OCTOBER. 165 



empty nests and evidently do not know on which 

 side of any nest to look for the opening, this pair 

 flew one after the other, with the confidence of 

 custom, straight into the nest which had been last 

 abandoned the one from which the scarcely fledged 

 family had flown on a cold, wet day, and perished 

 miserably on the drenched ground. 



THE THRUSH'S AUTUMN SONG. 



Besides bringing back a few summer birds, the 

 west winds brought softer, warmer air, and stirred 

 the song-thrushes, even on our bleak east coast, to 

 sing their autumn songs. Imperfect, sotto-voce songs 

 they are compared with the confident carols of spring, 

 but very welcome after the spell of silence, when robin 

 and starling alone held up the slender threads of the 

 year's girdle of music. Before, however, one's ear 

 caught the first thrush's soliloquy in the hawthorn 

 bush, the robin's cheery trill in the shrubbery and the 

 starling's musical medley on the chimney had been 

 reinforced by the linnets, singing glees together in 

 the hedges, and the skylark's ringing solo up among 

 the drifting clouds. 



THE POETS JUSTIFIED. 



Thus it may not be from mere convention, or for 

 the sake of alliteration, that the poets have always 

 linked the lark and the linnet together as the songsters 

 of the fields. As some one has well said, in poetry, 

 the lark always casts a linnet shadow when one 

 bird is mentioned in one line, you may look with 



