36 WILD NATURE IN STRATHEARN. 



May is not a summer month. If we consult 

 the calendar we find summer is nearly two 

 months away, so that the old Scots proverb 

 "Ne'er cast a cloot till May be oot," aptly ap- 

 plies to " the cauld calends o' May," and those 

 ailing in body will do well not to forget the 

 proverb, but keep on their winter " duds " until 

 May is gone. "In May, ' the month of love,' 

 the year is more confirmed, and every garden, 

 orchard, and copse rivals the singing tree of 

 the Arabian story. Now it is that the full 

 power of song is developed. Witness the clear 

 mellow pipe of that Blackbird perched on the 

 tallest Acacia in the garden, while his mate, 

 with half-shut eyes and pressing her little ones 

 to her bosom, listens in security on her nest in 

 yonder hawthorn hedge spangled with its dewy 

 Mayflower blossoms." That the temperature has 

 risen we see in the army of insects and flies 

 which have sprung into life to feed the birds that 

 have come over the seas to pass the summer 

 with us. The first to arrive is the Sand-Martin 



