166 NATURE NEAR LONDON. 



bourhood. There is another favourite copse a mile- 

 distant, and the cuckoo can be heard near it quite a 

 week earlier. This last spring there were two days' 

 difference a marked interval. 



The nightingale that sings in the bushes on the 

 common immediately opposite the copse is late in 

 the same manner. There is a mound about half a 

 mile farther, where a nightingale always sings first, 

 before all the others of the district. The one on the 

 common began to sing last spring a full week later. 

 On the contrary, the sedge-reedling, which chatters 

 side by side with the nightingale, is the first of all his 

 kind to return to the neighbourhood. The same 

 thing happens season after season, so that when once 

 you know these places you can always hear the birds 

 several days before other people. 



"With flowers it is the same ; the lesser celandine, 

 the marsh marigold, the silvery cardamine, appear 

 first in one particular spot, and may be gathered 

 there before a petal has opened elsewhere. The first 

 swallow in this district generally appears round about 

 a pond near some farm buildings. Birds care nothing 

 for appropriate surroundings. Hearing a titlark sing- 

 ing his loudest, I found him perched on the rim of a 

 tub placed for horses to drink from. 



This very pond by which the first swallow appears 

 is muddy enough, and surrounded with poached mud, 

 for a herd of cattle drink from and stand in it. An 

 elm overhangs it, and on the lower branches, which 

 are dead, the swallows perch and sing just over the 

 muddy water. A sow lies in the mire. But the 



