232 WILD BIRDS 



impossible at another season. It is the sap of song 

 surging through the veins of the bird as sap must be 

 surging very soon through the veins of every growing 

 thing. 



I can scarcely recall a half-hour filled fuller of bird 

 notes than this March one, save perhaps the half -hour 

 or so after dawn in June, when the larks are all up 

 and not a fraction of an instant is without its lark 

 note. The crammed chorus of skylarks at the 

 summit of the year is the finest ecstasy of the kind 

 one can hear, but this medley of thrushes, blackbirds, 

 and redbreasts on moist March and April evenings 

 can be compared with it. 



It seems hopeless trying to get into words any 

 true notion of an outburst of bird song like this. 

 Perhaps a Turner in the management of words, and in 

 the ear for such sounds, will one day be born to 

 write it all down ; just as at length there came the 

 Turner to catch the sunsets and veils of mist and 

 storms at sea, and get them, as by a miracle, on to 

 canvas. Art had waited thousands of years for 

 him. 



THE LEAF WARBLER 



The word delicacy fits most of the " warblers " 

 that come to us in spring. It fits the redstart, the 

 blackcap, and the garden warbler, and the white- 

 throats, and the nightingale, too, in a way, though 

 there is nothing exactly delicate in the nightingale's 

 notes rather they are full of power and passion. 

 But it best fits the three winsome little birds that 



