"_April 16._--Elms beginning to get green with leaf-buds; apple leaf-buds opening green." "_May 12._--A real May-day at last; warm, west wind, sunshine; birds singing as if hearts would burst; four or five blackbirds all in hearing at once; butterfly, small white, tipped with yellowish red; song of thrush more varied even than nightingale; if rare, people would go miles to hear it, never the same in same bird, and every bird different; fearless, too; _operatic_ singer. "More stitchwort; now common; it looks like ten petals, but is really five; the top of the petal divided, which gives the appearance; a delicate, beautiful white; leaves in pairs, pointed. "Humble-bees do suck cowslips." "_May 14._--Lark singing beautifully in the still dark and clouded sky at a quarter to three o'clock in the morning; about twenty minutes afterwards the first thrush; thought I heard distant cuckoo--not sure; and ten minutes after that the copse by garden perfectly ringing with the music. A beautiful May morning; thoroughly English morning: southerly wind, warm light breeze, smart showers of warm rain, and intervals of brilliant sunshine; the leaves in copse beautiful delicate green, refreshed, cleaned, and a still more lovely green from the shower; behind them the blue sky, and above the bright sun; white detached clouds sailing past. That is the morning; afternoon more cloudy. "More swifts later in evening. The first was flying low down against wind; seemed to progress from tip to tip of wing, alternately throwing himself along, now one tip downwards, now the other, like hand-over-hand swimming. Furze-chat, first in furze opposite, perched on high branch of furze above the golden blossom thick on that branch; a way of shaking wings while perched; 'chat-chat' low; head and part of neck black, white ring or band below, brownish general colour. Nightingale singing on elm-branch--a large, thick branch, projecting over the green by roadside--perched some twenty-five feet high. Yellow-hammer noticed a day or two ago perched on branch lengthwise, not across. Oaks: more oaks out. Ash: thought I saw one with the large black buds enlarged and lengthened, but not yet burst." "_May 18._--The white-throat feeds on the brink of the ditch, perching on fallen sticks or small bushes; there is then no appearance of a crest; afterwards he flies up to the topmost twig of the bush, or on a sapling tree, and immediately he begins to sing, and the feathers on the top of his head are all ruffled up, as if brushed the wrong way." "_May 20._--Coo of dove in copse first." "_May 21._--The flies teased in the lane to-day--the first time."