344 NETHER LOCHABER. 



" colouring " otherwise. The truth is that our best wild-bird music 

 time may be set down as properly belonging to the eight weeks 

 between the 15th March and the 15th May. Let our poets, then, 

 look out for and find appropriate rhymes for " March," " April," 

 and " May." It is their business and not ours ; but for any sake, 

 in dealing with wild-bird music and summer joys, let them beware 

 of the fatal facility of the rhymes of " June " and " tune." Poets 

 and poetry apart, however, it was extremely interesting to watch 

 the conduct of our wild-birds during our late " Indian summer." 

 For the first few days they fluttered about and chirped interroga- 

 tively amongst themselves, as if in a state of doubt and indecision, 

 if not of actual bewilderment, evidently puzzled what to say to it, 

 but, upon the whole, of opinion that it was too good to last. Last, 

 however, it did, longer than either they or we thought at all likely, 

 and before the end of the week the chirping had developed into 

 actual song, and the fluttering into a business-like activity, as if 

 they had fully thought it over, and had decided that it was best, 

 proverb wise, to be making some hay while the sun shone. Our 

 attention was first of all attracted by a pair of house sparrows 

 passing and repassing our study window, now with a stray feather, 

 now with a bit of straw in their bills, with which they disappeared 

 in a clump of ivy high up on a corner of the garden wall. On 

 climbing by the aid of a small ladder to inquire what they were 

 about, we found that they were repairing a nest, in which they had 

 already reared a brood this season, and which the youngsters, in 

 their unfledged and awkward babyhood, had considerably damaged 

 and generally knocked out of shape " into a cocked hat," in fact, 

 as they say across the Atlantic. With a care and painstaking, 

 however, which our " featherless biped " architects, in executing 

 their repairs on our stone and lime habitations would do well to 

 imitate, the sparrows in a surprisingly short time got their house in 

 order, and in a few days thereafter we found a couple of eggs in it. 



