April 



repeated, and delivered as if the bird were stuttering 

 musically. These notes are followed by a long trill, 

 delivered in a shrill voice, the whole resembling 

 " Due ! due I due ! ? r -r-r-r-r-r-r-ee-ye / " The trill, 

 apart from the modulated, somewhat tinkling note 

 running through it, resembles the multitudinous 

 grating sounds which might be made by crushing 

 together a handful of minute particles of glass. 



Is it not remarkable that a bird capable of singing 

 throughout the winter should be almost the last to 

 build its nest of all birds which remain with us 

 through the year ? The corn-bunting builds late in 

 May. 



By some strange perversity the north wind, 

 which had scarcely visited us during the winter, 

 opened at the middle of April, and snow, hail, and 

 sleet, in the form of violent showers, took the place 

 of the gentle rains which the season might have led 

 us to expect. 



It was on the 1 6th April that I first detected the 

 song of the willow-wren in our meadows, although I 

 had seen the bird and heard its song in a sheltered 

 valley in Derbyshire on the I3th. On the occasion 

 first mentioned, the bird was singing bravely from a 

 beech beneath a blue sunny sky, but one which owed 

 its clearness to a biting north wind, which must 

 have seemed a churlish welcome to the little singer 

 from the South. 



It reads strangely to-day that the song of the 

 willow-wren was " discovered " by Mr. J. Burroughs, 



107 



