2i6 Bird - Lore 



marked those who were bound for the Hnks or polo-field. Space in the daily 

 press, which in the preceding May was given to ghastly reports of death and 

 destruction, to stories of heroism under fire, was now occupied by cricket, golf, 

 and tennis scores, to praise of the batsman who had made a 'century.' Already 

 the dealers reported that their supplies of racquets, bats, and golf clubs were 

 becoming exhausted and players were urged to "freshen up old stock." But 

 it was not alone his inherent love of sport that called the Briton out-of-doors; 

 nor was it only the sportsman to whom the press appealed. In spite of the 

 demands of world news, the leading London daily found room for a column in 

 praise of the Nightingale's song, the outpouring of a heart which had been 

 stimulated to fervent expression by this most famous of feathered minstrels; 

 while not an issue of this paper was without a tribute to bird, blossom, or 

 season from the pen of some follower of White and Jefferies. 



Sunday morning, May i8, I went with a nature-loving companion 30 miles 

 by train to a thinly populated region where extensive commons of field and 

 woodland, hill and dale offered opportunity to renew acquaintance with the 

 common British birds. The season, so far as one could judge from the vege- 

 tation, appeared to be about as far advanced as, in normal years, it is about 

 New York City on that date. Apple trees were still in luxuriant bloom; horse- 

 chestnuts, which are so much more abundant in England than in America, 

 were in full blossom ; hawthorne was spreading its snowy lines along the path- 

 ways and roadside; dry sunny hillsides were yellow with gorse; and in shady 

 places the ground was purple with wild hyacinth. The outlook on every side 

 suggested complete accord between man and his environment. Nature seemed 

 his willing ally in grainfield, pasture, woodland, or garden. And all this charm- 

 ing, friendly landscape found its voice in the songs of birds. Chaffinches ex- 

 pressed its good cheer; Song Thrushes its content; Blackbirds its peace; young 

 Rooks, calling lustily from their nests, its domesticity. The mellow coo of 

 Wood Pigeons spoke eloquently of that harmony between human life and 

 bird-life, which permits the existence in numbers in thickly settled places of 

 this fine bird, and emphasized, by contrast of results, our treatment of the 

 Passenger Pigeon. The Moor-hen, essentially like our Florida Gallinule, which 

 we saw on the margin of a small stream, and which one may count on finding 

 in every reed-grown pool in England, further illustrates in its abundance how 

 much more powerful than law is sentiment. 



Swallows and Martins, Jackdaws and Starlings made their homes about 

 those of man; there were Robins and Accentors in the hedgerows; Jays, Warb- 

 lers, Titmice and Nuthatches in the woods. 



Lying beneath a hilltop yew we looked out from under its low-spreading 

 branches over a scene where one's every concept of pastoral England found 

 its counterpart. The toUing bells from the church in the village below were 

 echoed in the notes of the Cuckoo caUing from the far-distant somewhere, and 

 as a Skylark, mounting heavenward, showered the earth with its ecstatic notes, 



