THE SINGERS 65 



when barely a lark note could be heard save at dawn, 

 and when only the yellow-hammer sings in the heat 

 of the day. Birch woods are more favoured by the 

 singing willow wrens in August than oak woods. 

 Some willow wrens in such places will sing all day. 

 This song differs a little from the spring song, but 

 I agree with a friend that it is fresher than when 

 the bird left off in June. This is not an after-moult 

 song, it is not a pairing, and I cannot think it is a 

 courting song, a song of rivalry. It serves none of 

 the utility purpose usually ascribed to bird music. 

 Why the willow wren left off for a few weeks I 

 cannot say; but I believe he sings now simply for 

 the pleasure of the singing. 



Late in September an exquisite little traveller paid 

 a flying visit to my garden at breakfast time, and 

 next morning at the same hour he was there again, 

 for a few swift flits among the roses and the pear 

 tree. He was the wood warbler, about the last of 

 summer birds I should look for near the close of 

 September. Nights when meadow and marsh are 

 shrouded with the cold earth-cloud, and the stars 

 glitter and shine with a brightness rarely seen through 

 an English air, and the grass is white with frost 

 crystals, seem unsuited to such a fairy form as the 

 wood warbler's. Yet when the sun turned the crystals 

 back again to dew, there he was among the blackbirds 

 and thrushes, the liveliest little thing imaginable 

 so slim, so volatile in every movement, that a pied 



