that in the tangle of minstrelsy one could enjoy there his vigorous
voice was not predominant.

Of all these woodland songsters the wood-wren impressed me the most. He
could always be heard, no matter where I entered the wood, since all
this world of tall beeches was a favoured haunt of the wood-wren, each
pair keeping to its own territory of half-an-acre of trees or so, and
somewhere among those trees the male was always singing, far up,
invisible to eyes beneath, in the topmost sunlit foliage of the tall
trees. On entering the wood I would, stand still for a few minutes to
listen to the various sounds until that one fascinating sound would come
to my ears from some distance away, and to that spot I would go to find
a bed of last year's leaves to sit upon and listen. It was an enchanting
experience to be there in that woodland twilight with the green cloud of
leaves so far above me; to listen to the silence, to the faint whisper
of the wind-touched leaves, then to little prelusive drops of musical
sound, growing louder and falling faster until they ran into one
prolonged trill. And there I would sit listening for half-an-hour or a
whole hour; but the end would not come; the bird is indefatigable and
with his mysterious talk in the leaves would tire the sun himself and send
him down the sky: for not until the sun has set and the wood has grown
dark does the singing cease.

On emerging from the deep shade of the beeches into the wide grassy road
that separated the wood from the orchards and plantations of fruit
trees, and pausing for a minute to look down on the more than
half-hidden village, invariably the first loud sounds that reached my
ear were those of the cuckoo, thrush, and blackbird. At all hours in the
village, from early morning to evening twilight, these three voices
sounded far and near above the others. I considered myself fortunate