ling to each other. It is six marsh tits, as busy as they can
well be.

One rises from the ditch to the trunk of an elm where the thick bark is
green with lichen: he goes up the tree like a woodpecker, and peers into
every crevice. His little beak strikes, peck, peck, at a place where
something is hidden: then he proceeds farther up the trunk: next he
descends a few steps in a sidelong way, and finally hops down some three
inches head foremost, and alights again on the all but perpendicular
bark. But his tail does not touch the tree, and in another minute down
he flies again to the ditch.

A shrill and yet low note that sounds something like 'skeek-skeek' comes
from a birch, and another 'skeek-skeek' answers from an elm. It is like
the friction of iron against iron without oil on the bearings. This is
the tree-climber calling to his mate. He creeps over the boles of the
birch, and where the larger limbs join the trunk, trailing his tail
along the bark, and clinging so closely that but for the sharp note he
would be passed. Even when that has called attention, the colour of his
back so little differs from the colour of bark that if he is some height
up the tree it is not easy to detect him.

The days go on and the hedges become green--the sun shines, and the
blackbirds whistle in the trees. They leave the hedge, and mount into
the elm or ash to deliver their song; then, after a pause, dive down
again to the bushes. Up from the pale green corn that is yet but a few
inches high rises a little brown bird, mounting till he has attained to
the elevation of the adjacent oak. Then, beginning his song, he extends
his wings, lifts his tail, and gradually descends slanting
forward--slowly, like a parachute--sing, sing, singing all the while
till the little legs, that can be seen against the sky somewhat
depending, touch the earth and the wheat hides him. Still from the clod
comes the finishing bar of his music.

In a short time up he rises again, and this time from the summit of his
flight sinks in a similar manner singing to a branch of the oak. There
he sings again; and, again rising, comes back almost to the same bough
singing as he descends. But he is not alone: from an elm hard by come
the same notes, and from yet another tree they are also repeated. They
cannot rest--now one flits from the topmost bough of an elm to another
topmost bough; now a second comes up from feeding, and cries from the
branches. They are tree-pipi