36 
BIRDS IN A VILLAGE. 
window the cuckoo's call was the commonest 
sound ; the birds were everywhere, bird answer- 
ing bird far and near, so persistently repeating 
their double note that this sound, which is in 
character unlike any other sound in nature, which 
one so listens and longs to hear in spring, lost its 
old mystery and charm, and became of no more 
account than the cackle of the poultry-yard. It was 
the cuckoo's village ; sometimes three or four birds 
in hot pursuit of each other would dash through 
the trees that lined the further side of the lane and 
aliofht on that small tree at the crate which the 
nightingale was accustomed to visit later in the day. 
Other birds that kept themselves very much out 
of sight during most of the time also came to the 
same small tree at that early hour. It was regu- 
larly visited, and its thin bole industriously 
examined, by the nuthatch and the quaint little 
mouse-like creeper. Doubtless they imagined that 
five o'clock was quite early enough for human 
creatures to be awake, and were either ignorant 
of my presence or thought proper to ignore it. 
But where, during the days when the vociferous 
cuckoo, with hoarse chuckle and dissyllabic call 
and wild babbling cry was so much with us — 
where, in this period of many pleasant noises, was 
the cuckoo's mate, or maid, or messenger, the 
