MOOR-HENS IN HYDE PARK 201 



people, because they are partially protected there 

 from their human persecutors. It is a joy to 

 visit the gardens in spring, as much to hear the 

 melody of the birds as to look at the strange 

 and lovely vegetable forms. On a June evening 

 with a pure sunny sky, when the air is elastic after 

 rain, how it rings and palpitates with the fine 

 sounds that people it, and which seem infinite in 

 variety! Has England, burdened with care and 

 long estranged from Nature, so many sweet voices 

 left? What aerial chimes are those wafted from 

 the leafy turret of every tree ? What clear, choral 

 songs — so wild, so glad? What strange instru- 

 ments, not made with hands, so deftly touched 

 and soulf ully breathed upon ? What faint melodi- 

 ous murmurings that float around us, mysterious 

 and tender as the lisping of leaves? Who could 

 be so dull and exact as to ask the names of such 

 choristers at such a time! Earthly names they 

 have, the names we give them, when they visit 

 us, and when we write about them in our 

 dreary books; but, doubtless, in their brighter 

 home in cloudland they are called by other more 

 suitable appellatives. 

 Kew is exceptionally favoured for the reason 



