A sad hour it was to me, yet I could see all its
beauty; sad, too, to think it will never return. So the Emperor moth came
out on the 2nd of April, and the same day there was a yellow and a white
butterfly in the garden. There had come a gleam of sunshine after two
months of bitter north wind, and the insects took life immediately. Early
in the morning the greenfinches were screaming at each other in the
elm--they were in such a hurry to get out their song, they screamed; the
chaffinches were challenging, and the starlings fluttering their wings at
the high window, and all this excitement at one gleam of sun. A friend
asked me what bird it was that always finished up its song with a loud
call for 'ginger-beer'--whatever he sang he always said 'ginger-beer' at
the end of it; it is the chaffinch, and a very good rendering of the
notes. 'Quawk! Quoak!' the rooks as they went by were so contented
enjoying the sunshine, they took out the harsh 'c' or 'k' and substituted
the softer 'q'--'quawk! quowk!' Another perched on a tree made a short
speech, perhaps he thought it was a song. Sea-gulls have curiously
rook-like habits in some respects, following the plough like them, and in
spring wheeling for hours round and round in the sky as the rooks do.
The blackbirds and thrushes that had been singing freely previously
suddenly ceased singing about December 15, and remained silent for a
month, and as suddenly began singing again about January 15. Where they
all came from I cannot think, there seemed such an increase in their
numbers; one wet morning in a small meadow there were forty-five feeding
in sight that could be easily counted.
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