BIRDS IN A VILLAGE ii 



down to the fact that the nights were dark and the 

 weather unsettled. But later, when the weather 

 grew warmer and there were brilliant moonlight 

 nights, he was still a silent bird except by day. 



I was also a little surprised at his lameness. On 

 first coming to the village, when I ran after every 

 nightingale I heard to get as near him as possible, 

 I was occasionally led by the sound to a cottage, and 

 in some instances I found the singer perched within 

 three or four yards of an open window or door. At 

 my own cottage, when the woman who waited on me 

 shook the breakfast cloth at the front door, the bird 

 that came to pick up the crumbs was the nightingale, 

 not the robin. When by chance he met a sparrow 

 there, he attacked and chased it away. It was a 

 feast of nightingales. An elderly woman of tlie 

 village explained to me that the nightingales and other 

 small birds were common and tame in the village 

 because no person disturbed them, I smile now 

 when recording the good old dame's words. 



On my second day at the village it happened to be 

 raining — a warm mizzling rain without wind — and 

 the nightingales were as vocal as in fine, bright 

 weather. I heard one in a narrow lane, and went 

 towards it, treading softly in order not to scare it 

 away, until I got within eight or ten yards of it, as 

 it sat on a dead projecting twig. This was a twig 

 of a low thorn tree growing up from the hedge, 



