Blackbird's Matin Song. 1 1 1 



after it, you may hear the blackbird calling to his friends 

 from shrub or green, and getting his answer too after 

 a short interval. His matins are early sung, before 

 sunrise even. At certain seasons, that is, from the 

 middle of May to the beginning of June, in some dis- 

 tricts at all events, the cuckoo may claim the honour 

 of being the second of birds, and some may deem it a 

 reflection on nature altogether that this honour should 

 be held by so arrant a thief and trickster. Perhaps 

 he needs, in pursuit of his own objects, to steal a peep 

 in at some other birds' nests before they have awak- 

 ened. Certainly, he is like too many human beings 

 — engaged in stealing a march on the more innocent 

 and unsuspecting. But then, bad as he is, he does 

 not victimise his own species — at least, I have never 

 heard that he does; so that, after all, the cuckoos 

 may stand only as a kind of gypsies among birds, 

 constantly taking advantage of other people, if they 

 can, and intruding into other birds' nests ; and if not 

 stealing children ' to disfigure them, stealing service 

 in rearing theirs, to the injury and death of legitimate 

 offspring. 



But while we have been reflecting, other birds are 

 becoming active. First the robins, and next the larks, 

 which rise from the dewy grass and mount upwards at 

 the outset with a short undecided flight, as if sorry to 

 leave the nest as yet. Then, as though they had been 

 wakened by the first notes of the lark — buoyant and 

 shrill in spite of indecision — the sweet-voiced thrushes 

 send out hurried notes, in little broken whistles and 

 trills and quavers, soft but irregular, in recurrent but 

 not unpleasing softened discords, like an orchestra tun- 

 ing up their instruments in preparation for a concert. 

 They are yet but half awakened — Tennyson speaks of 



