42 The Coming of the Birds 



and cover are prepared. The nightjar comes at 

 the end of April or in early May, when the night- 

 moths begin to hatch abundantly ; and the butcher- 

 bird follows a few days later, to feed by day on the 

 beetles and bumble-bees which the suns of increas- 

 ing spring call forth more abundantly. The arrival 

 of these two birds seems to be fixed by the appear- 

 ance of a special food supply ; but the late arrival 

 of the reed-warblers seems due to the slow growth 

 of the reeds in which most of them spend their lives. 

 Stragglers appear now and then in April, but most 

 delay until the new season's reeds are beginning to 

 shoot green in May. Then their silvery babble 

 begins to pour interminably from the rustling cane- 

 beds ; but they usually wait to build, like the sedge- 

 warblers, until there is ample cover to hide both them 

 and their nests. Reed-warblers and sedge-warblers 

 are often mistaken for nightingales by inexperienced 

 ears, when they are heard singing in the June and 

 July nights. The mistake shows the power of a 

 name ; they sing by night, and therefore they must be 

 nightingales. But the songs of the water-warblers 

 and the nightingale have little in common ; and the 

 music by the streams and meres of later summer 

 rings thin beside the nightingale's passion of spring 

 song. 



