MAY 



A COLD April delivered us over to an un- 

 springlike May, which opened with twelve 

 days of all but incessant rain and winds 

 from the north and east. The grass seemed to run 

 up visibly, rank and lush, in the wet fields, and tree 

 and hedgerow to burst at once into full leaf. 



Unpleasant as this might be for man and bird, it 

 was no disservice for at least two of the latter, which 

 arrived in the early days of the month. 



I had been out in our meadows on the evening 

 of the yth May a moonlit night, with a flying 

 cloud-rack above to prepare a robin's nest in order 

 to photograph the sitting bird early the following 

 morning, and was returning after nine o'clock by a 

 street alas ! once a bird and bat-haunted lane 

 which thrust itself out into the fields, like an outer 

 tentacle from the body of the village, fast swelling to 

 a town, when a sudden clucking overhead announced 

 the passage of birds, which had evidently come over 

 the fields, and, rising at the long line of houses, 

 passed with startled cries over the lighted street into 

 the dark fields again beyond. I immediately went 



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