Gyngell : The Singing Tijne of Birds. 



149 



we hear the drum only in a distant band. I fancy that many 

 birds that we now think call only may sing- so quietly that we 

 can only, so to say, catch the sound of the drum. 



March also persuades the Meadow Pipit to soar feebly into 

 the air and give us its feeble ' Peep-peep-peep-peep ' of a song. 

 The Lapwings, which have flocked in the fields hitherto, now 

 settle down in their nesting- haunts and sing- ' Cut-a-cooey, 

 queeter, queeter, coee.' The Pied Wagtails now come in small 

 parties ; these separate into pairs, and the males sing some- 

 times, but though the birds are common enough we rarely hear 

 them. 



All our resident birds are now in song, and we daily expect 

 the earliest of our visitors from the Continent. The Chiffchaff 

 is usually first, singing its monotonous song- -repetition of its 

 own name, but it thrills the heart of the naturalist who once 

 again hears its familiar notes. 



The Wheatear at the end of March and the Whinchat in 

 April sing from a railing or stone wall little songs that seem to 

 come from a long distance. 



Now on the wild moors the Ring Ouzel roughly imitates his 

 nearest kin the Blackbird. 



April brings the w^ell-knovvn Cuckoo, and also the Redstart, 

 whose song somewhat resembles that of the Robin. Now the 

 Swallow calls ' Chissick ' as it flies round the barn, on the roof 

 of which its twittering song is heard by the early-rising farmer. 



Few spring visitors delighted me more than the Willow 

 Wren, whose arrival takes place in April. 



In mid-winter the Robins seemed to possess the groves. In 

 February the song of the Chaffinch drowned that of the Robin. 

 Now, the merry Willow Wren, one of the tiniest of birds, sings 

 so loudly, sweetly, and incessantly that sometimes we seem to 

 hear nothing but it. Singing in the upper branches of trees 

 and being more generally distributed than most other summer 

 visitors, we hear it daily in the parks of our town. But we 

 must go to the deeper woods to hear the Wood Wren, who 

 comes rather later, and with quivering wings sings in the higher 

 trees a pretty melody ending in a shivering trill. 



This bird also has a very plaintive call note, which it con- 

 stantly repeats in the season of song. Where the Wood Wren 

 sings we may also hear the rarer Pied Flycatcher, whose song 

 is somewhat Redstart-like. 



April also brings the Sedge Warbler to hedgerows and 

 banks of rough herbage, where it skulks and sings aggressively 



1905 May I. 



