A Paradise of Birds. 67 



starlings, the flights of finches and yellow-hammers 

 are made up of the united families of the neighbour- 

 hood. The armies that gather by the shore -the 

 dunlins and the plovers come in from remote breed- 

 ing stations and distant moorlands. 



There is not much music among the busy crowds. 

 A party of linnets, that alight among a patch of thistles, 

 twitter as they flit here and there, in sweet and tender 

 notes, and chatter in pleasant chorus as they rise all 

 at once into the air, but their breezy songs are ended 

 for the season. 



Longfellow says of the plunderers of the fruit-garden 

 that the few cherries which they pilfer 



' are not so sweet 



As are the songs these uninvited guests 

 Sing at their feasts with comfortable breasts ;' 



but the truth is that the thieves say very little as they 

 clear the bushes, except to quarrel over the spoil; and, 

 save for the cheerful treble of the robin and the brief 

 lyric of the wren, there is little singing in the harvest 

 time. 



Over the fields along the river sounds all day the 

 cry of the lapwing. 



Here a handful of these handsome birds alight on 

 the fringe of sand which the fast falling water is leaving 

 round a little island in the stream. 



Another troop spreads out like a party of skirmishers 

 over the meadow. 



52 



