NIGHTINGALE YEAR.
To-day in England it is difficult not to think of English birds. of again within the year will they so challenge attention. Is a great nightingale year, after several rather lean years. e birds are almost as many and as merry to the north of ndon as in the south. Several migration mutes have been wercrowded. I never saw the swallow tribe arrive in such citable flocks, away from the coast. House martins and swallows
in company appeared in multitude ; and began hawking at unusual height above the meadows in the clear evening air ; and as the sun set some of the red-breasted swallows flew up and down near the house with a rare deliberation, almost a dawdle, due less to the migrants' weariness than to the number of insects in the air. A home bird that may be seen and heard in a number of new places is the greater spotted wood- pecker. It is amusing, in one of his garden haunts, to watch the tits vainly trying to break the nuts that they see him tackle with such ludicrous ease.
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