flycatcher hawks the happy hunting-grounds The 

 of the apple-blossom, when the swift wheels 

 over the spire of the village church, and when 

 the wild-dove is come again. The first call 

 of the cuckoo unloosened the secret gates. 

 We are across the frontier in that first gloam- 

 ing when we hear 



" The clamour musical of culver wings 

 Beating the soft air of the dewy dusk." 



To these familiar and loved harbingers from 

 the south should be added yet another welcome 

 friend who comes to us in the rear-guard of 

 the Spring, though, rather, we should say he 

 becomes visible now, for the Bat has never 

 crossed the seas. The house-martin has not 

 had time to forget the sands of Africa before 

 her wing has dusked the white pansies on the 

 sunside of old redbrick English manors : but 

 the bat has only to stretch his far stronger yet 

 incalculably less enduring pinions and then 

 loop through the dusk from ivied cave or tree- 

 hollow or the sombre silences of old barns, 

 ruined towers, or ancient belfries sheltered 

 from rain and wind. 



The Awakening of the Bat . . . yes, that 



too is a sign that Spring has gone by, singing 



on her northward way and weaving coronals 



of primrose and cowslip, or from her unfolded 



H7 



