is not a corner of the fields, woods,
streams, or hills, which does not receive a new inhabitant: the
sandpiper comes to the open sandy margins of the pool; the
fly-catcher, to the old post by the garden; the whinchat, to the
furze; the tree-pipit, to the oaks, where their boughs overhang
meadow or cornfield; the sedge-reedling, to the osiers; the dove, to
the thick hedgerows; the wheatear, to the hills; and I see I have
overlooked the butcher-bird or shrike, as, indeed, in writing of
these things one is certain to overlook something, so wide is the
subject. Many of the spring-birds do not sing on their first
arrival, but stay a little while; by that time others are here.
Grass-blade comes up by grass-blade till the meadows are freshly
green; leaf comes forth by leaf till the trees are covered; and,
like the leaves, the birds gently take their places, till the hedges
are imperceptibly filled.

THE SPRING OF THE YEAR

'There's the cuckoo!' Everyone looked up and listened as the notes
came indoors from the copse by the garden. He had returned to the
same spot for the fourth time. The tallest birch-tree--it is as tall
as an elm--stands close to the hedge, about three parts of the way
up it, and it is just round there that the cuckoo generally sings.
From the garden gate it is only a hundred yards to this tree,
walking beside the hedge which extends all the way, so that the very
first time the cuckoo calls upon his arrival he is certain to be
heard. His voice travels that little distance with ease, and can be
heard in every room. This year (1881) he came back to the copse on
April 27, just ten days after I first heard one in the fields by
Worcester Park. The difference in time is usual; the bird which
frequents this copse does not arrive there till a week or so after
others in the neighbourhood may be heard calling. So marked is the
interval that once or twice I began to think the copse would be
deserted--there were cuckoos crying all round in the fields, but
none came near. He has, however, always returned, and this
difference in time makes his notes all the more remarked. I have,
therefore, always two dates for the cuckoo: one, when I first hear
the note, no matter where, and the second, when the copse bird
sings. When he once comes he continues so long as he stays in this
country, visiting the spot every day, sometimes singing for a few
minutes, sometimes for an hour, and one season he seemed to call
every mo