74 STRA Y FEA THERS FROM MANY BIRDS. 



Our little friends the birds have taken a fresh lease of 

 life, and most of them are turning their thoughts to love 

 and song. Such early birds as the Thrushes and the 

 Starlings, the Robin and the Bunting, are already 

 enjoying their brief honeymoon, and soon their nests 

 will be full of eggs or callow young. The Rooks have 

 been busy the past month or more in the tops of the 

 rocking, windy elm trees, and many of the young birds 

 are already hatched, as the fragments of egg-shells 

 under the trees fully testify. Above the meadows the 

 Skylark's song is heard, and these little brown-coated 

 choristers may be seen everywhere rising from the grass 

 and the corn to soar in spiral course upwards to the 

 zenith warbling all the way. On the topmost twigs of 

 the hedgerows the beautiful Yellow Bunting, gayer by 

 far than any Canary, sits and chants his sweet refrain ; 

 while the love-melody of the Chaffinch may be heard 

 from almost every tree-top. The Thrush and the Black- 

 bird make the shrubberies resound with song, especially 

 at morn and even, and the Starling, with every feather 

 on his body erect and trembling with excitement, skeels 

 and whistles on the chimney-pots or the tree-tops near 

 his nest-hole. He is a most interesting little musician, 

 best described as the piper amongst birds, his shrill 

 laboured melody putting one in mind of Scotland's 

 national instrument. 



Our summer birds of passage are also rapidly putting 



