaims the autumn. 



But the snowtime, at least, is as yet far away. 

 This late October day is warm as in June. Then, 

 across the North Sea come the Fieldfares, and their 

 sharp rattling cry, heard high in the air, is the warn- 

 ing that they are bringing winter on their wings. 

 Later, the countryside is black and lifeless, save 

 where the snow flecks the dull green of the larches, 

 or a belated Rook drifts in the sky. But look more 

 closely; already, in sheltered places, the snowdrop 

 and aconite are peeping from the earth, and in a 

 little while we may look for the Wheatear flitting 

 again from clod to clod on the still frozen fallow. 



Spring comes with the aconite and the Wheatear, 

 but despite the flower and the bird she has not yet 

 taken the land for her own. But the day of her 

 accession is near. For a week or more the Chaffinch 

 and the Great Tit have been singing of it. It opens 

 at last warmly and sunnily. New flowers spring on 

 every hand. A gauze-like veil of green covers the 

 fine black pencillings of the elm-sprays. And from 



