80 A PHILOSOPHER WITH NATURE 



the Metropolis. The writer's experience must have 

 been that of many a Londoner in the outer zone. 

 He has heard the bird from his bedroom window 

 at night for a season ; then the builder has come, 

 its favourite grove or thicket has been cut down, 

 and it has flown farther out, to return no more. 

 The nightingales begin song here by the end of 

 April, and they are almost silent by the end of 

 June. They do not migrate till much later, and 

 they continue year after year to frequent a locahty 

 until driven away ; for, like the swallow, the same 

 nightingale returns each year, faithful to its old 

 haunts. The nightingale is not the very shy bird 

 it is often supposed to be ; although it usually keeps 

 in the depths of its thicket, it may be easUy seen 

 moving about in the daytime. It sings then also, 

 but its song is usually not continuous as at night. 

 The opal light in the north-east is spreading to 

 the zenith. The path is through the fields again — 

 another of those pubUc footways which render 

 England dear to the lover of nature. Although it 

 is yet an hour and a half to sunrise, a red tinge is 

 on the horizon, but everything is stUl ghostly and 

 indistinct. Flip, flip ! — a pair of larks flutter up 

 from under the feet in the half Ught ; they do not 

 rise skjAvard, but they are already on the alert 

 waiting to welcome the dawn. Hark ! There is 

 the first songster away on the right, the herald of 

 the approaching day. This ridge is the last wrinkle 

 of the chalk downs, the land which the larks love ; 

 from the next we shall overlook the outer rim of the 

 great clay basin on which the Metropolis is buUt, 

 and London wUl have straggled to our feet. A large 

 grey bird, slimmer than a pigeon, sails out of the 



