The to that and you'll have the allotted age of 



Summer ma n' [i.e., an eel is supposed to live about 

 era as. seven vears to seven and a half years : a frog 

 or toad to about fifteen : a bat to about 

 thirty : a deer to about sixty. I should add, 

 however, that my informant was not sure if in 

 the third instance it wasn't a iolair (eagle) 

 instead of a deer]. 



One of the strangest English names for the 

 bat (among over a score only less strange) is 

 the Athern-bird — a Somerset term, I believe, 

 whose meaning I do not know. 



But now to return to the rear-guard of 

 Spring of whom we spoke first. Yet the 

 folklore of the house -martin is so familiar 

 that it need not be alluded to. We all know 

 that it is time to think of summer when the 

 martin clings once more to her last year's 

 clay-house under the eaves. 



It is when the wild-doves are heard in the 

 woods that one realises the Spring- Summer 

 borderland is being crossed. When the 

 cushat calls, all the clans of the bushes are at 

 home, runs a Highland saying : meaning that 

 every mavis and merle and finch is busy with 

 hatching the young brood, or busier still 

 feeding the callow nestlings. But when the 

 voice of the turtle is heard in the land, then 

 Summer has come over the sea on the south 



154 



