394 ENGLISH BIRD-LIFE 



(and subsequent experience confirmed the opinion), had 

 alike failed to convey a true impression of rural England. 



I had been told, England was like a great park but I 

 found it a farm, and a farm with a surprisingly large 

 acreage in pasture land. The hedge rows, too, contained 

 more large trees, and indeed the whole country was more 

 wooded than I had expected to find it. But grass and graz- 

 ing herds are assuredly more attractive than the best-kept 

 cabbage or turnip fields, and trees are a glory anywhere. In 

 short, therefore, I found the English country less groomed 

 and just that much more attractive than I had anticipated. 



Rooks, Starlings, Swallows, Swifts, Skylarks, Black- 

 birds, Thrushes, and Lapwing Plovers were the common 

 birds seen from the train, the latter furnishing a brand new 

 sensation in bird-life. The bird 's size, form, and colors, its 

 grace of carriage on the ground and dashing, erratic, aerial 

 evolutions, give it high rank as an attractive part of any 

 avifauna ; while its abundance, in spite of the demand which 

 places thousands of its eggs on the market annually, is in- 

 explicable. 



Reaching London, connections were at once established 

 with the the correspondents who were to present me at the 

 court of the Nightingale. Singing birds were reported from 

 Surrey and also from Cambridge, and almost before I real- 

 ized I was in England I found myself at nightfall in quiet 

 Surrey by-ways listening for the 



" Sweet bird that shunn'st the noise of folly." 



and in time the notes of not only one, but of three birds rang 

 out in silvery clearness against the background of the night. 

 They sang for hours. I heard them when they seemed with- 

 in reach ; and with almost equal distinctness, when I had 

 gone to my hedge-enclosed home a quarter of a mile across 

 the valley. They were said to be good singers, and I ex- 

 ulted in the completeness of this long-anticipated exper- 

 ience. 



The Nightingale 's song was, of course, unlike my precon- 



