turn his note will take before it ends; the note leads him and completes
itself. It is a song which strives to express the singer's keen delight,
the singer's exquisite appreciation of the loveliness of the days; the
golden glory of the meadow, the light, the luxurious shadows, the
indolent clouds reclining on their azure couch. Such thoughts can only
be expressed in fragments, like a sculptor's chips thrown off as the
inspiration seizes him, not mechanically sawn to a set line. Now and
again the blackbird feels the beauty of the time, the large white daisy
stars, the grass with yellow-dusted tips, the air which comes so softly
unperceived by any precedent rustle of the hedge, the water which runs
slower, held awhile by rootlet, flag, and forget-me-not. He feels the
beauty of the time and he must say it. His notes come like wild flowers,
not sown in order. The sunshine opens and shuts the stops of his
instrument. There is not an oak without a blackbird, and there are
others afar off in the hedges. The thrushes sing louder here than
anywhere; they really seem to have louder notes; they are all round.
Thrushes appear to vary their songs with the period of the year; they
sing loudly now, but more plaintively and delicately in the autumn.
Warblers and willow wrens sing out of sight among the trees; they are
easily hidden by a leaf; ivy-leaves are so smooth, with an enamelled
surface, that high up, as the wind moves them, they reflect the sunlight
and scintillate. Greenfinches in the elms never cease love-making, and
love-making needs much soft talking. There is a nightingale in a bush by
the lane which sings so loud the hawthorn seems to shake with the vigour
of his song; too loud, though a nightingale, if you stand at the verge
of the boughs, as he would let you without alarm; farther away it
becomes sweet and softer. Yellowhammers call from the trees up towards
the arable fields. There are but a few of them: it is the place of
singing birds.

The doves in the copse are nearer the house this year; I see them more
often in the field at the end of the garden. As the dove rises the white
fringe on the tip of the tail becomes visible, especially when flying up
into a tree. One afternoon one flew up into a hornbeam close to the
garden, beside it in fact, and perched there full in view, not twenty
yards at farthest. At first he sat upright, raising his neck and
watching us in the garden; then, in a minute or so, turned and flut