THE INCOMING OF SUMMER 19 

 the spring in the hillside, has all his being 

 enthralled. The trembling of the nettles 

 and the husky voice continue, and a brown 

 bird passes over the nettled sanctuary. It 

 is a wren carrying a leaf to the house 

 that after two days' labour is nearly built. 

 Swiftly he pushes the oak leaf into place, 

 then mounts a dry bramble jutting above 

 the pleached ash and hazel branches, and 

 from his pine-spindle of a beak pours a 

 ringing melody. The fervour of the 

 crackey's song is so intense that in com- 

 parison with his size and minute cocked 

 tail it appears an impossibility he is a 

 Swinburnian singer. His vernal feelings 

 are so strong that in the interval of vocal 

 exclamation he fashions many spare nests, 

 most of them loosely and carelessly made. 

 The shanty in the dead ivy around the oak 

 is constructed of withered leaves that 

 harmonise with its surroundings ; he has 

 another in a hayrick near, formed of dried 

 grasses; a third in a green bush composed 



