THE SINGERS 45 



autumn and winter; presently, as if the best music 

 days were dark and rainy, not, perhaps, days of a 

 steady, dull downpour, but wild and gusty with 

 bursts of rain that make puddles everywhere 

 " cluttery weather " I have heard my friend the 

 gamekeeper call this when it comes in spring. And 

 so one may alternate between a thought that bright 

 weather, not dull, makes the birds sing, and a thought 

 that dull weather, not bright, has this effect. 



Starlings sing longer and with more spirit in what 

 to our sense is delicious autumn and winter 

 weather than when it is dull and wet ; though they 

 will also sing a little on soaking mornings sing as 

 they shake the wet from their breasts and wings. 

 The missel thrush, I think, prefers for his winter 

 songs the soft and sunny days, though in the spring 

 he trolls out a brave song on the stormy days. Larks 

 and song thrushes are much harder to decide about. 

 How they seem to revel in such bright autumn weather 

 as we revel in ! Yes, but at other times, how they 

 seem to revel in days the exact reverse. Do brilliant 

 days with clear, mild air set them singing ? Often so. 

 But it may happen that the larks begin hi earnest and 

 many song thrushes strike up on an autumn morning 

 when the sky has a roof of lead and the whole day 

 drips. 



Burning heat and bitter cold are more certain in 

 their effect : most English birds are songless then ; the 

 ringdove and the turtle-dove in the heats of July and 



