PREFACE. XI 



from the ash in the hedge-row or the wild cherry in 

 the woods, an old custom stiU proclaims a holiday 

 in honour of his arrival. When the last lingering 

 feature of winter has yanished; when brooks, no 

 longer hoarse, sink their voices to a tinkling sweet- 

 ness, flooding mead and dingle with their music ; 

 when the merry, merry month, although no longer 

 celebrated for its floral shows and games as formerly, 

 arrives, the May-bush may be seen over the door of 

 the village smithy and on the heads of horses on 

 the road. 



It would have been of little use passing acts of 

 Parliament, like the one which has just become law, 

 for the preservation of members of the feathered 

 tribes, if their native woods had not been preserved 

 to us by sportsmen. To have lost our woods would 

 have been to have lost the spring and summer resi- 

 dences of migratory birds : to have lost the laugh of 

 the woodpecker, the songs of the blackbird and the 

 thrush, the woodlark's thrilling melody, and the 

 nightingale's inimitable notes, to say nothing of 

 those faint soothing shadowings which steal upon 

 one from these leafy labyrinths of nature. As some 

 one taking deeper views has said : — 



