CHAPTER II. 



AMONG THE BIRDS IN SUMMER. 



BIRD LIFE endows a northern summer with much 

 of its fairest charm. The quiet, dreamy beauty 

 of our English woods and fields at this delightful 

 season is imbued with that sense of joyous life the 

 wild birds give. We miss much of the unusual 

 activity which prevailed among the birds in 

 spring ; their crash of vernal melody is spent, and 

 the music of the woods and fields, if more uni- 

 versal, is toned down and softened by the voices 

 of little songsters from across the sea. The loud, 

 powerful notes of the Thrushes are now varied 

 with the voices of the Warblers, and the harsher 

 cries are mellowed by the call of the Cuckoo and 

 Turtle Dove the murmur of the Turtle Dove. As we saw in 

 jone, ' spring, this latter bird is one of the latest of all 

 our summer migrants. It loves the cover of the 

 deepest woods, is shy and timid, yet garrulous 

 enough during the early days of summer, when 

 love and courtship are in progress. Another bird 

 of summer is the Swift one of the last to come 

 in spring and one of the first to leave in autumn. 



