38 Oxford: Spring and Early 



I stayed, they continued there, only retreating 

 a little as I approached, and sending foraging 

 detachments into the meadow, or changing trees 

 in continual fits of restlessness. The noise they 

 made was like the deep organ-sounds of sea-birds 

 in the breeding-time, but harsher and less serious. 

 I would willingly have stayed to see them depart, 

 but not knowing when that might be, I was 

 obliged to go home : and the next day when I 

 went to look for them, only a few were left. 



These birds do not leave us as a rule before 

 the first summer visitors have arrived. In the 

 case I have just mentioned, the spring was a 

 warm one, and the very next day I saw the ever- 

 welcome Chiff-chaff, which is the earliest to come 

 and the latest to go, of all the delicate warblers 

 which come to find a summer's shelter in our 

 abundant trees and herbage. 



I use this word ( warbler ' in a sense which 

 calls for a word of explanation : for not only are 

 the birds which are called in the natural history 

 books by this name often very difficult to dis- 

 tinguish, but the word itself has been constantly 

 used to denote a certain class of birds, without 



