THE WHITETHROAT 
If you should hear, in a stunted tree, 
An outcry made by you know not whom, 
Like someone scolding huskily, 
That^s one of us, you may assume. 
Perhaps it is my mother dear — 
(Not scolding, I need hardly say) — 
But wild with fright to see you near 
The nest she has tended many a day ! 
When the month of May comes and the fields 
are golden with buttercups, and every pear-tree is 
white with blossom, then one may see the White- 
throat searching for a site for her nest. 
This bird is a summer visitor, and arrives towards 
the end of April. When the warm days are over he 
departs once more. 
The nest of the Whitethroat is slight and frail, 
loosely woven of fine grass stems and tiny roots, and 
lined sometimes with a little wool. It is mostly so 
thin that one can see through it, and the outside is 
often powdered with cobwebs and cocoons. 
To find it one must look in some thick piece of 
27 
