160 WILD BIRDS 



being, in my experience, song-thrush, redbreast, 

 wren, hedge sparrow, and missel-thrush ; and the 

 the first four of these are among the most familiar 

 of all home and garden birds of England. 



So the notion that birds' songs belong to the time 

 of green things and blossom as Landor puts it, 

 " while the birds are singing and while blooms the 

 bower " is misleading. The song is fuller and 

 richer and more frequent in spring and early summer 

 than at any other time ; one cannot say more than 

 that. 



NOVEMBER DAYS 



The morning mists, which often inland are almost 

 a sure sign of a bright day, sometimes lift late by 

 the sea coast. The sun appears to prevail by eleven 

 o'clock, but a heavy mist sweeps in from the sea, 

 and the air does not clear till the early afternoon. 

 There is an hour, a short hour of warm and delicious 

 sunshine, everything steeped in it, and the redbreasts 

 singing with rapture the song that is now perfect 

 once more ; after that we appear to be in the period 

 of sunset light effects and sky. At this time of year 

 by the sea nothing strikes me more than the short- 

 ness of the afternoon on one of these days which 

 open with reeking mist that makes the tufts of grass 

 wetter than the heaviest rain can make them. The 

 afternoon is hardly started before we remark on 

 its being almost over. But, in the hour or two it 

 lasts, the lustre of the sky to the west and to the 

 south over the sea is very beautiful. It is not so 



