124 BIRDS AND MAN 



disgusted at this general indifference to that 

 delicate beauty in a bird- sound which dis- 

 tinguishes the willow wren even among such 

 delicate singers as the warblers : it struck me 

 as a kind of aesthetic hardness of hearing. I 

 heard the song in the flower walk, in Kensington 

 Gardens, on a Sunday morning, and sat down 

 to listen to it; and for half an hour the bird 

 continued to repeat his song two or three times 

 a minute on the trees and bushes within half- 

 a-dozen yards of my seat. Just after I had sat 

 down, a throstle, perched on the topmost 

 bough of a thorn that projected over the walk, 

 began his song, and continued it a long time, 

 heedless of the people passing below. Now, 

 I noticed that in almost every case the person 

 approaching Ufted his eyes to the bird above, 

 apparently admiring the music, sometimes even 

 pausing for a moment in his walk ; and that 

 when two or three persons came together they 

 not only looked up, but made some remark 

 about the beauty of the song. But from first 

 to last not one of all the passers-by cast a look 

 towards the tree where the willow wren was 

 singing; nor was there anything to show that 



