* * * * Bird Poets
On the subject of birds and birds'- song, no poet in our day, perhaps in any day, has written so well as Ralph Hodgson ; and his total omission is one of the only faults I have to find against a beautifully pb)diiced anthology of birds (A Book of Birds. By Mary Priestly. Gollancz. 7s. 6d.). He has reached, perhaps, his highest pitch on the sedge warbler, a neglected bird that utters his " thick chattered cheeps " with continuous gusto both by day and night. Another modern writer who is omitted, but deserves notice in any bird anthology is the present editor of The Field, Mr. Eric Parker. I have long delighted in his verses on the garden robin that "bobs upon a stone " though the simple lines are meant merely for children. It is perhaps surprising that the curlew has not been a more fruitful source of inspiration. Tennyson labelled these birds " dreary gleams across the moorland," but Mr. Koch's latest record reminds us, if reminder were needed, that the spring whistle of the curlew is among the very sweetest of all bird- notes. Personally I should put it absolutely first, as supreme among liquid notes, though one would hardly call it a song. It is rather a musical endearment. The whimbrel's is of like quality.
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