THE BUILDERS 



Spring advances like the tides, by the general onward move- 

 ment of many rising and falling waves ; and long before the 

 later migrant birds of summer have reached England, the 

 earliest nesters have already sent their young broods into the 

 world. Only the raven and crossbill and a few herons have 

 entirely done with the upbringing of young birds for the year 

 by the time that the swallow comes ; other early-nesting birds 

 have second broods to follow, and will be still busy in May. 

 None the less, the complexity in nature's broad movements 

 is strikingly brought home on some pleasant April morning in 

 the garden, when we hear the first indubitable cuckoo shouting 

 at us where he flirts his tail among the elms, and see next 

 minute the anxious mother thrush shepherding her round and 

 fluffy young in the shelter of the laurels. Very few of the 

 hen cuckoo's dupes have yet begun to build ; probably a third 

 of them have not yet arrived in the country ; and yet for our 

 own garden thrushes the season is already far advanced. They 

 will bring up another brood of young among the light green 

 leaves of the hornbeam hedge in May ; but they have already 

 borne the brunt of the breeding season in the warm garden 

 evergreens, among the winds and snowflakes of March. 



