THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS 47 



insects from the teeming blades, and now and then 

 performing kind offices for its friend the cow, by 

 flirting up under its belly and ridding it of some 

 troublesome insect. Were I to watch the little 

 yellow bird to its home, I should find the nest under 

 some overhanging tuft, probably placed near the cool 

 stream in which the cows love to stand. 



Bird songs and sounds flood all the land, and 

 half a dozen larks are singing against the blue; 

 they almost make the sunshine vocal. The grass 

 grows tall by the hedge-side, and the ditch is done in a 

 setting of green and gold. All life seems to love the 

 stream it is the chief artery of the land. From the 

 wild service-tree in the hedge goes towering up a 

 little brown bird, singing and fluttering the while, 

 and then slowly descending to the twig from which 

 it started. The song is pleasant, and is that of the 

 tree-pipit. No time is lost after its April arrival in 

 treating us to its lark-like song, and this continues 

 through breeding-time and on into summer. After 

 indulging in its aerial evolutions for a time, the 

 " grasshopper-lark " drops down to the red campions, 

 among which is its moss-fibred nest. A bird loved 

 of the country folk, for they have many provincial 

 names of their own, of which pipit-lark, field-titling, 

 and tree-lark, are a few. 



By the ditch bank water-avens, wild parsley and 

 campions crowd each other; yellow and purple iris 



