THE AWAKENER OF THE 

 WOODS 



The Spirit of Spring is abroad. There is no 

 one of our island coasts so lone and forlorn 

 that the cries of the winged newcomers have 

 not lamented down the wind. There is not 

 an inland valley where small brown birds from 

 the South have not penetrated, some from 

 Mediterranean sunlands, some from the Desert, 

 some from the hidden homes on unknown 

 isles, some from beyond the foam of unfamiliar 

 shores. Not a backwater surely but has heard 

 the flute of the ouzel, or the loud call of the 

 mallard. The wren, that sweet forerunner of 

 'the little clan of the bushes' as we say in 

 Gaelic, clann bheag nam preas, the robin, the 

 mavis, the merle, have been heard in every 

 coppice and wildgrowth from the red combes 

 of the winding Dart to the granite-ledges by 

 the rushing Spey. From the last Cornish 

 upland to the last brown moor on the Ord of 



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