8 RUSTIC SOUNDS 



he sits hidden in the heavy shade of the summer 

 elms. His twinkling bell-note with its contented 

 simplicity is also attractive. His cousin, the 

 bunting, makes remarks not unlike those of the 

 greenfinch ; and he appears to address them by 

 preference to the travellers on dusty high roads, 

 where he passes much of his time sitting on tele- 

 graph wires. The anchorite yellow-hammer per- 

 sistently declining cheese with his bread is always 

 pleasant. Professor Newton used to say that the 

 spring begins with the yellow-hammer's song. 

 According to Blomefield's Calendar^ the average 

 date in Cambridgeshire is February i6, but he has 

 been known to sing on January 30 — rather a 

 wintry beginning for spring. I have never made 

 up my mind as to what the kitty-wren says or 

 sings. He is always in a desperate hurry to get 

 through his piece, as if he were afraid of lagging 

 behind the beat of some invisible conductor. In 

 consequence of this there is a want of restraint, and 

 a style that suggests a shy child gabbling a show 

 bit of poetry. But I repent these words for I love 

 the kitty-wren. 



There are a multitude of other bird-sounds 

 which are pleasant to hear as their turn comes 

 round, for instance, the complaint of the wryneck, 

 the "cuckoo's mate," who seems to me to be 

 querulously expressing his dislike to my garden, 

 which he tries year after year and deserts after a 

 day or two. 



I have never heard that contented bird the 



^ A Naturalist's Calendar, by Leonard Blomefield (formerly 

 Jenyns). Cambridge University Press, 1903. 



