202 SUMMER 



peers in the entry as it calls. Young great spotted wood- 

 peckers make a loud but more confused din, more like the 

 burden of the starling's brood ; it is curious to see the boldly- 

 pied woodpecker cling beneath the hole, and feed the young 

 heads clustering in the door. Young cuckoos pursue their 

 puny foster-parents with a petulant cry too thin for their 

 burly bodies ; it seems as though they had stolen a young 

 hedge-sparrow's or meadow-pipit's voice, as well as its 

 heritage. The more we listen at midsummer, the more the 

 whole world simmers with the voices of callow nestlings 



YOUNG CUCKOO 



and fledglings ; life rises in them to hymn the longest day, 

 and only too quickly dies down as the light declines. 



Nature quickly sets to work to select her chosen few 

 from the multitude of her offspring. Among nearly all 

 birds the worst enemy is stormy weather. In a wet, cold 

 May and June so many eggs and young birds perish in 

 the nest that their numbers are more than decimated before 

 the time for the general emergence upon the world ; and 

 then the flood of life at midsummer is greatly reduced, 

 and the garden shrubbery may miss that haunted week or 

 fortnight when every bough has eyes. Cats, rats, and owls 



