36 



SPRING 



makes the fleece of the new-born lambs look dark already. 

 In southern England they prefer park-land and well-grown 

 groves, or fields with high timber and deep grass. Their 

 song-flight is a very beautiful performance. They spring 

 into the air from the top of a tree, flutter upwards a few 

 moments in song, and then float downward on motionless 

 outspread wings till the song ends, after an emphatic 

 repetition of four or five high notes as they reach the tree 

 again. Sometimes they sing without rising from the bough ; 





WHITKTHROAT 



but flight and song together is their rule. The ear soon 

 learns the emphatic notes towards the end of the song, and 

 the singing pipit can then be singled out. Both the meadow- 

 and rock-pipits have a song-flight of similar kind; but the 

 tree-pipit's is far the neatest and most fascinating, as neither 

 of the others start and finish their flight with the same pre- 

 cision or from the top of a tree. 



Spring comes slowly to the cold, wet soil of pools and 

 marshes and river banks ; and there is still little sign of the 

 luxuriant aquatic vegetation of later spring, when the first 

 chiffchaffs call in March. By mid-April the willows are 

 tasselled with vivid sprays, the flags and sedges and brook- 

 lime are strongly shooting, and the smell of the mint is 



