68 THE BOOK OF THE OPEN AIE 



tree. Then comes the last high pro- nests or young. By Midsummer Day 



gress of the year, and the stilling of the song of the nightingale is to be 



that fierce prophetic song. As the heard no more ; and although the joy 



apple-blossom grows scarce and tar- and triumph of summer seem expressed 



nished, and the bluebells lank and more fully than ever before in the 



dim in the deepening shade of June, brief and luminous nights, the myriad 



one by one the voices of the nightin- roses that star the hedges, and the 



gales fall silent in the thickets; and great sheets of scarlet poppies and 



now, by a strange completeness of crimson clover blossom that burn to the 



change, their only note is the harsh brightness of the sun, the ear already 



and guttural croak, or constrained, misses that tumultuous music of the 



inarticulate chirp, with which they mounting year, and we feel, afar but 



express alarm for their threatened surely, the turn of the receding tide. 



XIV 



SOME MOORLAND BIRDS 



" The fall of Kings, 



The rage of nations and the crush of states 

 Move not the man, who from the world escap'd 

 In still retreats and flowery solitudes 

 To Nature's voice attends." 



THOMSON. 



TT is in the merry month of May mountain village the Ultima Thule 



that the ornithologist, in South of civilization, but it is a walk which 



Central Wales, will do well to turn will prove one of unsurpassed enjoy- 



his thoughts to his loved haunts and ment. Early in your walk, a goldfinch 



probe the secrets of many a " cwm," familiar enough object twittering 



" coed " and " nant ; " for then most as it flies, crosses from one hedgerow 



inland birds are busy with domestic tree to another where it sits half buried 



cares. by the foliage. You pause ; for a 



Choose a day then, and starting at solitary goldfinch at this season surely 



daybreak, stray up towards the hazy speaks of a busy mate. A horse 



curtain of the rosy - tinted hills, chestnut, shimmering in its pink flush 



There are nine solid miles in front of clustering blossoms, here adorns the 



of you before reaching a remote wayside, and the cunningly-concealed 



