132 FKESH FIELDS 



I shall not soon forget how my ears were beset 

 that bright May morning, two days after my arrival 

 at Glasgow, when I walked from Ayr to Alloway, 

 a course of three miles in one of the most charming 

 and fertile rural districts in Scotland. It was as 

 warm as mid-June, and the country had the most 

 leafy and luxuriant June aspect. Above a broad 

 stretch of undulating meadow-land on my right the 

 larks were in full song. These I knew; these I 

 welcomed. What a sound up there, as if the sun- 

 shine were vocal ! A little farther along, in a clover 

 field, I heard my first corn-crake. "Crex, crex, 

 crex," came the harsh note out of the grass, like 

 the rasping sound of some large insect, and I knew 

 the bird at once. But when I came to a beautiful 

 grove or wood, jealously guarded by a wall twelve 

 feet high (some fine house concealed back there, I 

 saw by the entrance), what a throng of strange 

 songs and calls beset my ears! The concert was at 

 its height. The wood fairly rang and reverberated 

 with bird-voices. How loud, how vivacious, almost 

 clamorous, they sounded to me! I paused in 

 delightful bewilderment. 



Two or three species of birds, as I afterwards 

 found, were probably making all the music I heard, 

 and of these, one species was contributing at least 

 two thirds of it. At Alloway I tarried nearly a 

 week, putting up at a neat little inn 



"Where Doon rins, wimplin', clear," 



and I was not long in analyzing this spirited bird- 

 choir, and tracing each note home to its proper 



