THE SEASON OP BUTTERCUPS® 
41 
How fares it with a hundred others ? Mute all the 
year till now, Love seizes them, and they become spirits 
of gay song, so full, free, and concordant, that the forest 
is no longer a mere fleet of brown stems, but “ an or¬ 
chestra of mighty sound.” 
In the very dawn of spring comes the wryneck, with 
its cry of “ pee,” softer and fuller now, because uttered 
*rom the he^rt, telling of the hours, when— 
“ The balm, the beauty, and the bloom 
Recall the good Creator to his creature.” 
Then, simultaneously, the chaffinch, who had begun to 
sing long before, attains the fulness and fluency of his 
cheerful song; the thrush, who whistled when the snow 
lay thick, is hurried with the rest, and has so much to 
express that he is constrained to sing by night as well 
as by day; the blackcap, with uncontrollable delight, 
mocks all the songs it hears, as if employing all the lan¬ 
guages of the bird-world to express what language never 
can express at all; and, from the midst of this “ full- 
throated chorus,” rise the soft modulations of the nightin¬ 
gale, first, “jug jug,” then in a liquid strain of flute-like 
music which melts us into tears, as if it were the voice 
of a happy spirit, singing songs of gladness in the gardens 
of Paradise. “It breathes,” says old Isaak Walton, 
“ such sweet, loud music out of its little instrumental 
throat, that it might make mankind think that miracles 
had not ceased. He that at midnight, when the very 
labourer sleeps securely, should hear, as I have often, the 
clear airs, the sweet descant, the natural rising and falling, 
the doubling and redoubling of that sweet voice, might 
