1 1 2 SYLVIAD.E. 



rod; no less continuous is it, nor more melodious. Many 

 years afterwards, when the memory of these pleasant 

 wanderings had faded away, I happened one evening in 

 May to he passing across a common in Hertfordshire, 

 skirted hy a hedge of brushwood, when the old familiar 

 sound fell on my ear hke a forgotten nursery melody. 

 The trees not being in their full foliage, I was not withont 

 hope that I might be able to get a sight of the performer, 

 whom I now knew to be a bird, and I crept quietly to- 

 wards tlie spot whence the noise proceeded. Had it been 

 singing in a copse-wood instead of a hedge, I should cer- 

 tainly have failed, for there is the same peculiarity about its 

 note that there is about that of the insect — you cannot make 

 up your mind exactly whereabouts the instrument which 

 makes the noise is at work. The note, when near, is con- 

 tinuous, luonotonous, and of equal loudness throughout ; 

 it might be a minute spinning-wheel revolving rapidly, oi' 

 a straw pipe with a pea in it blown with a single breath 

 and then suddenly stopping. But whether the perform- 

 ance is going on exactly before you, a little to the right, 

 or a little to the left, it is hard to decide. I approached 

 to within a few yards of the hedge, and peered through the 

 hazel rods, now decorated wath dj'ooping tufts of plaited 

 leaves, but all in vain. I went a step or two nearer ; the 

 sound ceased, and the movement of a twig directed my 

 attention towards a jjarticular bush, on wliich I saw a 

 little bird, about as big as a Hedge-sj^arrow, quietly and 

 cautiously dropping branch by branch to the ground. In 

 a few minutes I observed it again a few yards off, creeping 

 with a movement resembling that of the JSTuthatch up 

 another bush. Having reached to nearly the summit it 

 became motionless, stretched out its neck, and keepinc!; its 

 mandibles continuously open and slightly elevated, com- 

 menced its trill again ; then it shuffled about for some 

 seconds and repeated the strain. It now seemed to descry 

 me, and dropping to the ground as before, reappeared a 



