52 SPRING 



man's primaeval companion in holes and caverns, deserts his 

 modern cities ; and the sparrow and starling and wood- 

 pigeon replace it as his companions amid industrial grime. 



But when the new verdure breaks in April, it drives back 

 the town for miles round its shabby fringe, and the new 

 grass and young elm-leaves make faded suburbs seem the 

 true country again. In fields once more green, the missel- 

 thrush calls to the wind, and tries to nest ; and though the 

 glare by night and the noise by day banish him before he 

 can settle down, the tamer song-thrush and blackbird rear a 

 few weakly young, among many disasters. In the heart of 

 the country, where the nightingales have not yet fled from 

 the stir of new buildings and the multiplication of domestic 

 cats and dogs, the birds returning to the thickening copses 

 and hedgerows complete the renascence of the year. 

 Chaffinches are so abundant in every part of the country 

 that the stir of spring life is greatly increased at one stroke 

 when most of them begin building together, about the 

 second week in April. Many of the early nests are de- 

 stroyed by the wind ; for the birds knit them to twigs 

 springing from separate boughs, which tear the mossy cup 

 when they whip apart. Linnets' nests appear among the 

 furze-bushes and in thick thorn hedges by the side of arable 

 fields ; in the latter situation the favourite material for the 

 outside of the nest is the roots of couch-grass thrown aside 

 from the spring harrowing. Their earthiness gives a dingy 

 appearance to the linnets' solid little nests ; but the eggs are 

 bedded on a thick cushion of wool that forms one of the best 

 of all protections against the winds and cold April rain. 

 Away from the wide plough-lands, among the furzy sheep- 

 walks and commons, the place of couch-roots is taken by 

 stained bent-grass and fragments of dead bracken. The 

 greenfinch nests about a fortnight later than the linnet ; and 



