nt
down into the wonderland of the valley itself. I shall always be glad
that I was in the Yosemite with John Muir and in the Yellowstone with
John Burroughs.

Like most Americans interested in birds and books, I know a good
deal about English birds as they appear in books. I know the lark of
Shakespeare and Shelley and the Ettrick Shepherd; I know the nightingale
of Milton and Keats; I know Wordsworth's cuckoo; I know mavis and merle
singing in the merry green wood of the old ballads; I know Jenny Wren
and Cock Robin of the nursery books. Therefore I had always much desired
to hear the birds in real life; and the opportunity offered in June,
1910, when I spent two or three weeks in England. As I could snatch but
a few hours from a very exciting round of pleasures and duties, it was
necessary for me to be with some companion who could identify both song
and singer. In Sir Edward Grey, a keen lover of outdoor life in all
its phases, and a delightful companion, who knows the songs and ways of
English birds as very few do know them, I found the best possible guide.

We left London on the morning of June 9, twenty-four hours before I
sailed from Southampton. Getting off the train at Basingstoke, we drove
to the pretty, smiling valley of the Itchen. Here we tramped for three
or four hours, then again drove, this time to the edge of the New
Forest, where we first took tea at an inn, and then tramped through the
forest to an inn on its other side, at Brockenhurst. At the conclusion
of our walk my companion made a list of the birds we had seen, putting
an asterisk (*) opposite those which we had heard sing. There were
forty-one of the former and twenty-three of the latter, as follows:

* Thrush, * blackbird, * lark, * yellowhammer, * robin,
*wren, * golden-crested wren, * goldfinch, * chaffinch, *
*greenfinch, pied wagtail, sparrow, * dunnock (hedge,
accentor), missel thrush, starling, rook, jackdaw,
*blackcap, * garden warbler, * willow warbler, * chiffchaff,
* wood warbler, tree-creeper, * reed bunting, * sedge
warbler, coot, water hen, little grebe (dabchick), tufted
duck, wood pigeon, stock dove, * turtle dove, peewit, tit (?
coal-tit), * cuckoo, * nightjar, * swallow, martin, swift,
pheasant, partridge.

The valley of the Itchen is typically the England that we know from
novel and story and essay. It is very beautiful in every way, with a
rich, civilized, fertile beaut