Birds by Land and Sea 



to a neighbouring tree, to resume with unbroken 

 ardour the interrupted melody. 



There is something of the poet in this bird a 

 shiftless, thriftless creature in the hard ways of a 

 wintry world ; but let the frost-bound clods be 

 loosened by a genial thaw, so as no longer to resist 

 the soft, probing bill, and he will have broken his 

 fast ere the light is fully on the land, and taken 

 his stand to waken the lazier hard-bills with his 

 morning song. A wild, ecstatic creature at such 

 times ; seeking out all manner of strange phrases 

 of song, which he will repeat time after time with 

 scrupulous unction, as if well pleased with his 

 inventions. 



And well may the song-thrush sing in this 

 January of 1 903 ! For, save for two separate weeks 

 of frost, south winds have made an open winter, and 

 already the hawthorn buds are reddening, elder and 

 japonica are in leaf, and life is everywhere stirring in 

 response to a mean temperature for long past well 

 over forty degrees in the shade. 



The thrush's song is a provocation to the robin, 

 and the latter seldom lets the challenge go un- 

 answered, trilling out his silvery lyric in the pauses 

 of the thrush's fiery declamation. 



There is another song becoming increasingly 

 frequent as the month advances, and recalling 

 summer days, when the ease-loving corn-bunting 

 sat by the hour and called, " Due ! due ! due ! 

 tr-r-r-r-r-r ee ye ! " 



