ng branches, and one couple are always up
and down here. They are near enough for us to see the dark marking
at the end of the tail as it is spread open to assist the upward
flight from the ground to the tree. Outside the garden gate, about
twenty yards distant, there stand three or four young spruce-firs;
they are in the field, but so close as to touch the copse hedge. To
the largest of these one of the pigeons comes now and then; he is
half inclined to choose it for his nest, and yet hesitates. The
noise of their wings, as they rise and thresh their strong feathers
together over the tops of the trees, may often be heard in the
garden; or you may see one come from a distance, swift as the wind,
suddenly half close two wings, and, shooting forward, alight among
the branches. They seem with us like the sparrows, as much as if the
house stood in the midst of the woods at home. The coo itself is not
tuneful in any sense; it is hoarse and hollow, yet it has a pleasant
sound to me--a sound of the woods and the forest. I can almost feel
the gun in my hand again. They are pre-eminently the birds of the
woods. Other birds frequent them at times, and then quit the trees:
but the ring-dove is the wood-bird, always there some part of the
day. So that the sound soothes by its associations.

Coming down the Long Ditton road on May 1, at the corner of the
copse, where there are some hornbeams, I heard some low sweet notes
that came from the trees, and, after a little difficulty, discovered
a blackcap perched on a branch, humped up. Another answered within
ten yards, and then they sang one against the other. The foliage of
the hornbeam was still pale, and the blackcaps' colours being so
pale also (with the exception of the poll), it was not easy to see
them. The song is sweet and cultured, but does not last many
seconds. In its beginning it something resembles that of the
hedge-sparrow--not the pipe, but the song which the hedge-sparrows
are now delivering from the top sprays of the hawthorn hedges. It is
sweet indeed and cultured, and it is a pleasure to welcome another
arrival, but I do not feel enraptured with the blackcap's notes. One
came into the garden, visiting some ivy on the wall, but they are
not plentiful just now. By these hornbeam trees a little streamlet
flows out from the copse and under the road by a culvert. At the
hedge it is crossed by a pole (to prevent cattle straying in), and
this pole is the robin's especial p