MIDSUMMER TWILIGHT 



Spells of the June Eve 



The first day of summer, to go by the calendar, 

 is about the last on which the nightingale sings. I 

 listened to a nightingale singing strongly on June 19 

 for his voice is far from exhausted on the day he 

 ceases ; on the contrary, it is often at full power 

 then but by June 2 1 most nightingales are silent. 

 Not a bar more will they give us till the second 

 week of next April. Garden warblers, blackcaps, 

 and lesser whitethroats continue into July ; the 

 willow wrens, after a few weeks of silence, delight us 

 in August. Who has heard the nightingale sing in 

 July in England ? May is his only full month. 



But the long twilights of midsummer are so full 

 of other charms that we are not in the mood to 

 regret the music and magic of spring. Just before 

 the heavy meadow grass goes down before the 

 mower, when its billowed green is turned to grey by 

 the wind, and broad sheets of it are yellow or purple- 

 dusted with infinite pollen this is the time to climb 

 the stile and brush one's way along the narrow path. 

 At nine o'clock the thrush ends, passing in delicious 

 moments from song to sleep, and the nightjar is 

 whirring, and the deep-hid corncrake calling from 

 the maze which its mate threads so easily. 



The Ghost Moth's Ecstasy 



Ten minutes later the ghost moths are on the 

 wing. Eve after eve, at this time, one can go into 



