104 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



sion for something new and arresting in music 

 or song, something "tuney" or "catchy." 



It chanced that when I left London a new 

 popular song had come out and was "all the 

 rage," a tune and words Invented or first pro- 

 duced In the music-halls by a woman named Lottie 

 Collins, with a chorus to It — Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay, 

 repeated several times. First caught up in the 

 music-halls It spread to the streets, and In ever- 

 widening circles over all London, and over all 

 the land. In London people were getting tired 

 of hearing it, but when I arrived at my village 

 "in a hole," and settled down among the 

 Badgers, I heard it on every hand — In cottages, 

 in the streets. In the fields, men, women and 

 children were singing, whistling, and humming it, 

 and In the evening at the Inn roaring it out with 

 as much zest as If they had been singing Rule 

 Britannia. 



This state of things lasted from May to the 

 middle of June; then, one very hot, still day, 

 about three o'clock, I was sitting at my cottage 

 window when I caught the sound of a rumbling 

 cart and a man singing. As the noise grew 

 louder my Interest In the approaching man and 



