42 FROM A MIDDLESEX GARDEN 



if it be one of colour, the " passionate blue " of the violet, 

 the " rathe primrose," from moss-bed shyly peeping, so a bird 

 song, newly tuned, stimulates the ear to a wonderful joy. It 

 is certainly the thrush " February's bird," as Helen Milman 

 says that sings lustily early in the morning and well up to 

 dark, more in the woods than in the garden at first the 

 certainty that Spring is coming bubbling up in each triple 

 cadence of his song. He sings on rainy days more than other 

 birds do, and prefers them to bright sunshine ; perhaps he 

 realises how loving songs can recall sunshine in dark times. 



This sweet bird-praise sings the author of " Days and 

 Hours in a Garden " : " Dear birds ! Does any one ever think, 

 I wonder, sitting in the summer shade near ' some moist, bird- 

 haunted English lawn,' how dull it would be without them 

 how much they enhance for us the grace and charm of the 

 garden and the country? It is their gay light-heartedness 

 that is so delightful, that we should miss them so much if 

 they were not there. Who ever saw a grave bird ? . . . 

 Their very labours of nest-building, and of feeding their 

 young ones, are done like a merry bit of child's play ! The 

 birds' never-failing interest in life is like a tonic to those who 

 love them." 



