LONG-TAILED FINCHES (AUSTRALIA) 



CHAPTER V 



NIGHTINGALES 



" Without further preamble, I will ask you to look to-day, 

 more carefully than usual, at your well-known favourite, and to 

 think about him with some precision." 



THE very name of the nightingale brings to 

 one's mind the sweet visions of spring, when 

 the earth is awakening from her sleep, quiver- 

 ing into newness of life in the lengthening days of 

 warmer sunshine, when oak and hazel-copses are car- 

 peted with stretches of purple blue-bells, white ane- 

 mones, and, in some of the more favoured spots, 

 yellow daffodils. Here, where the primroses have 

 all but given place to their other sisters of the woods 

 and meadows, for their fragrant blossoms are fading 

 out of sight, the summer migrants have again 



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