THE BIRDS OF COWSLIP CORNER 161 



the same bush. When listening to the 

 pure loud notes of the Blackcap I have 

 often thought that surely he is our best 

 feathered singer, but when I heard the 

 two birds together I had to acknowledge 

 that the Nightingale was the best. In 

 the hours of spring when so many birds 

 are singing, and when in the general 

 chorus it is not easy to pick out any 

 individual song, the Blackcap's notes are 

 lost ; if we could hear the song in the 

 silence of night when all other songs 

 have ceased, we should appreciate it far 

 more. But the song that I should love 

 to hear in the dead of night is that of 

 our English Thrush. Some of the birds 

 that I have heard in the wild hill 

 country, with their superior notes, far 

 louder and purer than those of the low- 

 lands, would draw thousands to their 

 leafy concert-hall, if only they would 

 sing when all other songs were silent. 

 It is the silence and the darkness that 

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