TAKING STOCK OF THE BIRDS 229 



about one hundred and fifty birds, and were always 

 there except at full tide, when they would fly away 

 to the fields and moors. Of all my bird neighbours 

 I think that these gave me most pleasure, especially 

 at night, when lying awake I would listen by the hour 

 to the perpetual curlew conversation going on in the 

 dark — an endless series of clear modulated notes and 

 trills, with a beautiful expression of wildness and 

 freedom, a reminder of lonely seashores and moun- 

 tains and moorlands in the north country. What 

 wonder that Stevenson, sick in his tropical island 

 — sick for his cold grey home so many thousands 

 of miles away, wished once more to hear the whaup 

 crying over the graves of his forefathers, and to hear 

 no more at all I 



Of bird music by day there was little ; you would 

 hear more of it in one morning in that small rustic 

 village in Berkshire where the first part of this book 

 was written than in a whole summer in one of these 

 West Cornwall villages, so few comparatively are 

 the songsters. Nor was this scarcity in the village 

 only ; it was everywhere, as I found when able to 

 get out for a few hours during my two spring seasons 

 in the place. Close by|were the extensive woods of 

 Trevalloe, where I was struck by the extraordinary 

 silence and where I listened in vain for a single 

 note from blackcap, garden-warbler, willow-wren, 

 wood-wren, or redstart. The thrushes, chaffinch. 



