Page:Bird Life Throughout the Year (Salter, 1913).djvu/174

124 not to be found by watching its owners, which, when they visit their treasure, creep mouse-like through the thicket.

The summer migrants which were the latest to arrive are scarcely to be found nesting before the first week in June. The Turtle Dove's nest of light, wiry twigs may be found in woods and thickets. For that of the Red-backed Shrike one must search a high, overgrown hedge-row, and so shy are the butcher-birds that often the first indication of their presence is the discovery of their rather bulky nest, with the eggs always of one of two types, either ash-grey or salmon-coloured. As we search, a Cuckoo alights on the fence and calls time after time, his head held low, his tail somewhat higher and partly spread. But by the end of the month most cuckoos have become silent. The Rooks, nesting duties completely over, have deserted the rookery. The Nightingale's croak or scolding "cur-r" shows that the olive-brown eggs are hatched in the nest down amongst the dead oak-leaves. Upon the heath or in some opening of the woods one may chance upon the Nightjar, drowsily brooding with half-closed eyes upon her two beautiful eggs, and looking for all the world like a rough piece of bark. Apart from sea-fowl, the nightjar is the only one of our British birds which makes absolutely no nest.

But is not one of the chief glories of June to be found in its long lingering twilights? When the thrushes