CHAPTER Lit 
FIRST WEEK IN APRIL 
Hap I been in the country instead of only 
some ten miles from St. Paul’s Cathedral, I 
should doubtless have been able to record 
much more of wild bird life during an outing 
that we took in the first week of April, than 
I have here set down. But this great city 
of London and its environs is a wonderful 
place for diversity of life. My attention was 
attracted in the morning by an unusually 
loud ‘ peel, peel, peel, peel, or ‘ quee, quee, 
quee, quee’ (it is impossible to correctly 
spell birds’ notes) repeated often and with an 
interval of only a few seconds between the 
bars, coming from some elms. Going up 
to them I stood and watched carefully for 
many minutes in order to discover what bird, 
for bird it surely was, which produced the 
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