BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 51 



Of all these woodland songsters the wood-wren 

 impressed me the most. He could always be 

 heard, no matter where I entered the wood, since 

 all this world of tall beeches was a favoured 

 haunt of the wood-wren, each pair keeping to its 

 own territory of half-an-acre of trees or so, and 

 somewhere among those trees the male was al- 

 ways singing, far up, invisible to eyes beneath, 

 in the topmost sunlit foliage of the tall trees. On 

 entering the wood I would stand still for a few 

 minutes to listen to the various sounds until that 

 one fascinating sound would come to my ears 

 from some distance away, and to that spot I 

 would go to find a bed of last year's leaves to 

 sit upon and listen. It was an enchanting expe- 

 rience to be there in that woodland twilight with 

 the green cloud «f leaves so far above me; to 

 listen to the silence, to the faint whisper of the 

 wind-touched leaves, then to little prelusive drops 

 of musical sound, growing louder and falling 

 faster until they ran into one prolonged trill. 

 And there I would sit listening for half-an-hour or 

 a whole hour; but the end would not come; the 

 bird is indefatigable and with his mysterious talk 

 in the leaves would tire the sun himself and send 



