56 B[RDS OF THE WAVE AND WOODLAND 



Summer's pride, fair Philomel," " the dear good angel of 

 the Spring, the nightingale," and 



" All vital things that wake to bring 

 News of buds and blossoming." 



With the swallow and the nightingale, many other birds 

 " transmiofratinof come, unnumbered colonies on foreio-n win^ 

 at Nature's summons." 



From every quarter the aliens, if birds bred on British soil 

 by British-born parents can be called such, converge upon our 

 coasts, just as if England were the centre of a circle at which 

 all the birds who spend the rest of the year upon its circum- 

 ference congregate for the nesting season, reaching the same 

 point at the same time, but travelling, each company, on a 

 radius of its own. 



I have often wondered that migration is not more 

 often looked at through the other end of the telescope, 

 and Great Britain called the "home," for instance, of the 

 nio-htineale. What makes " home " for a bird ? Is it not the 

 place where the nest is built and the young are reared ? For 

 the rest of the year the families travel "abroad," returning 

 "home" for all that makes life important and domestic. Their 

 fixed addresses are in England, their names are in British 

 directories as residing there. But their doctors w^ill not let 

 them winter "at home," and so they have to go on to the 

 Continent, or to even warmer latitudes, for the colder months 



