ST. VALENTINE'S DAY 



IT is usually accounted a myth at any rate, by 

 those who live in the towns that the birds pair on 

 St. Valentine's Day. But it may confidently be 

 stated that whoever goes out into field and woodland 

 to-morrow, if it be a day of average spring progress, 

 and not one of erratic set-back, will see many sights 

 and hear many sounds to warrant the belief that 

 now the advance on spring begins in earnest. The 

 plovers, beautifully groomed and crested, will be 

 walking the fields in pairs and bowing to one another 

 in their pretty way ; the wood-pigeons will be cooing 

 ecstatically ; the woods will echo with the ringing cry 

 of the ox-eye ; you may see two robins at once 

 instead of the moody Laras that have sentinelled the 

 path through the winter ; the jays will be lolloping 

 about so as to show one another all the beauties of 

 their plumage ; chaffinches, greenfinches, hedge-spar- 

 rows, and yellow-hammers will be singing love-songs 

 or battle-songs, according to their nature, and making 

 the latter very realistic action-songs. 



We know that this will be so, for the simple reason 



that it was so, to some extent, yesterday, and one or 



two yesterdays before that. Those sturdy ruffians, 



the ravens, have even built their nest, which, perhaps, 



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