THE T AGE ANT OF SUMMEB. 61 



exact place. Thrushes have sung and ceased ; they 

 will begin again in ten mi];iutes. The blackbirds do 

 not cease ; the note uttered by a blackbird in the oak 

 yonder before it can drop is taken up by a second near 

 the top of the field, and ere it falls is caught by a 

 third on the left-hand side. From one of the topmost 

 boughs of an elm there fell the song of a willow 

 warbler for awhile ; one of the least of birds, he often 

 seeks the highest branches of the highest tree. 



A yellowhammer has just flown from a bare branch 

 in the gateway, where he has been perched and singing 

 a full hour. Presently he will commence again, and 

 as the sun declines will sing him to the horizon, and 

 then again sing till nearly dusk. The yellowhammer 

 is almost the longest of all the singers ; he sits and sits 

 and has no inclination to move. In the spring he 

 sings, in the summer he sings, and he continues when 

 the last sheaves are being carried from the wheat field. 

 The redstart yonder has given forth a few notes, the 

 whitethroat flings himself into the air at short intervals 

 and chatters, the shrike calls sharp and determined, 

 faint but shrill calls descend from the swifts in the air. 

 These descend, but the twittering notes of the swallows 

 do not reach so far — they are too high to-day, A 

 cuckoo has called by the brook, and now fainter from 

 a greater distance. That the titlarks are singing I 

 know, but not within hearing from here ; a dove, 

 though, is audible, and a chiffchaff has twice passed. 

 Afar beyond the oaks at the top of the field dark 

 specks ascend from time to time, and after moving in 

 wide circles for awhile descend again to the corn. 

 These must be larks ; but their notes are not powerful 



