AUGUST 163 



Yet, the cirl-bunting is common enough no further 

 from London than the chalk downs of Surrey, where 

 it nests by preference in the juniper -bushes. We have 

 met with it in Devonshire, close to the locality where 

 the naturalist Montagu first recognised it as a British 

 bird, and in the ferny coombes of the Welsh coast. 



It is exceptional to hear the thrush sing in August, 

 but the wren still sounds his tiny clarion, singing, 

 like the tree-creeper, in any month of the year, even 

 at times in hard frost. The chaffinch is often in half- 

 song ; chiffchaff and willow-wren sing in what old 

 Gilbert White calls " a soft and inward manner," and 

 the robin pipes a few strains from the orchard bough. 

 But these summer songs are lacking in spirit and energy ; 

 they are merely an expression of contentment with 

 easy times of warmth and abundance, and are not 

 inspired by the delicious madness which fills the 

 throats of the choristers of spring. When in company 

 with their fellows, birds are naturally more lively 

 and inclined for vocal effort. Flocks of Linnets go 

 trooping over the weed-grown fallows, singing and 

 twittering in concert, and a crowd of Starlings, settling 

 thickly in the elm-tops, warbles and whistles in unison, 

 making a noise which at a distance sounds like that of 

 running water. But many voices of the earlier summer 

 we now miss entirely. By the time that the harvest 

 moon rises full over the hill, and long-tongued hawk- 

 moths poise before the white trumpet -flowers of the 



