5 2 Spring 



retorts in a splendid burst ; his defiance -brings out 

 a clear, melodious, wrathful rejoinder ; the other 

 serenader puts his whole fierce little soul into his retort ; 

 the wood is alive and ringing with challenge, and pas- 

 sion, and disdain. So rapt is the singer, so drunk with 

 his own wild passion, he pays no heed to noises that 

 at another time might fright him into silence. He is 

 ever one of the least timorous of birds, and to-night, 

 with this business on hand, he is as heedless of the 

 human noisomeness about him as the stars are or 

 the trees. 



Ornithologists tell you he sings by day as well, but 

 that his voice is drowned in the roar of waking life. 

 This is true only here and there. In a certain garden 

 I know, he will be perfectly quiet till about eight of 

 the May and the young June evenings, when he will 

 whistle a call or two, and is hushed again till dark. 

 My experience is that he is at his best towards mid- 

 night When the last toss-pot has gone home, and a 

 hush as of death has fallen on brake and cover ; when 

 the mystery of the trees is at its deepest, and the sky 

 is like a plain glittering with camp-fires, there is an 

 exquisite and sober joy in traversing the woodland 

 dusks alone save for the instancy of his desire. To 

 describe the song were impossible. Attempts to re- 

 duce it to score are foredoomed to failure. No human 

 being who has not heard it could ever so repeat 

 Marco Betton's ' Tiouou, tiouou, tiouou,' and the rest, 

 as to get the faintest conception of it. To hear a 



