146 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



passed undoubtedly count for much; the responsive 

 physical change in us acts on the sense organs, and they, 

 too, appear to have been washed and made clean and 

 able to render truer and brighter images than before. 



Then, too, we have the other cause, in which all 

 natural sounds, especially bird sounds, produce an un- 

 usual effect owing to some special circumstances or to 

 a conjunction of favourable circumstances. It is pure 

 chance; the effect of to-day will never be repeated; it 

 has gone for ever, like the last beautiful sunset we 

 witnessed. But there will be many more beautiful sun- 

 sets to gladden our sight. 



On looking on a meadow yellow with buttercups I 

 have seen one fiower, or a single petal, far out, perhaps, 

 in the middle of the fields, which instantly caught and 

 kept my sight — one flower amongst a thousand thou- 

 sand flowers, all alike. It was because it had caught and 

 reflected the light at such an angle that its yellow 

 enamelled surface shone and sparkled like a piece of 

 burnished gold. By some such chance a song, a note, 

 may reach the sense with a strange beauty, glorified 

 beyond all other sounds. 



One evening, walking in a park near Oxford, I 

 stopped to admire a hawthorn tree covered with its 

 fresh bloom. On a twig on the thorn a female chaffinch 

 was perched, silent and motionless, when presently from 

 the top of an elm tree close by its mate flew down, 

 describing a pretty wavering curve in its descent, and 

 arriving at the bush, and still flying, circling round it, 

 he emitted his song; not the usual loud impetuous song 



