112 SYLVIADxE. 



rod; DO less continuous is it, nor more melodious. Many- 

 years afterwards, when the memory of these pleasant 

 wanderings had faded away, I happened one evening in 

 May to be passing across a common in Hertfordshire, 

 skirted by a hedge of brushwood, w^hen the old familiar 

 sound fell on my ear hke a forgotten nursery melody. 

 The trees not being in their full foliage, I was not without 

 hope that I might be able to get a sight of the performer, 

 wdiom I now knew to be a bird, and I crept quietly to- 

 wards the spot Avhence the noise proceeded. Had it been 

 singing in a copse-wood instead of a hedge, I should cer- 

 tainly have failed, for there is the same peculiarity about its 

 note that there is about that of the insect — you cannot make 

 up your mind exactly whereabouts the instrument which 

 makes the noise is at work. The note, when near, is con- 

 tinuous, monotonous, and of equal loudness throughout ; 

 it might be a minute spinning-wheel revolving rapidly, or 

 a straw pipe with a pea in it blown with a single breath 

 and then suddenly stopping. But whether the perform- 

 ance is going on exactly before you, a little to the right, 

 or a little to the left, it is hard to decide. I approached 

 to within a few yards of the hedge, and peered through the 

 hazel rods, now decorated with drooping tufts of plaited 

 leaves, but all in vain. I went a step or two nearer ; the 

 sound ceased, and the movement of a twig directed my 

 attention towards a particular bush, on which I saw a 

 little bird, about as big as a Hedge-sparrow, quietly and 

 cautiously dropping branch by branch to the ground. In 

 a few minutes I observed it again a few yards off, creeping 

 wdth a movement resembling that of the ISTuthatch up 

 another bush. Having reached to nearly the summit it 

 became motionless, stretched out its neck, and keepin its 

 mandibles continuously open and slightly elevated, com- 

 menced its trill again ; then it shuffled about for some 

 seconds and repeated the strain. It now seemed to descry 

 me, and dropping to the ground as before, reappeared a 



