Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 9, Vol. I, March 1, 1884

No. 9.—Vol. I.
Price 1½ d.
SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 1884.
BY RICHARD JEFFERIES, AUTHOR OF THE ‘GAMEKEEPER AT HOME,’ ETC.
The birds of spring come as imperceptibly as the leaves. One by one the buds open on hawthorn and willow, till all at once the hedges appear green, and so the birds steal quietly into the bushes and trees, till by-and-by a chorus fills the wood, and each warm shower is welcomed with varied song. To many, the majority of spring-birds are really unknown; the cuckoo, the nightingale, and the swallow, are all with which they are acquainted, and these three make the summer. The loud cuckoo cannot be overlooked by any one passing even a short time in the fields; the nightingale is so familiar in verse that every one tries to hear it; and the swallows enter the towns and twitter at the chimney-top. But these are really only the principal representatives of the crowd of birds that flock to our hedges in the early summer; and perhaps it would be accurate to say that no other area of equal extent, either in Europe or elsewhere, receives so many feathered visitors. The English climate is the established subject of abuse, yet it is the climate most preferred and sought by the birds, who have the choice of immense continents.
Nothing that I have ever read of, or seen, or that I expect to see, equals the beauty and the delight of a summer spent in our woods and meadows. Green leaves and grass, and sunshine, blue skies, and sweet brooks—there is nothing to approach it; it is no wonder the birds are tempted to us. The food they find is so abundant, that after all their efforts, little apparent diminution can be noticed; to this fertile and lovely country, therefore, they hasten every year. It might be said that the spring-birds begin to come to us in the autumn, as early as October, when hedge-sparrows and golden-crested wrens, larks, blackbirds, and thrushes, and many others, float over on the gales from the coasts of Norway. Their numbers, especially of the smaller birds, such as larks, are immense, and their line of flight so extended that it strikes our shores for a distance of two hundred miles. The vastness of these numbers, indeed, makes me question whether they all come from Scandinavia. That is their route; Norway seems to be the last land they see before crossing; but I think it possible that their original homes may have been farther still. Though many go back in the spring, many individuals remain here, and rejoice in the plenty of the hedgerows. As all roads of old time led to Rome, so do bird-routes lead to these islands. Some of these birds appear to pair in November, and so have settled their courtship long before the crocuses of St Valentine. Much difference is apparent in the dates recorded of the arrivals in spring; they vary year by year, and now one and now another bird presents itself first, so that I shall not in these notes attempt to arrange them in strict order.