.august 



wren holds sway here with its pre-eminently sweet 

 song ; and now that summer is passing, the old 

 trees are full of little yellow birds sulphur-yellow 

 below, light olive above. They are young willow- 

 wrens. It would be a libel on their elders to say 

 that they present anything but the daintiest and 

 chastest appearance ; but these young birds are 

 lighter on the back, and of surpassing purity both 

 in the yellow under and the olive upper parts. 

 Whether in form, colour, gesture, or song, wood and 

 willow-wren seem to me to express a delicacy of 

 refinement unsurpassed, if equalled, by any other 

 birds. In the late autumn, the tit tribe appear in 

 large numbers in this orchard, and evidently find 

 their account among the mass of old wood in the 

 trees. 



A curious little tragedy happened during August 

 to a house-sparrow which had tenanted the gutter- 

 end just above my bedroom window. The house- 

 sparrow has a very catholic taste in the matter of 

 nesting material, and few things, from bits of string 

 to scraps of paper, come amiss to this thrifty and 

 ingenious builder. My bird had found a piece of 

 black thread and woven it into its nest. Doubtless 

 in the wear and tear of nursery life, one end of this 

 thread had been loosened, whilst the other end held 

 firmly in the nest. The loose end became entangled 

 with one of the bird's legs, and she, finding herself 

 fast, had evidently attempted to free herself by flying, 

 with the result that she was hanged by one leg from 



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