THE WREN 104 THE HOUSE-MARTIN 106 THE NIGHTINGALE 110 A FRIENDLY CHOUGH 119 The Birds of Shakespeare From the infancy of mankind no tribe of living creatures has awakened more sympathy in the human heart than the Birds of the Air. Their pairing, their nesting, their sedulous care of their young, their arrival in spring and disappearance in autumn, the endless variety of their notes, and the manifold diversity of their habits and dispositions, often so suggestive of analogies with those of human nature, have arrested the attention of even the most unobservant men. This wide range of attraction, appealing so directly to the poetic instincts of humanity, has called forth hearty recognition in the literature of every age and of every tongue. In our own literature this recognition has been more especially ample. Chaucer, the illustrious Father of English Poetry, struck the keynote of that passionate love of Nature which has been maintained among us with ever-growing devotion. “Nature, the vicar of the Almighty Lord,” to use his own expression, filled his soul with a deep, reverential and joyous delight in the endless beauty and charm of the outer world. This pleasure included an ardent appreciation of bird-life, which finds vent continually in simple but enthusiastic language all through his writings. Chaucer was undoubtedly a bookish man, much attached to his favourite authors and to meditation upon them. Yet, as he himself confesses, there were times when the open country, with all its varied sights and sounds, and especially with its exuberant life in plants and animals, had for him even greater attraction. He tells that [Sidenote: _Chaucer’s Love of Nature_] On bokes for to rede I me delyte, And to hem yeve I feyth and ful credence, And in myn herte have hem in reverence So hertely, that there is game noon, That fro my bokes maketh me to goon, But hit be other upon the haly-day, Or elles in the Ioly tyme of May Whan that I here the smale foules singe And that the floures gynne for to springe―― Farwel my studie, as lasting that sesoun![1] In his vivid descriptions of scenes in spring and summer, the carols of the birds are always a prominent feature. Thus, at the very beginning of his _Canterbury Tales_, the mere thought of April, with its sweet showers and tender leafage “in every bolt and heath,” recalls to him how the Smale foules maken melodye That slepen al the night with open yë.[2] His poem on _The Parlement of Foules_ represents the various birds of the air coming in a crowded throng from all quarters to choose their mates. As he enumerates our familiar birds he couples with their names epithets that express the popular estimation of them. The scene is laid in a garden where