46 Idylls of the Field. 



Farther down the hedge there sits another pair of 

 lovers — two blue tits in their bright spring dress, now 

 circling round each other, now chattering softly, now 

 fluttering a little way into the air, and now flying off 

 in company to see if the old hole in the ruined wall 

 yonder, where the ivy hangs its friendly veil before the 

 door, is vacant again this season. 



Overhead a lark is singing, not with the full flood of 

 melody that later in the year will charm us with its 

 magical music, but with sweet snatches of most 

 exquisite song; and as he sinks downward to the 

 wintry fields again, another rises, and follows with a 

 few bars at least of that strain that, heard under un- 

 familiar skies, has roused, in the softened hearts of 

 rugged settlers, long-buried memories of home and 

 childhood. 



The songs of birds are to them the prelude of the 

 little drama of their lives that, each returning spring, is 

 acted and reacted in the greenwood, in the meadow, by 

 the sea, by masters of the art. 



Still, through the opening scenes the music lingers, 

 rising higher, sweeter, clearer ere its close, when the 

 long vigil of the mother bird is ended, and when she 

 and her mate have time for nothing but to minister to 

 the needs of their little family of gaping, goggle-eyed, 

 naked nestlings. 



We watch the old birds carrying food ; we hear the 

 querulous voices of their young, but we see compara- 

 tively little of their domestic arrangements. 



