BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 53 



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 accustomed 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 indus- 

 triously examined, by the nuthatch and the quaint 

 little mouse-like creeper. Doubtless they imagined 

 that five o'clock was too early for heavy human 

 creatures to be awake, and were either ignorant 

 of my presence or thought proper to ignore it. 



But where, during the days when the vociferous 

 cuckoo, with hoarse chuckle and dissyllabic call 

 and wild bubbling cry was so much with us — 

 where, in this period of many pleasant noises was 



