70 
A/ATURE NOTES. 
on the opposite bank of the Thames, whence it sallies forth to 
look out for nests wherein to deposit its eggs. One spring, a 
robin, that had built her nest in a box on the garden-wall, had 
her two eggs increased by a third, not much bigger, that must 
have been deposited by the cuckoo’s beak, owing to the small size 
of the robin’s hole in the box. But whether the robin had been 
previously imposed on by the cuckoo or not, I cannot tell : any- 
how, the bird forsook this nest, built a nest in another box, and 
there reared her brood unimpeded. The swallows are fond of 
settling to sing their sweet but little-known songs on a neigh- 
bouring tree. 
For many years a pair of starlings have built a nest on a nook 
of the roof that they seem to regard as their own. Very early 
in spring they come here to look up their nest ; they look in at 
the window to greet me from a tree, while I am dressing ; and 
often when I come home, they sing to me from a ledge, in the 
last rays of the dying day. 
The spotted fly-catcher may be watched, for hours, sailing 
forth from a favourite perch to catch a fly in the air ; and the 
whitethroats and other warblers may be surely found, at times, 
among the climbing roses. The nightingale 1 have heard here 
but rarely ; and of late we have had to seek his note in a roadside 
copse a little way off. Thrushes (song-thrush and blackbird) 
sing here very beautifully ; and nowhere can you trace in better 
form the song that Tennyson phrases thus in his pretty poem : 
“.Summer is coming, summer is coming, I know it, I know it, 1 know it ; 
Light again, leaf again, life again, love again : ‘ Yes, my wiki little poet.’ ” 
These song-birds spend the winter with us, many of them : 
and in a mild winter you may hear their song almost the whole 
year through. Last winter (1895-6), 1 heard the song-thrush 
singing beautifully from Christmas well into January, every day, 
and even up to and after dark in each day. The Tennysonian 
thrush-song you may hear burst forth all of a sudden, close to 
your head, from some thrush in the rose-bushes above. 
In the winter-dwelling birds, as being always with us, we 
take, naturally, the deepest interest. In very severe weather, 
they are hard put to it to obtain any subsistence ; and were it not 
for liberal aid gladly afforded, they would, in the very severe 
severe winter of 1894-5, nearly all have perished. In that very 
hard weather we had often good reason to inquire, — 
“ Ilk happing bird, wee, helpless thing, that in the merry months of spring. 
Delighted me to hear thee sing, what comes of thee ? 
Where wilt thou cower thy chiitering wing, and close thy ee?” 
The robin and the hedge-warbler, which usually sing the 
whole winter through, were silent then, and many died, in that 
hard winter. The birds that then fared best, and that, with us, 
always fare best, are the pretty little tits. Flocking in crowds 
to an old apple-tree, they always find there pieces of fat, half- 
picked bones, and coco-nuts hung up on long strings, for their 
