BIRDS OF THE WAVE AND WOODLAND 83 



" When first the vales the Bittern fills 

 Or the first Woodcock roams the nioonlit hillsy 



Wordsworth. 



^^ Beside the Redbreast' s note, one other strain, 



One summer strain, in ivintry days is heard — 



Amid the leafless thorns the merry Wren 



Pipes her perennial lay^ 



Bloom FIELD. 



" Of various plume and chirp the shivring birds 

 Alight on hedge or bush, where late concealed 

 Their nests now hang apparent to the vieiv." 



Grahame. 



To November we ouo-ht to o-ive the woodcock, the aristocrat 



o o 



amoiio- our winter visitors. To see one in a winter's walk 

 makes the walk memorable ; we speak for ever so long after- 

 wards of " the day we saw that woodcock." An old book says : 

 " Of woodcocks especially, it is remarkable that upon a change 

 of the wind to the east, about Allhallows-tide, they will seem 

 to have come all in a night ; for though the former day none 

 are to be found, yet the next morning they will be in every 

 bush." This was three hundred years ago, and woodcocks 

 are not now to be found "in every bush," even though the 

 wind (as it too often is) be east " about Allhallows-tide," 

 although that "they seem to have come all in a night" is 



