THE SINGERS 59 



from hotel heights at the straining, glaring life of a 

 city this is a curious experience. Two night worlds 

 so near after all in mere mileage and yet in such utter 

 opposition ! It is not quite easy at the time we are 

 experiencing one scene to comprehend how the other, 

 too, is being enacted at the same moment, and is 

 equally real. 



The sedge-warbler sings best and longest after dark, 

 when his haunt is close to a sounding stream that 

 keeps him wakeful, for then attention is not diverted, 

 as in daytime, by food or nest work. The sedge- 

 warbler is a regular night singer ; I do not know of 

 any other English singing bird so wakeful through the 

 night as the sedge-warbler, except the nightingale. 

 But in June we have day songs from the sedge- 

 warbler lasting several minutes without pause. There 

 is a feature in the sedge-warbler's song that I have 

 noticed in no other ; he has many entirely different 

 notes, and they often succeed one another so quickly, 

 and are so mingled, that the effect is that of a duet, 

 or even of three distinct performers. 



The sedge-warbler is a little band or orchestra by 

 himself. Several instruments seem sounding all at 

 once : this is the illusion of his song, and it is so 

 remarkable that one looks into the tree or bush to 

 see if there is really a chaffinch or pied wagtail there 

 as well as sedge-warbler ! I have looked up, half ex- 

 pecting to see a blackbird flying off from the willow 

 tree, for the loud cackle of protest has suddenly 



