1 62 



SUMMER 



this song before sunrise in early June is amazing in its 

 vehemence. It does not give a perfect display of the song 

 of any one species, for the din of music is so confused that 

 only the most individual voices can be followed. Blackbird 

 and blackcap and nightingale and a dozen other species are 

 mingled in a chaos which can only be likened to the buzz 



of voices at a dinner- 

 party ; and through the 

 tumult we can only 

 distinguish clearly the 

 measured rhythm of 

 the ring-dove, and the 

 turtle - dove's hollow 

 double note. This 

 burst of song lasts for 

 about twenty minutes ; 

 then it suddenly ceases, 

 and the sun being now 

 well over the eastern 

 woods the birds fall 

 keenly to feeding. 



There is a great 

 change in the night 

 by about the middle 

 of July. It is still 

 unmistakably summer. None of the peculiar dampness 

 of autumn, with its subtle sense of vegetation beginning 

 to decay, yet hangs in the coolness of dusk or the filmy 

 mist of dawn ; there is not yet apparent that first presage 

 of autumn's oncoming, the drenching August dew. But 

 the night is far more silent. The nightingale's music 

 is long over; except in cool upland regions and dales 

 of the north, the evening strain of the song-thrush is 



BLACKBIRD 



