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. One of the first noticeable in southern fields is the common wagtail. When his shrill note is heard echoing against the walls of the outhouses as he rises from the ground, the carters and ploughmen know that there will not be much more frost. If icicles hang from the thatched eaves, they will not long hang, but melt before the softer wind. The bitter part of winter is over. The wagtail is a house-bird, making the houses or cattle-pens its centre, and remaining about them for months. There is not a farmhouse in the South of England without its summer pair of wagtails--not more than one pair, as a rule, for they are not gregarious till winter; but considering that every farmhouse has its pair, their numbers must be really large.