CHAPTER IV. 



NIGHTINGALE — BLACKCAP — GARDEN WARBLER WHITE- 

 THROAT LESSER WHITETHROAT. 



Flowers are blooming and green boughs are 

 waving, and summer is come. The cuckoo's 

 voice has long been heard over the hills, as a 

 never-failing token of spring, and we were ready 

 to hail it in the words of our oldest English 

 ballad,— 



"Cuckoo, Cuckoo, 

 Well singest thou cuckoo, 

 Mayest thou never cease." 



But the sweetest of all om' wild singers has come 

 with the summer to give us a music far richer 

 than that of the cuckoo's unvarying tones. The 

 brown Nightingale* [Philomela luscima) is sing- 

 ing now, and the clear loud notes, changing ever 



♦ The Nightingale is about six inches and a half in length. 

 Whole upper parts chestnut-brown ; under parts dull greyish- 

 white : beak and feet brown. 



