BIRDS IN LONDON 291 



During the third summer the nest was 

 accidentally destroyed by a workman, and the 

 birds vanished, to return no more. 



Those of us for whom the repeated craking 

 caU, heard from green field and meadow, has 

 many beautiful spring and summer associations, 

 may say that we could have spared a better 

 bird. To Aubrey de Vere it was a "loved 

 bird " ; its monotonous crake-crake is dearer to 

 him, he has had the courage to say, than the 

 song from the volcanic heart of the nightingale. 



