THE SINGERS 67 



wagtail's spring and dart just over the grass when 

 collecting food for mate or young in May only the 

 wood warbler is much the quicker in action. The 

 wood warbler, once we really know him, can hardly 

 be mistaken, though he is larger, or longer, than a 

 willow warbler or a chiff-chaff, if only by a matter 

 of lines not by the grosser fractions of an inch. I 

 find it not always easy, save at very close quarters, 

 to be sure whether a bird is willow warbler or chiff- 

 chaff; whereas there is something about the wood 

 warbler perhaps his greeny hues, his slimness, his 

 light aerial feats, all three put together to mark 

 him out. 



The window is shut ; he is half across the garden, 

 and, seen one second, is out of sight the next ; it 

 does not signify that fairy figure and flight could 

 only be a wood warbler's. His is a rare distinction. 

 Wood warbler, redstart, blackcap, nightingale are 

 these not the stylists among our small summer 

 birds ? 



A pleasant task it would be to draw up a full 

 list of the birds which in twelve months pass through 

 or stay in a garden. The number of them, even in 

 a garden of an acre or less and without a stream 

 trickling through it, when added up may surprise 

 us. The summer warblers are merely casual passers 

 through the small garden, though often in passing 

 through they will stop two, even three, days 

 thanks to green-fly. In spring I look for the black- 



