CHAPTER III 



THE SINGERS 



THE song thrush is the most essential bird in England. 

 Would it be absolute England, could there be a full 

 and typical English wood, without the thrush ? The 

 oak, the chalk, the Saxon throstle these seem to 

 me the most English things the mind can picture, 

 no matter how common they may be off English soil ; 

 and to them I can add the elm, whether it be native 

 tree or not. The elm is indispensable to our south- 

 country landscape to the tangled and deep-rutted 

 lanes and the thatched hamlets and early English 

 spires, the cressy, trout-brooks and old mill-dams; 

 and in the elm we ever set a singing thrush in our 

 reveries of strong and delicate English scenery. I 

 believe that the two most familiar and constant and 

 most delightful sensations that come to me through 

 things of Nature are seeing and fingering the first 

 song thrush eggs of the season where they lie in 

 their cup of moss and clay, and hearing the first 

 note of the thrush in autumn, when it begins once 

 more its lay. These things have a wonderful curing 

 and refreshing effect on the spirit. I have thought 

 of them at night sometimes when lying painfully 



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