rt,
and about sixty or seventy yards from the garden. A cuckoo came to this
ash every morning, and called there for an hour at a time, his notes
echoing along the building, one following the other as wavelets roll on
the summer sands. After awhile two more used to appear, and then there
was a chase round the copse, up to the tallest birch, and out to the ash
tree again. This went on day after day, and was repeated every evening.
Flying from the ash to the copse and returning, the birds were
constantly in sight; they sometimes passed over the house, and the call
became so familiar that it was not regarded any more than the chirp of a
sparrow. Till the very last the cuckoos remained there, and never ceased
to be heard till they left to cross the seas.

That was the cuckoos' season; next spring, they returned again, but much
later than usual, and did not call so much, nor were they seen so often
while they were there. One was calling in the copse on the evening of
the 6th of May as late as half-past eight, while the moon was shining.
But they were not so prominent; and as for the missel-thrushes, I did
not hear them at all in the copse. It was the wood-pigeons' year. Thus
the birds come in succession and reign by turns.

Even the starlings vary, regular as they are by habit. This season
(1881) none have whistled on the house-top. In previous years they have
always come, and only the preceding spring a pair filled the gutter with
the materials of their nest. Long after they had finished a storm
descended, and the rain, thus dammed up and unable to escape, flooded
the corner. It cost half a sovereign to repair the damage, but it did
not matter; the starlings had been happy. It has been a disappointment
this year not to listen to their eager whistling and the flutter of
their wings as they vibrate them rapidly while hovering a moment before
entering their cavern. A pair of house-martins, too, built under the
eaves close to the starlings' nest, and they also disappointed me by not
returning this season, though the nest was not touched. Some fate, I
fear, overtook both starlings and house-martins.

Another time it was the season of the lapwings. Towards the end of
November (1881), there appeared a large flock of peewits, or green
plovers, which flock passed most of the day in a broad, level ploughed
field of great extent. At this time I estimated their number as about
four hundred; far exceeding any flock I had previously see