44 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



the cottage had been made choice of by a song- 

 thrush as a singing-stand during the early hours. 

 The nearest tree so favoured was on the further side 

 of a field, so that when I woke at half -past three or 

 four o'clock, the shrill indefatigable voice came in at 

 the open window softened by distance and washed 

 by the dewy atmosphere to greater purity. Throstle 

 and skylark to be admired must be heard at a distance. 

 But at that early hour when I sat by the open window 

 the cuckoo's call was the commonest sound ; the 

 birds were everywhere, bird answering bird far and 

 near, so persistently repeating their double note 

 that this sound, which is in character unlike any 

 other sound in nature, which one so listens and longs 

 to hear in spring, lost its old mystery and charm, 

 and became of no more account than the cackle of 

 the poultry-yard. It was the cuckoo's village ; 

 sometimes three or four birds in hot pursuit of each 

 other would dash through the trees that lined the 

 further side of the lane and alight on that small 

 tree at the gate which the nightingale was accus- 

 tomed to visit later in the day. 



Other birds that kept themselves very much out 

 of sight during most of the time also came to the same 

 small tree at that early hour. It was regularly visited, 

 and its thin bole industriously examined, by the 

 nuthatch and the quaint little mouse-like creeper. 

 Doubtless they imagined that five o'clock was too 



