may hear the breathing of the miraculous The 



presence. The birds, who still sing early in c 5 ) E? in f 

 i . t i r 4-1 v. of Dusk, 



the month, and many even of those whose 



songs follow the feet of May begin a new love- 

 life at the coming of June, are silent : though 

 sometimes, in the south, the nightingale will 

 still suddenly put the pulse of song into the 

 gloaming, though brieflier now ; and elsewhere 

 the night-loving thrush will awake, and call 

 his long liquid notes above the wild-growth of 

 honeysuckle and brier. At the rising of the 

 moon I have heard the cuckoos calling well 

 after the date when they are supposed to be 

 silent, and near midnight have known the 

 blackcap fill a woodland hollow in Argyll with 

 a music as solitary, as intoxicating, as that of 

 a nightingale in a Surrey dell. The thrush, 

 the blackbird, the blackcap, the willow-warbler 

 and other birds may often be heard singing in 

 the dusk, or on moonlit nights, in a warm 

 May : and doubtless it is for this reason 

 that many people declare they have heard the 

 nightingale even in regions where that bird 

 never penetrates. Often, too, the nightingale's 

 song is attributed to the blackcap, and even 

 to the thrush or merle, simply because heard 

 by day, for there seems to be a common idea 

 that this bird will not sing save at dusk or in 

 darkness or in the morning twilight. I doubt 



191 



