90 BIRDS AND MAN 



spring migrants on their arrival — chiff-chafF, 

 willow wren, cuckoo, redstart, blackcap, white- 

 throat. Then, when April was drawing to an 

 end, I said. There are no more to come. For 

 the wryneck, lesser whitethroat, and garden 

 warbler had failed to appear, and the few 

 nightingales that visit the neighbourhood had 

 settled down in a more secluded spot a couple of 

 miles away, where the miUion leaves in coppice 

 and brake were not set a-tremble by the melodious 

 thunder of the cathedral chimes. 



There was another still to come, the one I 

 love best of all. On the last day of April I 

 heard the song of the wood wren, and at once 

 all the other notes ceased for a while to interest 

 me. Even the last comer, the mellow blackcap, 

 might have been singing at that spot since 

 February, hke the wren and hedge-sparrow, so 

 famiUar and workaday a strain did it seem to 

 have compared with this late warbler. I was 

 more than glad to welcome him to that particular 

 spot, where if he chose to stay I should have him 

 so near me. 



It is well known that the wood wren can only 

 be properly seen immediately after his arrival in 



