140 WILD BIRDS 



the fall. The first is early in September, on those 

 very serene bright days when few trees have begun 

 to show red or yellow leaves and the calm that comes 

 after summer is felt everywhere. The redbreasts 

 that mark that time are home-bred birds the old 

 birds of the year coming into full song again. 



The second phase is when dripping woods and 

 lanes are loud with redbreasts that have come in 

 from Europe, as well as with our home birds ; and 

 this phase is often very notable through late October 

 and far into November, when it really seems that 

 the darker and drearier the day the livelier the host 

 of competing robins. 



Turning back in the season to the bird life in a 

 bit of homely England lanes and woods and plough 

 and pasture farm lands in the South or Midlands : 

 what are its outstanding features of the spring 

 and summer ? The song and the missel-thrushes 

 have been heard on and off through late autumn 

 and winter, so they are not especially marked in 

 early spring. But the first song-thrush's nest can 

 never be anything but a chief event in the chronicle 

 of English birds. The best description of it I 

 ever lit on is in an overlooked sonnet by John 

 Clare, the ploughboy poet. Clare wrote much prosy 

 verse which might well have died with the author ; 

 therein he was like Thomson of " The Seasons," 

 and like Robert Bloomfield. But a few short poerns 

 he wrote from the madhouse and in the fields are 

 rare and choice, and of these I like best his sonnet 

 on the song -thrush's nest : 



