12 SEPTEMBER 1947, Page 16

Revived Music

One of the delights of rain after a long period of drought is that it wets the whistle of a number of birds that have been oppressed by the heat of August. It is a commonplace of observation that some of the departing warblers, especially willow-wrens, sing a little piece on the eve of departure, but they are not peculiar. Apart from our garden birds, some of the waders grow vocal ; and I know few more pleasant sounds than the twittering of, say, a small flock of sand-pipers high overhead on an autumn evening. The birds respond to autumnal moisture only less fully than the grasses, which, like Fuzzy-Wuzzy, are " generally shamming when they're dead."