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BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 FROM THE 
 
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The country day by day / 
 
 o.in.an^ ^^24 031 320 108 
 
B Cornell University 
 B) Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
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SOME BOOKS ON GARDENING, 
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 LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN. 21 Bedford Street, W.C. 
 
May 
 
 [Cobyrighf) 
 
 THE GREENFINCH'S NEST 
 
 E. Kay Robivson 
 \See iia^e 127) 
 
THE COUNTRY 
 DAY BY DAY 
 
 By E. KAY ROBINSON 
 
 AUTHOR OF "TO-DAY WITH NATURE," 
 "MY NATURE NOTE-BOOK," AND "IN 
 THE KING'S COUNTY" ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS 
 
 LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN 
 1905 * 
 
TO 
 
 JULIAN 
 
 MY SON AND COMPANION IN THE 
 COUNTRY DAY BY DAY, WHO WAS 
 SHORTER THAN I, WHEN THIS YEAR 
 OF LITTLE NOTES BEGAN, AND TALLER 
 WHEN IT ENDED, YESTERDAY 
 
 Jan. i, 1 90s 
 
Preface 
 
 *5« Living in the country, one finds it always true 
 that no day of Nature is exactly like any other. 
 Each year moves — races, sometimes — like a mill- 
 wheel, every day fitting, like a cog, into its passing 
 notch. You can hear the click and note the fitness 
 of the event to the moment. You can foresee the 
 fitting of to-morrow's cog into its appropriate 
 notch, and you can look back over seasons that 
 have run their registered course with automatic 
 precision. 
 
 ^ Hence the ambition to catch and record in 
 words the harmonious rhythm of the great machine 
 which we call Nature, the desire to write the story 
 of the year in little things — as it unfolds from the 
 bud and swells in the berry, as it multiplies from 
 the bird that eats the berry in winter to the brood 
 of fledged young in the following summer, from 
 the pin-point egg on the sprouting nettle of spring 
 to the damask butterfly of autumn, seeking its 
 hiding-place when winter comes until the nettle 
 shall spring again — to show, in fact, how Nature 
 moves, and why there is no eventless day in all 
 the year to those who know and love the country. 
 ^ But with all its resemblance to the motion of a 
 mighty, ordered wheel, Nature's annual course is 
 full or pitfalls for the chronicler. It is a wheel 
 which shifts its hub without warning many times ; 
 which sometimes races, sometimes almost halts, 
 
 vii 
 
Preface 
 
 and| even sometimes seems to back. Though it 
 completes a hundred revolutions in a hundred 
 years, with only a paltry margin of days in de- 
 ficit or excess at the end, there is no point in all 
 those hundred years, each with its myriad happen- 
 ings in the routine of life, where one could say, 
 " This thing will come to pass on this day and no 
 other." 
 
 =Sl And, apart from the vagaries of the seasons, there 
 is, even in so small a geographical space as the 
 British Isles, so large a difference in Nature's dates 
 between south and north, that a word-picture of 
 the passing moment can seldom be true at once of 
 the valleys of Thames and Tweed. 
 'SiNothing brings more sadly before one the swift 
 passage of the year than the view of the changing 
 country from a railway carriage window on a sum- 
 mer journey between north and south. From the 
 young summer that embroiders her dainty path 
 with ox-eye daisies to the mature summer that paces 
 where the poppies spread their carpet of royal 
 scarlet may be only a morning's trip by train from 
 Northumberland to Norfolk. 
 ^Whether you go south or north, it makes only 
 the difference of tracing or retracing the flight of 
 months in the passage of hours. As you lay down 
 your newspaper, you see men weeding the crops 
 that they were sowing when you took it up. Thfe 
 sainfoin, which was commencing to blush with rosy 
 blossom near the last stopping-place, is lying cut in 
 full- flowered swathes when the train halts again. 
 The corn grows higher by inches as the half-hours 
 
 viii 
 
Preface 
 pass ; and between terminus and terminus you seem 
 to have seen many golden weeks of summer squan- 
 dered before your eyes. Summer's roses fall before 
 their buds are burst, and the elder bears berries 
 almost before it blooms in a bird's-eye view of 
 different British latitudes.* 
 
 %But these double variations from calendar routine, 
 caused partly by vagaries of the season and partly 
 by geographical distance, balance each other to this 
 extent, that somewhere in Britain the points of 
 time and place must almost always be coincident 
 and the average event of the average season must 
 recur somewhere on the average day. 
 ^To fit the average day with its proper seasonal 
 event has been my effort, therefore, in the following 
 pages ; and it will be a great help and kindness to 
 me, if any readers, following my scrappy story from 
 month to month, should find it in their hearts to 
 send to me any comments on the fitness or unfit- 
 ness of the record. 
 
 ^So far as was possible I have confined my chronicle 
 to the changes in common things — the birds and 
 beasts, insects and flowers that we all know best. If, 
 in such details as the doings of our dear wild geese 
 of the North Norfolk coast — (it is truly related of a 
 Norfolk clergyman that he refused preferment in 
 the Church when it would have necessitated re- 
 moval to a county where he would not hear the 
 wildgeese on awinter's night) — I have departed from 
 this rule, it is because they make, to those who 
 know the music of their chorus, one of the best 
 * See my entry for June 15. 
 ix 
 
Preface 
 
 and most beautiful expressions of the wild voice of 
 Nature that can be heard in these populated isles. 
 ^ And strangle it is that, much as we love the wild 
 geese, clanging across the sky in ordered ranks, 
 that which we would most dearly love to see 
 would be the wild eagle, stooping from aloft 
 like a thunderbolt and scattering their array 
 to the four points of heaven. It is hard to 
 analyse the feeling which makes the meteoric 
 entry of the bird of prey — whether lordly peregrine 
 or mere cut-throat sparrow-hawk — into the field of 
 our vision of Nature a view of thrilling interest. 
 Our sympathies are all with the pursued ; but we 
 would far rather see the hawk blood her talons than 
 not see her at all. It is some natural instinct of 
 our wild past that runs riot in our minds when we 
 see the falcon, poised aloft, totter and stoop, like a 
 falling star, across the track of her flurried quarry. 
 And to see the eagle harry the wild geese would 
 place a red letter to any day of any English winter. 
 ^ But of what use is it to talk of British eagles, when 
 every eaglet that foolishly wanders to our coasts is 
 promptly welcomed with the shotgun of somebody 
 with a ten-shilling licence, and sold, perhaps, to 
 decorate some public-house bar, staring with glassy 
 eyes out of a square case at men nightly drinking 
 beer } 
 
 llThis is the keynote of the sadness which comes 
 always with the pleasure of studying wild life in 
 Britain. Few and poor are the favours which those 
 who woo Nature round our towns and cities can 
 hope to win, because for many decades we have 
 
Trejace 
 allowed the " collector " to sweep the surrounding 
 country clear of birds and wild flowers. 
 ^Within the ring-fence of City smoke, where fire- 
 arms are prohibited, it is true that some wild birds 
 have strangely learned to make new homes ; and in 
 St. James's Park, in London, the tameness of such 
 wary creatures as wood-pigeons and dabchicks is 
 positively absurd. Who that dwells in the real, 
 unadulterated " country " could ever hope to see 
 wild wood-pigeons scuffling for the crumbs that he 
 might throw to them from his lunch under a hedge ? 
 Yet this is a commonplace for the London errand- 
 boy on a cast-iron seat in St. James's Park. Who, 
 again, that has noticed how, in the country, the 
 snowstorm of gulls which follows the ploughman 
 melts into the horizon so soon as one looks over 
 the gate, would ever hope to bring the suspicious 
 birds wheeling competitively within a few feet of his 
 hand, as they do for any one who merely looks 
 over Blackfriars Bridge? They have taken the 
 measure of the London citizen, these rovers of 
 tireless wing, and are content to spend half the 
 year " between bridges," feeding upon the scat- 
 tered scraps of civilised charity. 
 * But the very fact that these wild and wary crea- 
 tures can thus accommodate themselves to life 
 amid the unsuitable surroundings of a great city — 
 for, although you may see plenty of tame and bold 
 wood-pigeons in St. James's Park, you will never 
 see a clean one — shows how much we lose in the 
 country by allowing every one who pays for a gun 
 licence to kill everything which comes within eighty 
 
 xi 
 
Preface 
 
 yards of the muzzle of it during half the year. No 
 one, of course, would wish to see wood-pigeons 
 protected in the country ; but you cannot help 
 feeling strongly on this subject when, year after 
 year, each rare bird that you have observed with 
 interest, often with the hope that it may make the 
 neighbourhood its home, is presently announced in 
 the newspapers as having been " secured " by Mr. 
 So-and-So, and " entrusted " to Mr. Thingumbob, 
 bird-stufFer, for "preservation." The irony of 
 that word "preservation" would be humorous, 
 were it not so sad. 
 
 =Sl If, in the short pages of this little book, I have 
 been able to write anything which adds, in ever so 
 small a degree, to any reader's knowledge of the 
 life of the year that passes round him, I have done 
 something. For knowledge of Nature is sympathy. 
 The keenest and best of sportsmen are always fullest 
 of sympathy for Nature, because they know her 
 well, having learned to love her moods in long 
 and toilsome days of every sort of weather. So, if 
 any who close this book know more of Nature and 
 wild life in plant, insect and bird than before they 
 commenced the reading, something will have been 
 won for the good cause — something done to estab- 
 lish man's right, as a child of Nature, to hold 
 converse with his parent on some better footing 
 than that she should plug her fingers in her ears 
 and flee at sight of the unnatural little monster who 
 explodes a gun in her face before they get within 
 greeting distance. 
 
 E. KAY ROBINSON. 
 Warham, Wklls-next-Sea. 
 
 xii 
 
Contents 
 
 'January 
 
 i. A Chastened Country-side. 2. New Year Music and Flowers. 
 3. Tlie Pirate Gull Ashore. 4. The Birds in the Frost. 
 5. Driven to Crime. 6. The Starling's Points of Interest. 
 7. Hardy Promises of Spring. 8. When January Smiles. 
 9. Tits' Change of Manners. 10. The Bullfinch Problem. 
 II. Love-making by Leaps and Bounds. 12. Cats out of 
 Season. 13. Nature Prepares for Spring. 14. The Early 
 Month's Romance. 15. Mid-January Music. 16. The 
 Partridge's Protest. 17. Nature Receives a Check. 18. In 
 Spite of the Cold. 19. Wild Life's Quick Recovery. 20. The 
 Onward March Resumed. 21. Skirmishing Weather. 22. 
 Preparing for the Lambs. 23. Unreadiness of Youth. 
 24. Nature Still Advances. 25. Interruption by the Frost. 
 26. The Sturdy Sparrow. 27. The Birds' Swelling Chorus. 
 28. The Notes of the Early Birds. 29. What the Tits are 
 saying. 30. Courtship Revived. 31. The Pheasant's 
 Emancipation. Pp. 1-3 1 
 
 February 
 
 I. February's Fair Start. 2. More Birds Tune Up. 3. Early 
 Insects of February. 4. The Rollicking Chaffinch Sings. 
 5. Wandering Birds and Opening Flowers. 6. The Welcome 
 Chorus. 7. The Swan's Renewal of Love. 8. The Rising 
 Tide of Spring Migration. 9. Partridge Rivalries. 10. 
 Migrant Birds of Song and Prey. 11. Settling Family 
 Questions. 12. Sudden Hardships for the Birds. 13. The 
 Starving Robin. 14. Saving Sunshine. 15. Hardy Small 
 Life. 16. Birds and Man. 17. A Forceful Wooer. 18. 
 Travellers in Full Dress. 19. Spring's Signs in Wagtail and 
 Daisy. 20. Spring Marches at all Points. 21. The 
 Wakened Bluebottle. 22. The Earliest Birds' Eggs. 23. 
 The Missel-thrush's Nesting Troubles. 24. The Yellow- 
 hammer Sings Again. 25. Married Robins. 26. The 
 Coming Seasons. 27. A Lingering Criminal. 28. February's 
 Score. _ Pp. 33-60 
 
 xiii 
 
Contents 
 
 (March 
 
 I. When March Starts Well. 2. Afield in all Weathers. 3. 
 Menaces of More Winter. 4. Weatherproof Life. 5. 
 Annual Bad Temper. 6. Music of tlae Song- thrush. 
 7. A Quick Change to Spring. 8. Birds and Flowers of Early 
 March. 9. Multiplying Wild Life. 10. Despite Cold 
 Winds. II. Rook, Woodpecker and Gull. 12. Spring's 
 Skirmishers. 13. The Mallards Disperse. 14, The Antics of 
 the Lambs. 15. Nature Turns Toward Spring. 16. The 
 Rabbit's Bad Time. 17. Welcome Woodpecker Voices. 
 18. Blackthorn and Greenfinch, 19. Early Bees and Birds' 
 Eggs. 20. The Oil-beetle and the Bee. 21. The First 
 Birds of Spring. 22. Mobilisation of the Toads. 23. Usefu 
 but Unwelcome Winds. 24. The Hasty Wren and the Early 
 Flowers. 25. Springing Corn and Flowery Catkins. 26. 
 Spring Strife of Blackbirds. 27. The Lamprey and the 
 Trout. 28. First Summer Birds. 29. The Frogs' Spring 
 Festival. 30. New Arrivals. 31. March's Legacy. 
 
 Pp. 61-91 
 
 ^pril 
 
 I. Skylarks and Partridges. 2. Gulls and Plovers. 3. Butterflies 
 and Snakes. 4. Boys and Birds' Nests. 5. Spring Every- 
 where. 6. Summer's War Begins. 7. Growing Plants and 
 Coming Swallows. 8. Signs of the Season Good and Bad. 
 9. More Summer Birds. 10. Skylark Duels. 11. Winds of 
 Discouragement. 12. The Valleys Hum with Life. 13. 
 Exit Fieldfare: Enter Swallow. 14. Small Voices of the 
 Summer. 15. When the Cuckoo Comes. 16. Late-nesting 
 Rooks and Early Thrushes. 17. The Nightingale Has 
 Come. 18. Frost at Night and Bats by Day. 19. A Tiny 
 Scarlet Herald. 20. Spring Tints. 21. Butterflies at Large. 
 22. The Pine's Love-story. 23. Hard Times for the Swal- 
 lows. 24. Nesting Linnets and Mating Bees. 25. Excited 
 Warblers. 26. The Willow in Bloom. 27. Spring's Narrow- 
 ing Horizon. 28. Thronging Insect Life. 29. The Turtle- 
 dove Returns. 30. The Joy of Rain in Spring. 
 
 Pp. 93-122 
 XIV 
 
Contents 
 
 3\day 
 
 I. May's Welcome. 2. Why Summer Lags. 3. Return of the 
 House-martins. 4. The Reign of the Daisy. 5. The Green- 
 finch's Monotone. 6. Baby Peewits. 7. Spring's Sudden 
 Haste. 8. Surprised Thrushes. 9. The Broidered Veil of 
 Spring. 10. The Charm of the Apple-tree. 11. An Out- 
 break of Young- Birds. 12. A Secret Nursery. 13. Shabby 
 Little Parents. 14. Summer's Full Company. 15. The 
 Bursting of the " May." 16. Spring's Quick Changes. 17. 
 Nature's Great Message. 18. Singers, Noticed and Unnoticed. 
 19. The Sparrow at his Best. 20. The Passing of the Seasons. 
 21. When Spring is Sometimes Sweetest. 22. Old Birds and 
 Young. 23. Evergreens in Summer. 24. The Clumsy 
 "May-bug." 25. The Woodland's Transformations. 26. 
 Summer's First Harvest. 27. The Birds are Busy. 28. Missel- 
 thrushes and Robins. 29. The Veil of the Leaf. 30. The 
 Young Sparrow's Risks. 31. The Season Waxes and Wanes. 
 
 Pp. 123-153 
 
 The Illusion of Dancing Flies. 2. Woodland Loveliness. 
 3. Thanks to the Rabbit. 4. The Mallard Fades. 5. A Baby 
 Redshank's Adventure. 6 hen Swallows Suffer. 7. Star- 
 lings in the Rough. 8. Failing Flower and Growing Fruit. 
 9. Haymaking Past and Present. 10. Glorious Weeds. 
 II. Dead Young Sparrows. 12. Feathered Fireworks. 13. 
 The Fox's Family. 14. " A Voice which is still." 15. Season 
 by the Mile. 16. The Shore-birds' Nursery. 17. Farm- 
 horses at play. 18. A Partridge Tragedy. 19. The Blue 
 Tit's Family. 20. Butterfly Summer. 21. Disturbance and 
 Music. 22. The Young Cuckoo's Nurses. 23. Insect 
 Nuisances. 24. Dust ' and Sugar. 25. Ladybirds and 
 Blight. 26. Flycatchers of all Sorts. 27. The Silent 
 Cuckoo's Going. 28. The Flowering Lime. 29.' The Farmer 
 and the Thistle. 30. The Joy of June and the Wood-wren. 
 
 Pp. 155-184 
 
 XV 
 
Contents 
 
 July 
 
 I. The Reign of Queen Meadowsweet. 2. Flowering Corn and 
 Shifting Partridges. 3. Park Life in July. 4. Town and 
 Country "Seasons." 5. The Birds that Grow Silent now. 
 6. The Wood-pigeon's Married Life. 7. Catching a Plover- 
 kin. 8. A July Landscape and its Birds. 9. The Miracle 
 of Frogs. 10. Weeds and Pests. 11. The Banquet of the 
 Bramble. 12. The Stress of Summer. 13. In July Drought. 
 14. The Thrush's Way with Snails. 13. The Charm of the 
 Wild Chicory. 16. Goldfinches and Cornflowers. 17. Com- 
 petition for Fluff. 18. The Oak Eggar Moth. 19. The 
 Hawk's Period of Plenty. 20. The Swan's Fatal Privilege. 
 31. Rustic Names of the Season. 22. The Farmer and Fine 
 Weather. 23. Old Starlings and Young Thrushes. 24. Corn 
 and Sparrows. 25. The Seawaste's Changing Seasons. 
 26. The Thrips and Harrest-mite. 27. The Birds' Dwindling 
 Chorus. 28. The Swallows' False Alarms. 29. Heather 
 and Harvest Hues. 30. Falling Oats and Wandering Birds. 
 31. Passing Birds and Staying Flowers. Pp. 185-213 
 
 t^ugust 
 
 The Burden of the Grasshoppers. 2. Thistles and Linnets. 
 3. The Sudden Mushroom. 4. The Rankness of Late 
 Summer. 5. Enter King Harvest. 6. Massacre of the 
 Innocents. 7. The Time of Splendid Butterflies. 8. The 
 Rabbit in the Harvest. 9. Summer Waning. 10. Nature's 
 Holidays. 11. A Harassed Country-side. 12. Foresigns of 
 Autumn. 13. The Yellow-hammer's Latest Song. 14. The 
 Pause of Harvest. 15. A New Drama Opens. 16. The 
 Season's Riot. 17. The Arrival of Travellers. 18. Early 
 Harvest and Late Song. 19. The Terror of the Sky. 20. A 
 Touch of Autumn. 21. Partridge Families. 22. Autumn 
 Flowers and Winter Birds. 23. Bird-thronged Fields. 
 24. Multiplying Signs of Autumn. 23. Changing Days and 
 Lingering Birds. 26. Remaining Summer Birds. 27. The 
 Ants' Sad Harvest-home. 28. Blackberries and Blackbirds. 
 29. An Autumn Orgie. 30. An Aftermath of Summer. 
 31. The Love-time of the Stags. Pp. 217-247 
 
 xvi 
 
Contents 
 
 September 
 
 I. The Feast of St. Partridge. 2. Spider Tragedies. 3. Man- 
 golds and Blackberries. 4, Fungus-time. 5, Departing and 
 Arriving Birds. 6. The Partridges Seek Sanctuary. 
 7. Summer's Flowers in Rags. 8. Followers of the Plough. 
 9. While the South Wind Blows. 10. A Landmark of the 
 Year. 11. Autumn Surely Comes. 12. The Harvest of the 
 Nuts. 13. Migration in Full Swing. 14. The Acorn Crop. 
 1$. The Inquest on the Harvest. 16. The Going Swallows. 
 17. Autumn Tints and Autumn Chills. 18. The Season's 
 Life. ig. A Feathered Gem. 20. The Welcome of the 
 Shotgun. 21. Chestnut Harvesters. 22. Late Bats and 
 Swallows. 23. Migration Resumed. 24. Swallows Seeming 
 to Depart. 23. The Theory of the "Master Swallow." 
 26, The End of Summer. 27. Clumsy Insects of Autumn. 
 28. Migration of Spiders. 29. Streaks of Autumn Tints. 
 30. Autumn's Beauty by the Sea. Pp. 249-278 
 
 October 
 
 Contrasts in October Music. 2. The Fugitive Cock Pheasant. 
 3. The Noisy Rook of October. 4. The Red Deer's Chal- 
 lenge. 5. Our Friend the Robin. 6. The Ivy's Feast, and 
 After. 7. October Storms. 8. The Foreign Brambling. 
 g. Clipped Hedges and Gathering Birds. 10. Spring Behind 
 Autumn's Mask. 11. The Farmer and His Friend the Rook. 
 12. The Mallard Looks Ahead. 13. The Last Martins Go. 
 14. The Hoodie's Harvest. 15. Robins and Foreign Rooks. 
 16. More Autumn Tints and Travellers. 17. The ftagedy of 
 the Wasps' Nest. 18. Pride Before a Fall. 19. Sparrows' 
 Ways and Want of Manners. 20. Bird Strife in Autumn. 
 21. Swaggering Youth of Rook and Gull. 22. More 
 Mouths and Less Food. 23. Autumn's Daily Changes. 
 24. The Blackbird's Return. 25. The Disrobing Trees. 
 
 26. For Next Year's Harvest. 27. "The Crows' Hotel." 
 28. Autumn Music. 29. From Flower to Fungus. 30. The 
 Waterside Harvest of Death. 31. Birds' Sentinels. 
 
 Pp. 279-309 
 xvii b 
 
^ 
 
 
yanuary i 
 ¥¥After frost and snow the country-side wisely a chast- 
 faces the doubtful fortunes of the New Year with ^"^^ 
 a chastened aspect. A few hardy exotics, such ^°'"^'^'^^' 
 
 111 1 1 n • ""^ 
 
 as the laburnum and the flowering currant, may 
 still absurdly retain in sheltered gardens some 
 tufts of unseasonable green ; but British wild life 
 in plant and animal takes the straight hint of a 
 very few days of freezing wind at Christmas to 
 abandon the appearance of expecting to find spring 
 just round the corner. 
 
 ^FThe primrose leaves which stood erect, crisply 
 wrinkled and velvety, now lie flat and sapless, and 
 look poor things indeed. The foxglove, which 
 riotously extended its tussock of foliage as though 
 just about to send up a flowering shaft, lies flat too ; 
 and so limp are its chilled leaves that they rustle in 
 disorder when the contemptuous rabbit scampers 
 over them. 
 
 nFEven the hedgerow nettle has been found by the 
 cold wind and shrivelled brown at last ; while the 
 frost-resisting bramble leaves have put on the 
 blackish hue which they will wear now until 
 spring. 
 
 iPWhen the small birds assemble in a closer ring 
 round the corn-stacks and farm-buildings, the 
 moorhens leave the frozen pools and dykes and 
 become birds of hedgerow and copse, and the snipe 
 withdraws to springs or running streams, where a 
 narrow margin of soft ground remains unfrozen. 
 Then the dawn of the New Year finds nature in a 
 seasonable mood of humility. 
 
January it 
 
 NEW YEAR^¥EvEN when the New Year has been appropri- 
 
 Music AND ately heralded by the humming and ringing music 
 
 FLOWERS ^£- gj^g^j-gg upon the frozen ponds, there are still 
 
 some few country sights and sounds of springlike 
 
 import, which we may expect to see and hear 
 
 again from day to day. 
 
 iFThe starling's song counts for little as a sign of 
 spring, because he sings, as readily as he bathes, at 
 any hour' of the day in any weather of a winter 
 month. The wren and the robin and the hedge- 
 sparrow are also singing during these first days of 
 January, as well as the corn-bunting and the marsh- 
 tit. The song-thrush may be heard whispering, too ; 
 but his full, freeflung music will come only with a 
 "spring feeling " in the air ; and, though the missel- 
 thrush's loud, wild notes may be heard as early as 
 this, yet in ordinary years the last days of January 
 are soon enough to listen for him, while the black- 
 bird usually tunes up a fortnight later. Before 
 then both the coal-tit and the great tit will have set 
 the coppice ringing with their metallic chorus. 
 iF Among wild flowers no day of the year is too 
 early for the shepherd's purse, chickweed, and red 
 deadnettle to flower, or for the groundsel, the 
 daisy and sometimes the dandelion to open their 
 florets, weather permitting ; but the first advance 
 towards spring seems to be marked when the paler 
 yellow of the hazel's catkins comes to reinforce the 
 golden glory of the ever-flowering furze, and the 
 woodbine expands its first green leaves. 
 
GULL 
 ASHORE 
 
 yanuary in 
 ^*When frost binds the land and the plough is the 
 left unmoved at the end of its overnight furrow, p'Rate 
 you can seldom see a number of plovers in a coast- 
 wise field in winter without two or three gulls 
 among them. You will notice, too, a wise ten- 
 dency on the part of the plovers who are looking 
 for worms to draw away from each gull ; but you 
 will seldom see a gull making any effort to find 
 worms for himself. Even a tame gull in a garden 
 seems to have no idea of foraging on his "own 
 account. He will sit meditatively on the lawn, 
 gleaming silver-white in the sunlight, for hours 
 together ; but when the gardener begins to dig, the 
 gull is in alert attendance at once, and comments 
 in querulous monosyllables upon the long intervals 
 between worms. 
 
 ^This is not idleness or natural depravity in the 
 gull. A creature of the sea, he has amazingly 
 quick eyesight ; but of what use would a sense of 
 hearing acute enough to catch the stirring of an 
 earth-worm under the ground be to a bird which 
 hunts silent fish in the never silent sea .? Perhaps 
 ashore he envies the plovers, as they take a few 
 quick pattering steps in one direction and stop to 
 listen, then patter off a little way at another angle 
 and listen again, until presently an alarmed worm 
 stirs in the mould and the plover's beak is after it 
 to the hilt. But mere envy would never fill the 
 guU's stomach ; so, as soon as the plover's clever- 
 ness is on the point of being rewarded, the gull 
 with a scream of menace arrives at the spot, and 
 the scared plover surrenders his spoil. 
 
 3 
 
"January iv 
 THE BIRDS ^iFThe tits are as active as ever in the frost, and 
 IN THE you can hear the knock-knock-knocking of the 
 FROST great tits, who have discovered overlooked filberts 
 among the dead leaves in the nut avenue, and are 
 hammering holes in them on the gnarled branches 
 of the old apple-trees. In and out of the dark 
 yew-trees marsh-tits and coal-tits are ceaselessly 
 fluttering, often chasing each other vigorously from 
 their hunting grounds ; while the blue tits, with 
 crests erect, are perkily searching every branch of 
 every rosebush. Now and then, with affected 
 jauntiness, they drop to the ground to examine 
 the disturbed dead leaves which the song-thrush 
 is tossing to right and left with strong sweeps of 
 his bill, on the off chance of finding some lurking 
 worm or insect. There is no idea of singing in 
 the thrush's mind to-day. 
 
 ^The hedge-sparrows pattering along in couples, 
 with their dainty little reddish feet, one behind the 
 other — for hedge-sparrows seem to be the most 
 devoted of paired birds in January — still pipe at 
 intervals as though to cheer each other. The 
 chaffinches call cheerily too, and never look more 
 sprightly than when they are hunting round the 
 margin of a frozen pond, pecking and tugging at 
 any morsels of food which they discover embedded 
 in the ice. 
 
 ¥But though the chaffinches and the hedge-spar- 
 rows may seem more independent and self-support- 
 ing in hard times than the other birds of the garden, 
 they are almost the first to discover and the last to 
 leave any food which you may put out for charity. 
 
 4 
 
"January v 
 ^^In hard times you will see that even the inde- driven 
 pendent and self-reliant song-thrush will become to crime 
 a sneak-thief and a bully. Like the gull among 
 land birds, the thrush is then forced to look for 
 food in a way for which others are better fitted. 
 ¥The hedge-sparrow, for instance, hunts about 
 the ground for food all the year round in exactly 
 the same way as the thrush is now compelled to do. 
 He is therefore an expert forager ; but it is not 
 mere admiration nor a desire to learn which causes 
 a thrush to attend so closely upon a hedge-sparrow 
 which is minutely analysing the contents of the 
 verandah gutter inch by inch. The thrush is ex- 
 amining the ground, too, but one eye is on the 
 hedge-sparrow all the time, and the instant that the 
 latter's attitude suggests discovery of food, the 
 thrush is on him, and whatever there may be to 
 eat falls to the stronger bird. 
 
 ¥We seldom realise how this system of robbery 
 runs through all Nature, not only between different 
 species, but between individuals of the same kind 
 and even the same family. Nay, when times are 
 hard the male bird will deny his wife a share in his 
 findings and rob her of her own. Watch even the 
 silly, peaceable sheep as they graze together in such 
 fat innocence. So soon as one appears to have 
 found a tuft that he eats with extra relish his neigh- 
 bours will boost him away from it and eat it them- 
 selves, the strongest competitor always having the 
 last mouthful. 
 
yanuary vi 
 THE STAR- ^^FPerhaps the most interesting common object 
 ling's of the country to-day is the starling ; but not only 
 POINTS OF ^^ account of his rippling, fizzling, clattering song, 
 with clever impersonations of other birds thrown 
 in, because he sings every day in winter. Nor 
 does the interest just now depend upon his amaz- 
 ing habit of bathing at all hours in cold water or 
 ice-and- water ; for he always does that, too. Nor 
 are his marvellous aerial evolutions by army corps 
 the cause of special interest, for we have seen 
 these daily since autumn. 
 
 iPWhat makes the starling worth notice now is the 
 change which he is undergoing. A little while ago 
 all starlings were more or less russet-hued birds 
 with dark bills. Now of three starlings on a lawn 
 you may see one all in gorgeous speckled sheen of 
 purple and green with pale sulphur-coloured bill ; 
 another with bill as yellow and head and body 
 almost as beautifully glossy, but wings and tail 
 edged with russet. The third may be still decidedly 
 rusty-looking all over, with bill quite dark. Of 
 these the first is the adult cock bird putting on his 
 breeding splendour, the second his wife doing the 
 same in her degree, and the third a young bird of 
 last year, slower to make the change. 
 ^Looking at different adult birds, too, you may 
 notice one with green-glossed head, a British star- 
 ling ; another purple and green, a starling of Cen- 
 tral Europe ; and a third all purplish on the head, 
 a Siberian starling, whose gradual invasion of Britain 
 makes an interesting chapter in the story of Nature's 
 struggle of existence. 
 
 6 
 
January vti 
 ^^Despite a spell of frost, if the season has other- hardy 
 wise been mild, in sheltered coppices the large blue promises 
 periwinkle, the violet, and the primrose may still ° 
 be found in bloom, with here and there a belated 
 blossom of the bright rose campion, and, of course, 
 herb-robert and deadnettles red and white. On 
 sunward sloping hedgebanks, too, daisy, dandelion, 
 and even buttercup may not be hard to find ; though 
 years may pass before such a bouquet of wild flowers 
 can be gathered again in the first week in January. 
 ¥Among the birds the hedge-sparrow is almost the 
 most persistent songster now, and his music is 
 worth marking, not for its merits — since it is only 
 a simple twisting trill of gabbled high notes — but 
 because you may be sure that wherever a hedge- 
 sparrow sings now there will be a hedge-sparrow's 
 nest in season. No two hedge-sparrows sing in the 
 same place, nor do you often hear two singing at 
 the same time, but when the claimant of one fraction 
 of a shrubbery has hurriedly sung his challenge 
 about a dozen times — if a neighbour robin does 
 not hunt him off before he has finished — another 
 hedge-sparrow in his own part of another shrubbery 
 takes it up, then another, and another. 
 iFSo, as you wander about the garden, with fresh 
 outbursts of indiflferent music shrilling from new 
 directions, you may count your hedge-sparrows' 
 nests of spring almost as surely as if their bright 
 blue eggs were already before your eyes. 
 
Missing Page 
 
Missing Page 
 
FINCH 
 PROBLEM 
 
 yanuary x 
 THE ^F^The bullfinch now, in places where he is com- 
 
 BULL- mon, becomes a more interesting than welcome 
 object in the garden. So far as appearance goes, 
 with his breast glowing like a ruby lamp among 
 the leafless trees, he should be welcome everywhere. 
 He and his wife, too, offer so charming an example 
 of domestic constancy that it always pleases to 
 watch them flitting from place to place — he watch- 
 ful, alert, and quick to take alarm, and she duti- 
 fully imitative of every movement. 
 ^Bullfinches are so prettily conspicuous in flight, 
 too, with a snow-white patch on the back con- 
 trasting finely with their grey and black plumage ; 
 their call-notes are so musical, and the song so 
 sweet and low; while as cage pets they have such 
 charming ways — that one almost resents their 
 slaughter now by the gardener, as much as the use 
 of their skins to decorate the " bullfinch hats " 
 which sometimes disgrace our millinery fashions. 
 iFBut bullfinches in a garden in January are not 
 compatible with a crop of fruit in summer: for 
 buds that would scarcely make a breakfast for 
 one of these small birds might fill a peck measure 
 with fruit later. So well-known a pest to gardens, 
 indeed, was the bullfinch formerly that church- 
 wardens used to be authorised to pay twopence for 
 each one killed ; but now they are not so common 
 but that, when the gardener traps and kills them, 
 we cannot help regretting that he has good reason. 
 
 lo 
 
"January xi 
 ^i?SuNNY days in early January always give an love- 
 impetus to the love-making of the hares. All of making 
 their courtship is comical : but the funniest part ^^ ^^*''' 
 is when two of them are sedately browsing a few bounds 
 feet apart, and suddenly the happy thought that 
 spring is coming seems to strike the male, who 
 without any warning tosses himself several feet 
 in the air, and resumes his feeding. After a few 
 seconds' interval he does the same thing again, and 
 again, until one of those unaccountable impulses 
 to which hares are subject seizes his wife, and off 
 she goes at a great pace, and he follows. After 
 racing a hundred yards or so they both stop sud- 
 denly and continue their meal, which is diversified, 
 as before, by the husband's intermittent acrobatics. 
 ^One could understand these sudden gymnastics 
 in the middle of dinner if the hare's wife bit him ; 
 but there is no such cause-and-efFect in the 
 matter. The hare bounds upwards, as if some one 
 had run a long pin into him, without any regard 
 to circumstances. As often as not he has his back 
 turned to his wife, who may be five yards ofF. 
 No, it is evidently the mere joy of life, that bubbles 
 over in wild creatures in their seasons of love, 
 which seizes the hare when, apparently, he least 
 expects it and flings him up into the air. For he 
 does not merely "jump up" as a dog might do. 
 He is shot up as from a catapult and falls down 
 again like a dead hare, sometimes even alighting 
 on his back. It is an amazing performance ; but 
 you may see stolid rabbits do it too. 
 
 II 
 
"January xii 
 CATS OUT ¥¥When the cold weather still holds oiF, more 
 OF SEASON primroses will have been opening daily in the 
 coppice, while the hellebore in the shrubbery- 
 lengthens the branches of its pale green candelabra 
 of blossom daily. Eggs will have been found 
 already in some hasty house-sparrows' or starlings' 
 nests in the south, and some song-thrushes and 
 missel-thrushes will be building. 
 ^These are the too-early signs of the reviving year 
 which remind us in the country to restrict the 
 freedom of our wandering cats at night and our 
 roving dogs by day. For, when the wild birds 
 begin to think of nesting-sites, the pheasants in the 
 coverts will soon begin to follow suit ; and the 
 gamekeeper, shrewd man, begins to prosecute his 
 trapping and poisoning campaign against vermin 
 with timely vigour. It is no use waiting until the 
 stoat has scared all the nest-inclined pheasants 
 of a covert before you circumvent its end ; and 
 the stoat is not the only beast which the keeper 
 classes as " vermin " for his museum of mouldy 
 corpses swinging in a dark corner of the wood. 
 ^Your cat may be a blue Persian, and your dog a 
 prize-winner at the Crystal Palace ; but the grip 
 of a cunningly-hid steel trap and the pangs of a 
 poisoned bait respect neither prize-winning nor 
 pedigree ; and a charge of shot or the stamp of a 
 hobnailed boot sometimes finishes the job — and 
 nobody any the wiser. 
 
 12 
 
FOR 
 SPRING 
 
 "January xiii 
 ¥^One or two snowdrops have joined the winter nature 
 irises and aconites, and henceforward we shall prepares 
 daily watch the slow filling of the ranks of the 
 advance guard of the great army of bulbs which 
 will blaze by battalions in our spring flower-beds. 
 ^Birds' plumage also takes a higher note of colour 
 daily. Watch the cock greenfinch as he flits before 
 you down the hedge : he did not seem to have so 
 much yellow in his wings and tail a little while ago. 
 Look at the blue tit swinging on the half-eaten 
 cocoanut before your window ; a livelier azure 
 dyes his pricked crest, and as he flies the hazy blue 
 of his back and wings seems brighter than it did. 
 The great tit displays a bolder contrast between 
 the yellow and the broad black central stripe of his 
 chest ; and the cock sparrow's black bib is larger 
 and more sharply defined. The grey of the hooded 
 crow's mantle shows in more silvery contrast to 
 the glossy black of head and wings ; and from a 
 distance the upraised faces of the peewits are mani- 
 festly whiter on the cheeks than they were a little 
 while ago. 
 
 ^Winter has not passed yet, but its end is so nearly 
 in view that nature can allow the birds to run the 
 risk of displaying daily more and more of their 
 breeding finery, so that they may win mates be- 
 times and be ready to take advantage of the earliest 
 advent of the spring. 
 
 13 
 
MONTH S 
 ROMANCE 
 
 yanuary xiv 
 THE ¥¥The new life of the New Year is already bear- 
 
 EARLY ^ iug fruit, because in the evening now, the weather 
 being mild and muggy, the hedges are tenanted 
 with numbers of new-born moths. To Hibernia 
 rupicapraria, the Early Moth, belongs this distinc- 
 tion of being always the first-born of the British 
 year; and scarcely any degree of cold seems too 
 severe to prevent its appearance by the third week 
 of January. 
 
 ^It is not much of a moth to look at, perhaps; but 
 no insect desires to advertise itself with flaunting 
 colours in the flowerless months, when birds are 
 hungry. The male's dull wings, crossed by two 
 faint lines, are meant for hiding among dark roots 
 and rotting leaves under the hedges by day ; and 
 the female, for safety's sake, goes even to the length 
 of dispensing with wings almost completely, re- 
 taining only two pairs of tufted shoulder-knots to 
 represent them. Hardly any crevice is too small 
 for her to cram her spidery little body into during 
 the dangerous hours of daylight; but as dusk falls 
 she crawls out and climbs from twig to twig, halt- 
 ing at last in some well-exposed position, whence 
 the air will carry her impalpable love message to 
 some male moth flickering down the hedgerow in 
 the darkness. 
 
 14 
 
'January xv 
 ¥¥The skylark still shrills over the fields, and the mid 
 song-thrush daily improvises new phrases in theJANUAi^Y 
 coppice, while the starling sings busily as ever, and ^"''° 
 both robin and hedge-sparrow seem to find two 
 minutes of silence oppressive. The corn-bunting, 
 too, utters at intervals his absurdly small trill for 
 so bulky and sparrow-like a bird ; but the new 
 recruit of the birds' early choir is the loudest, 
 boldest singer of them all. 
 
 i?"Tyrr-a-wit,who are you,"cries the missel-thrush, 
 perched high in some wind-shaken poplar, flinging 
 his challenge on the troubled air as befits the bird 
 whom rustic happy thought has dubbed the "storm- 
 cock." No respecter of the weather, indeed, is the 
 missel-thrush ; and if blizzards come as usual in 
 February, you may see him perched aloft to face 
 them, shaking his head as the snowflakes fall upon 
 it and carolling his bold staves between. 
 iFBut the vocalisation of the tits in January is per- 
 haps the pleasantest, if not the most musical, per- 
 formance of the early year. The great tit especially, 
 whose sulphur waistcoat seemed only a few days 
 ago to assume its brighter hue and bolder stripe of 
 glossy black, as he played the autocrat of the birds' 
 breakfast-table, is seldom silent now ; and it is not 
 long that you have heard his ringing call, " Ting- 
 ting, chitter-chitter," as he arrives for his morning 
 meal, before you are aware of his mate, obedient 
 to the summons, by his side. 
 
 15 
 
RIDGE S 
 PROTEST 
 
 'Jajiuary xvi 
 THE ¥iFThe honest partridge afFects no aristocratic 
 
 PART-^ hauteur like the pampered pheasant. He is a 
 bluff, bucolic person, capable of supporting himself 
 on the natural produce of the soil from the day 
 that he chips the egg-shell. There is no need for 
 barn-door fowls as foster-mothers and expensive 
 "game foods" to produce a good crop of good 
 partridges. But, accommodating as the brown 
 " bird " of the fields may be, he stands upon his 
 rights 
 
 ifSo by the middle of January you can hear his 
 creaky voice in the corner of every field, strenu- 
 ously insisting that guns ought to be put away 
 because breeding-time has come. And, in proof 
 thereof, he has separated from the covey with his 
 chosen spouse. Many good sportsmen do indeed 
 put away their guns when they hear the partridge's 
 call growing quick and loud : for there is little 
 sport in bringing to bag a bird which scorns dan- 
 ger because its thoughts are preoccupied with love. 
 ^So sometimes the warfare between sportsman and 
 partridge ends by mutual consent some weeks 
 before the law compels ; and the coveys are left 
 to obey the higher law of nature which calls on 
 all birds to lay aside winter habits, as men put off 
 their overcoats, even in January, if the weather is 
 mild and the sun shines. 
 
 i6 
 
A 
 
January xvii 
 ^^Always welcome in January is a timely chill nature 
 in the air which reminds the hosts of Nature in receives 
 plant and bird and insect that they have been " ^^^^*^ 
 marching prematurely towards spring. When the 
 first half of January smiles too much, the frown 
 comes later ; and St. Valentine's Day may see the 
 lambs, as has so often happened of late, ushered 
 into a world of blizzards. 
 
 iFOn one morning you may see bluebottles basking 
 on the sunny south side of an oak trunk : on the 
 next it is well if you can only hope that they are 
 safe again in the dark crack under the bark where 
 goat-moth caterpillars, destined to destroy that 
 oak, have burrowed deep. One day a drone-fly — 
 that large brown fly which is usually mistaken for 
 a bee in houses — may come out of the fold in the 
 curtains where he is spending the winter and look 
 at the westering sun ; on the next he is lucky to 
 be back in the inmost recess of the fold. Thus 
 Nature's army receives a salutary check and is 
 wisely marking time again. 
 
 iFYet, though we know, of course, that previous 
 weeks' promise of spring meant little or nothing, 
 there is always joy for country-dwellers in counting 
 the premature signs as they appear. Thus, to-day 
 in the sheltered wood the soft brown carpet of last 
 year's decaying leaves is stabbed through in a 
 thousand places by the uprising green spikes of the 
 cuckoo-pint, from which village childreij will gather 
 their " lords-and-Iadies " in real spring. Winter 
 may be coming back again to-morrow, but it can- 
 not push these into the ground again. 
 
 17 B 
 
January xviii 
 
 IN SPITE ^^It takes more than two days of cold weather 
 
 OF THE to depress the spirits of the skylark below singing- 
 
 ^°^^ point, and he shrills his crescendoes and cadences 
 
 aloft above the frozen fields as cheerily as though 
 
 the hoar-frost on the grass were sheets of white 
 
 spring daisies. 
 
 ¥Nor can two days of frost undo the wooing of 
 the partridges, who with their new-won wives feel 
 much too " grown up " — as yet — to return to their 
 nursery manner of keeping in coveys ; though, as 
 almost every pair still has an obnoxious tertium quid 
 in attendance, there must in any case be much strife 
 and rivalry yet before wedded peace can reign in 
 partridgedom. But, so long as food can be found, 
 the birds care little for a January frost. The 
 saucy wagtail, with looping flight and conspicuous 
 cry, " Tizit ! Tizit ! " alights in his dapper suit 
 of black and white upon the margin of the frozen 
 pond and runs gaily along as usual, not under- 
 standing that this may be the beginning of hard 
 times. 
 
 if^There are signs of trouble in the pastures, however, 
 where rooks and plovers, starlings, thrushes, black- 
 birds, fieldfares and redwings feed close in unaccus- 
 tomed company, and, as you pass, flit only a short 
 distance or Into the nearest trees, where they utter 
 notes of protest against your interruption, because 
 their time is precious when food becomes so very 
 hard to find in the hardening ground. 
 
 i8 
 
"January xix 
 ^iFThaw comes quickly on the heels of frost in wild 
 the early year, and restores at once the wildness of "^^'^ 
 the redwing and the wariness of the rook. The ^"^gyg^Y 
 starling, who had begun to look puffed-out and 
 miserable, probing the hardened ground, bathes 
 merrily where the pond was ice-filmed yesterday, 
 or parades the soft lawn, with his yellowed bill of 
 spring and sheeny plumage, before his admiring 
 wife. In the coppice the primroses and foxgloves, 
 whose leaves had "flopped" to the ground at the 
 touch of frost, have raised themselves again with the 
 rising sap, and more primrose buds seem opening 
 as you pass. 
 
 ^FBut the noteworthy and epoch-making event of 
 the day is to be seen at the bird-table, where 
 hitherto there has never been room for more than 
 one robin. Hearing the " chit-chittering " note in 
 which the robin expresses stirred emotions, you 
 look in that direction, and — yes — there are two 
 robins at the table. Their manners are rather 
 stilted and distant towards each other ; but there is 
 no assault and battery, and when the robin begins 
 to woo, the time for cunningly hidden nests with 
 speckled eggs in them draws near. 
 
 19 
 
ONWARD 
 
 MARCH 
 
 RESUMED 
 
 yanuary xx 
 THE ^^Drizzling rain, alternating with wet white 
 mist, which is the rural substitute for the brown 
 fogs of cities, makes the country a sloppy place; 
 but country mud is "clean dirt" and, suitably 
 shod and clad, one cares little for the weather in 
 the fields, though one takes a wide circuit to avoid 
 the near tracks to the farm- buildings, trodden 
 ankle-deep in mire by the cattle coming twice 
 daily to be milked and the horses *' ploshing " 
 down to the pond. But the weather, though wet, 
 is mild; and already you can see that the dull, 
 dark brown of the bare hedges has taken a ruddier 
 tone, and already the leafless branches of the larch 
 have a yellowish tinge, because the twigs are 
 swelling with the risen sap. 
 
 ¥The birds are bustling, too, with new interests 
 in life in prospect ; and the heavier rustle of their 
 damp wings in the mist accentuates their constant 
 flitting to and fro, chasing or being chased by 
 rivals. The robin who only yesterday admitted a 
 lady robin — perhaps his wife of last year — to share 
 the bird-table, has quarrels on his hands to-day; 
 and quaintly he poses on the ground with legs 
 apart, beak tilted to the sky, and body swaying 
 to and fro in the ecstasy of music which precedes 
 his dash at the hated rival. 
 
 20 
 
'January xxi 
 iF¥WiTH alternate frosts and thaws, no two con- skirmish- 
 secutive days are alike in the country just now, 1"° 
 nor any day, perhaps, alike in two parts of the w^*'^"^'^ 
 country. First a freezing wind, bitter to face, 
 before which even the hoar-frost could only nestle 
 in the hollows of the turf or the crevices of the 
 ploughed clods ; then a thaw which filled the lanes 
 with mud, followed by a black, still frost which 
 sheeted the pond with ice and hardened the ruts, 
 till the cart-horses clattered and stumbled over 
 their own hoof-prints of the day before. 
 iFNext, sudden thaw, with a wet white fog which 
 turned to drizzling rain; and lo, next morning the 
 sun shines on Nature's brightest transformation- 
 scene — a white world of frosted sugar-work. 
 Each ragged stick in the hedgerow gap, each 
 tussock of coarse grass in the pasture, each withered 
 nettle by the roadside is a thing of fairy beauty, 
 glittering in the sun. 
 
 ^But its moment of daintiest beauty is its last. 
 The frost might really be sugar, so eager is the 
 jolly, round-faced sun to lick it off; and soon he 
 is veiled in a white mist of his own raising from 
 the steaming earth, while we peer through the 
 haze and wonder what the weather will be to- 
 morrow. 
 
 iFThe song-thrush has no such cares. Aloft in 
 the hedgerow oak he flings his cheery messages 
 after the sinking sun. " Winter may halt; winter 
 may linger; but spring comes." 
 
 21 
 
ING FOR 
 
 THE 
 
 LAMBS 
 
 'January xxii 
 
 ^^On upland slopes of the farms hurdles are being 
 piled and the outlines of square enclosures are 
 taking shape, which presently will be subdivided 
 all round and thickly padded with litter and straw 
 into cosy cubicles for the ewes, destined to become 
 mothers in a few weeks now. 
 ^That even on the bleak east coast or wind- 
 swept northern wolds the farmer should select 
 exposed slopes for his lambing-yards seems strange 
 to the unpractised eye, which would expect to see 
 some cosy nook in the valley prepared for the 
 ewes at this critical time. But it is the chill of 
 wet which the shepherd fears for his delicate 
 charges; so, though for his own comfort, in the 
 hard nights and days when he must watch by the 
 flock and be always ready with midwifely cares, he 
 might prefer a corner of the valley near the village, 
 he chooses high wind-dried ground whence the 
 rain-water runs almost as soon as it falls. As for 
 the winds, they may bring hail, or snow, or sleet, 
 but each mother-sheep in her padded pen will 
 sleep warm. 
 
 ^As the coming of the lambs attunes our minds 
 to thoughts of spring, so, too, does the straw- 
 gathering of the sparrows from the spilt litter by 
 the cart-track to the lambing-yard. All the 
 winter through the sparrows collect feathers to 
 line their roosts; but when they collect straw it 
 means nest-building. 
 
 22 
 
January xxiii 
 ^¥Let the January sun shine never so warmly unreadi- 
 you will find the winter flocks of plovers, larks, ness of 
 linnets, greenfinches, yellow-hammers, and tits still '^°^'^'^ 
 unbroken, for these are composed of young birds 
 not yet fully mature for breeding. 
 ¥It is not, as we might suppose, by applying the 
 analogies of human life to birddom, the young 
 and inexperienced birds that rush prematurely into 
 the perils and responsibilities of matrimony, but 
 the old stagers who are already provided with 
 mates and approved nesting sites. You could see 
 this from the behaviour of the partridge coveys, 
 which still kept together after the old birds had 
 withdrawn to revive last year's honeymoon joys. 
 You might also have guessed it from the fact that 
 the young of some large birds, such as swans, do 
 not breed until the second year; for if it was 
 natural for young and inexperienced birds in 
 general to rush into matrimony before their elders, 
 then one could not explain how, on natural lines, 
 young swans acquired the habit of waiting until 
 the second year. Instead, it would be the old 
 birds who missed a year. 
 
 ¥For Nature does nothing by leaps. Every habit 
 of every kind of bird is the natural growth of 
 ages ; and the deferred breeding of young swans 
 naturally arose from the general habit of immature 
 birds to nest later than their parents — a habit 
 which in the case of so large a bird breeding in 
 the short summer of Arctic regions made it prefer- 
 able that they should not nest at all during the 
 first year. 
 
ADVANCES 
 
 January xxiv 
 NATURE ^^Mere returns of frost by night have small 
 STILL effect upon the determined spirit of wild life in 
 insect, plant and bird to rhake believe that spring 
 is coming before January is spent. 
 nPIn the dyke, fed by earth-springs which defy all 
 moderate frosts, starlings bathe merrily at all hours 
 of the day, while others, having finished their toi- 
 lette, sing consumedly in the willows overhead; 
 ^On a topmost twig of the straggling hedge, the 
 corn-bunting essays by persistent iteration to make 
 up for the absurd triviality of his tinkling song, 
 while the robin carols or the hedge-sparrow trills 
 in every thicket. Aloft the skylark on quivering 
 wings reels out a song as loud and long and clear 
 as though the bfown fields below wore the green 
 of May or the ^ky above the blue of June — and 
 all because the sun shines after frost in January. 
 ¥Daily the covert-side seems more full of peaceful 
 life, and while January draws to a close its interests 
 thicken. More happy families of young rabbits 
 sit at the burrows' mouths gazing at the wide world ; 
 more courting pheasants crow defiance from their 
 several corners ; and more wedded wild ducks from 
 the distant mere lurk in the wooded bends of the 
 trout-stream, where there were wild ducks' nests 
 last February — and will be again next month unless 
 a long frost comes. 
 
 24 
 
, THE 
 FROST 
 
 January xxv 
 ^^A LONG day of frost almost seems now to con- interrup- 
 vince the hasty plants which had rushed into un- ^'°n b^ 
 timely bloom that they had made a mistake after " " 
 all in supposing that spring must be just round 
 the corner because January smiled. 
 ^FThe golden glory of the gorse, indeed, is hardly 
 tarnished; and those hardened campaigners — chick- 
 weed, groundsel, red deadnettle, and shepherd's- 
 purse — which always flower in mid-winter as though 
 they liked it, pay little attention to ordinary frost- 
 attacks. But their comrades in the stubble, such 
 as the field speedwell and the daisy-like mayweed, 
 which seemed in haste to bloom again before the 
 ground should be ploughed for the spring sowing, 
 show only dismal rags of draggled blossoms now. 
 ^Even the pale beauty of the primrose is marred 
 by dull transparency which creeps over its weather- 
 caught petals ; and in chilly dankness the whole 
 coppice confesses that spring seems now much 
 further than it did. 
 
 ^The rooks, finding even the soil of the pasture 
 too frost-bitten to yield much crop of worms, 
 assemble more around the new-threshed stacks, 
 reminding the farmer that if real hard weather 
 comes they will turn to the standing stacks of 
 grain, and that he must see to his shot-gun. 
 
 2.? 
 
SPARROW 
 
 yanuary xxvi 
 THE ^i?Frost or no frost, the sturdy British sparrow 
 STURDY is not going to acknowledge himself wrong. He 
 has told his wife that it is nesting- time, and nest- 
 ing-time it is, " weather or no." *' What I have 
 said, I have said," says the true British cock-spar- 
 row ; and so, when you approach one corner of 
 the house and discover two excited birds on the 
 water-pipe scolding and jarring at you for coming 
 thither, you know where the foundations of a spar- 
 row's nest are already laid. Cold winds may per- 
 haps compel him presently to defer his purpose, 
 but he will carry it out in the end : trust the Bri- 
 tish cock-sparrow for that. 
 
 ^And the sparrow has companions in his deter- 
 mined ambition. The peewits in the pasture are 
 holding their heads high, and you notice how 
 cleanly contrasted of black and white their front 
 plumage seems, where last month it was clouded 
 with brown. They have put on their breeding 
 hues; and for what purpose if not to mate and 
 breed ^ They have put on their breeding manners 
 too; for, instead of feeding in close order as before, 
 each male peewit needs now a ten-yard circle as his 
 private sphere of influence, and all day long there 
 are alarums and excursions, as, after bowing de- 
 fiance from a distance, they violently invade each 
 other's territories. Assuredly there will be plovers' 
 eggs in season. 
 
 26 
 
SWELLING 
 CHORUS 
 
 yanuary xxvii 
 ^F^WiTH shifting temperatures in January London the 
 may still have its fogs, poisonous as in November ; birds' 
 but in the country the year manifestly marches all 
 the while, in spite of reverses, towards summer. 
 ^The skylark and the song-thrush, the robin and 
 the hedge-sparrow, the starling and the corn-bunt- 
 ing still sing, and two new voices have been added 
 to the early choir which rehearses the first anthem 
 of the coming spring. One, that of the long-tailed 
 tit, scarcely counts as a " voice " for singing ; but 
 he is such a charming little bird, posing in every 
 attitude at once when perching on the hedge, and 
 looking like a drumstick when flying — with a tiny 
 round body in front of a long, thin tail — and he 
 seems so thoroughly in earnest when his little pip- 
 ing note of winter breaks into a silvery titter of 
 love-music, that you cannot help listening gladly. 
 ^Almost as small, quite as engaging, and owner of 
 one of the sweetest voices in birddom, the other 
 new recruit, the wren, announces boldly that he has 
 done with common lodging-houses for the winter 
 and has come to resume his private residence in 
 your garden like an independent gentleman. And 
 very independent indeedare his cock- tailed attitudes 
 as he sings his loud message. 
 
 27 
 
'January xxviii 
 THE ^^?Now is the time to learn the wild birds by their 
 
 NOTES OF song, before the opening chorus of our hardy 
 ^"^ winter birds is drowned in the full orchestra of 
 
 EARLY 
 
 BIRDS spring. 
 
 i?The songs of robin, hedge-sparrow, and wren can 
 be distinguished easily, because the robin's music 
 is a confident carol of full notes, delivered as if the 
 bird had some deliberate message to convey ; 
 whereas the hedge-sparrow pipes a thinner, twisting 
 song, as though he had to screw out the music once 
 a minute ; while the wren will burst suddenly into 
 sweet jubilant music, full of glad hurry, and ending 
 with a note, " Sip-sip-sip-sLp," which sounds almost 
 like a merry laugh. 
 
 i?Of the next group of three early songsters, the 
 song-thrush is a finished musician who deliberately 
 rehearses a number of loud sweet phrases, of which 
 the commonest are perhaps " Que-que-que," 
 " Chirri," "Tirni tirru " and " Chiprivee." The 
 missel-thrush calls musically, rather than sings, a 
 repeated sentence : " Churr wee wee, wirru 
 wirru wee " ; while the blackbird, with scarcely 
 more variation of phrase, neither " sings " nor 
 " calls " — he " tweedles " on a flute. 
 iFThe fizzling and clattering and whistling of the 
 starling, with mixed notes thrown in, the long un- 
 winding of the skylark's silver chain of song, and 
 the absurdly trivial " Iddle-iddle-iddle-iddle " of 
 the corn-bunting complete the concert of the first 
 month of the year. 
 
 28 
 
ARE SAY- 
 ING 
 
 yanuary xxix 
 ^^Though hardly counted as song-birds, the tits what 
 claim almost more attention than any now by the ^he tits 
 loudness and persistence of their notes. Especially 
 the great tit, spring's early bellman, sets the cop- 
 pice ringing with his jubilant " A-ting, a-ting, a- 
 ting," which always falls upon the ear like a glad 
 proclamation of brighter days to come. 
 ^Next the coal-tit — "cole" tit is only an old- 
 fashioned mis-spelling of the word " coal," referring 
 to the blackness of its hood — passes from tree to 
 tree, uttering in each his loud " Wichew, wichew, 
 wichew," almost as resonant as the great tit's cry ; 
 and the marsh-tit, whose quaintly pleasing notes 
 can only be compared to a bar of music from 
 a musical-box with nutmeg-grater for cylinder, 
 vocalises in the thickets. 
 
 ^Somewhat of the same pleasing harshness gives 
 piquancy to the blue tit's " Chitter-chee-chee chit- 
 tertee," while the little long- tailed tit's spring 
 summons is all in the tiniest treble, " Tee-tee " or 
 " Tree-ree-ree." 
 
 iFBut all of the tits have such amazing stock of 
 permutations and combinations of their few notes, 
 that whenever you hear a small bird's voice saying 
 something that you have never heard before, it is 
 safe to put down the speaker as a tit. 
 
 29 
 
January xxx 
 COURT- ^^PWhen the frost returned yesterday, the robin 
 SHIP seemed to forget that only a few days before he 
 REVIVED j^^j permitted a lady robin to feed with him at 
 the birds' breakfast-table, of which, in the absence 
 of the tits, he plays the autocrat. He seemed to 
 forget his manners, too, for he hunted her with 
 contumely from the neighbourhood. But the 
 coaxing voice of coming spring will not be denied, 
 and to-day that robin is singing to that lady robin 
 as he stands on the grass with straddled legs, head 
 tilted in air, and body swaying affectedly from side 
 to side looking " the very picture " of a love-sick 
 idiot. And the sparrow on the water-pipe who 
 went on sturdily with his nest-building, frost or 
 no frost, chirps, " I told you so," in the cocksure 
 way which makes most of his utterances odious, 
 even when their message is spring. 
 ¥Out in the pastures the peewits, beautiful when 
 the winter sunlight glances upon the cleanly con- 
 trasted black and white of their breeding plumage 
 on head and breast, grow more quarrelsome daily : 
 but the quarrels are pleasant to watch, prefaced 
 always by the elaborate bows of courtesy which 
 make the peewit the most gentlemanly duellist in 
 birddom. 
 
 ¥Look at the rooks, too. When they invaded 
 the fields in autumn, most of them, being young 
 birds of the year, had faces, literally, " as black as 
 crows. " Now, with the bare white skin of maturity 
 upon their faces, most of them look as reverend 
 as clergymen. But their manners are frivolous, 
 and soon they will be off to breed in Norway. 
 
 30 
 
January xxxi 
 ^^The pheasants almost seem to know when the the 
 shooting season is coming to an end ; and, encour- pheas- 
 aged by the deceptive mildness of intervals of gJJI^^ci- 
 January, they begin to put on airs. To see a pation 
 cock pheasant walk down the covert-side in the 
 thin, winter sunshine — provided that no older and 
 better-spurred cock pheasant is looking at him — 
 you would think almost that he was the lord of 
 the manor. Such deliberation is in his steps that 
 he seems to be choosing the spots of earth worthy 
 to receive the honour of his footfall. So in years 
 gone by — eheu fugaces ! — one has known the 
 biggest boys at school, as the end of their " last 
 term " approached, loftily puffing forbidden cigar- 
 ettes, in the bravado of an incipient manhood, 
 and laughing when the usher, poor slave-driver, 
 threatened to report them I But here the parallel 
 ends, for a little puff of smoke, followed by a 
 " report," takes all the stiffness out of the jauntiest 
 young cock pheasant, if, indeed, it does not stiffen 
 him for ever. But it is only so many hours now 
 before he will cease to be half of a prospective 
 brace of game for the hall. He will, according to 
 his strength and splendour and spurs, be a Pasha 
 in his own right, proprietor of a harem ; and the 
 gamekeeper, who for some months has been 
 treacherously inducting dukes and other favoured 
 persons to the warmest corners for " rocketers," 
 will henceforth become the lordly pheasant's de- 
 voted servant, waging war upon every living thing, 
 from tramp to hedgehog, that interferes with the 
 privacy of his selected covert. 
 
 31 
 
ARY S 
 
 FAIR 
 START 
 
 February i 
 ^5c^February is the month of St. Valentine, when febru 
 birds mate and lambs are born ; and already the 
 hares are capering more daily in the fields, with the 
 absurd antics which express their rivalry in love. 
 Already, too, some pairs of starlings are imitating 
 the sparrows and are stuffing straws into the gable- 
 roof, whence they will fire volleys of young birds 
 later. 
 
 ^In the sheltered shade of the coppice some elder- 
 bushes still retain a few green leaves from last 
 year, while their new green leaves of this year 
 grow in widening tufts from day to day. Thus 
 summers in sequence often touch each other's 
 finger-tips over the head of a complaisant winter. 
 ^Already the hazel's yellow catkins, that dangle 
 like bunches of fairy lambs' tails hung up to dry 
 along the woodland path, shake out their yellow 
 powder in the breeze ; and over the trout- stream 
 the alders lengthen their smooth green catkins 
 daily. Now, too, unwisely tempted to sit on a 
 moss-green bank, you can revive the old sensation 
 of being stung by nettles : for the velvety rosettes 
 of inch-high leaves that cluster thick between last 
 year's dead nettle-stalks are pushing quickly up- 
 wards, fully armed, to form the dense clumps 
 amid which the partridge loves to make her nest. 
 ^Meanwhile the skylark grows daily more vocifer- 
 ous aloft, and the song-thrush's measured phrases 
 become louder and more musical each morning. 
 
 ZZ 
 
TUNE UP 
 
 February ii 
 MORE =5i^The blackbird has now definitely added his 
 BIRDS £jjj. yoice to the garden chorus of the birds, 
 
 TtTNF. UP ^ , " , , 
 
 although out in the fields the migrant blackbirds, 
 which came south in autumn and are already begin- 
 ning to pass northwards again, still feed in small 
 companies, all silent save for the chattering alarm- 
 cry which one or another raises on any trivial 
 pretext. Yet from the sooty plumage and yellow 
 bills which all the young males now wear you can 
 see that their time of love and song is near. 
 ^Everywhere the yellow-hammers greet your com- 
 ing now with a monosyllabic " chiz " of warning to 
 their mates ; and, as they circle past you to the 
 hedge behind, you see that they are always now 
 in pairs, the male, all sulphur-yellow from face to 
 flank, dutifully followed in looping flight by his 
 plainer wife. 
 
 ^But in the greenfinch, perhaps, the effect of early 
 spring-fever in the blood strikes the eye most 
 clearly. In December the greenfinches seemed 
 almost as dingy as the sparrows with which they 
 consorted in flocks ; and even in January you only 
 caught glimpses of their brighter colours. Now, 
 however, each male advertises his attractions 
 boldly for the admiration of his dowdier mate, 
 flickering his yellow-splashed wings much more 
 quickly than he need in flight, and spreading his 
 tail wide to show that every feather has its yellow 
 lining. Each whirring greenfinch now is living 
 evidence of Darwin's "sexual selection." 
 
 34 
 
February tii 
 ^5r5|lN a sheltered angle of the garden wall weak early m- 
 bluebottles have been sunning their old carcases ^^'^^ °'' 
 — like paupers, left over from the last generation, ''^^''"*'^'''' 
 outside a poorhouse gate ; and a very staggery 
 wasp scrabbles on the gravel path where a short 
 flight, more ambitious than well-directed, has 
 abruptly landed him. 
 
 =5cBut these are only the warmed-up remnants of 
 last year's feast of life — ^like the Tortoiseshell but- 
 terflies which always figure in newspaper paragraphs 
 at this season as evidence of the weather's " ab- 
 normal mildness " ; whereas more genuine insect- 
 children of the new year could be seen last night, 
 when the Dotted Border moths — the males with 
 ample tawny wings and the females wingless, like 
 speckled spiders — joined the Early Moths, in their 
 flickering flight and patient periods of waiting for 
 the summons of love, upon the bare twigs of the 
 hedges. 
 
 ^Now, too, the Small Eggar moth — the second 
 of the year to abandon the winter rule that female 
 moths are safer without wings — performs its annual 
 miracle of forcing an exit from the tight, seamless 
 cocoon, which its caterpillar had woven hard as 
 brown paper last year. 
 
 ^With these and the multitude of caterpillars which 
 come out by night to feed upon the springing 
 herbage the entomologist's year has fairly begun. 
 
 35 
 
CHAF 
 
 FINCH 
 
 SINGS 
 
 February iv 
 
 THE ROL- ^^Sfi^iALMOST most striking, if not most musical, is 
 LICKING f jje newest voice added to the choir of spring ; for 
 the chaffinch is the bird whose rollicking refrain 
 from every tree seems the very expression of the 
 joy of coming summer, too hilarious to care much 
 for rhythm or for music. 
 
 ^And the song of the chaffinch is worth listening 
 to always and everywhere ; because, while it has 
 often been described as " Tol-lol-lol-lol-lol-ginger- 
 beer," chaffinch experts — whose name is legion, 
 owing to the popularity of singing matches be- 
 tween bird-fanciers' champions — aver that the song 
 varies everywhere according to locality. Thus they 
 will recognise a chaffinch from Kent as singing 
 " Tol-lol-lol-chuck-we-do," whereas a Middlesex 
 bird invites you with " Tol-lol-lol-kiss-me-dear." 
 In Devonshire they have been supposed to an- 
 nounce : " In - a - week - or -two-we'U-see-the-wheat- 
 ear ; " while in Norfolk the catch at the end of the 
 trill often sounds like " Ketchewayo." 
 ^Not all the chaffinches are in song yet ; but as 
 the days grow warmer, it is worth while to go 
 into the fields and try to find out what the 
 chaffinches really say. 
 
 ^The cock chaffinch is worth watching too ; for, 
 with blue crest raised, pink breast puffed out, and 
 wings daintily drooped to spread out the white 
 splash that he wears as proudly as knight-errant 
 bears a lady's favour on his sleeve, he is a very 
 different person from that modest little bird which 
 we almost mistook for a sparrow in winter. 
 
 36 
 
February v 
 ^5|^The returning tide of bird-life already runswANOER- 
 strongly, though we scarcely notice it, because the '"^ ^"*°^ 
 passing stream of birds which filters through our ***° °'^^''' 
 gardens, woods and fields, whenever the south flowers 
 wind blows, consists as yet chiefly of familiar 
 British kinds, young birds of last year, who are 
 gradually drifting northwards to their homes, as 
 they drifted southwards in autumn. Then most 
 of them were wearing their first dull plumage ; 
 now they are gorgeous in bridal array. Then 
 they were wandering from their old nurseries to 
 find a livelihood ; now they are coming back to 
 establish the new nurseries of another genera- 
 tion. 
 
 ^As with the migrating birds, so with the opening 
 flowers : we hardly notice the first to move 
 because they are so common and familiar. The 
 golden gorse, however, commands attention always, 
 and the primrose and periwinkle in the coppice are 
 lovely, while the hazel's yellow catkins swing their 
 banners of advancing spring more boldly day by 
 day. 
 
 ^But the botanist who tramps the country-side 
 to-day and brings home groundsel, chickweed, 
 daisy, buttercup, dandelion, shepherd's purse, 
 barren strawberry, whitlow grass, field speedwell, 
 lady's mantle, and so on, has not much to look at, 
 after all. 
 
 37 
 
February vi 
 THE ^5r5|How the birds are singing ! Not only the 
 WELCOME robin and the starling and the hedge-sparrow, 
 cHORtis ^}ii£.}j have scarcely been silent since Christmas ; 
 nor only the missel-thrush, whose loud, wild notes 
 have shrilled through January snowstorms. The 
 song-thrush, sitting in the hedge with his speckled 
 breast gleaming pale in the sunlight, is recalling 
 happy memories with his strangely varied bars of 
 selected music ; and the blackbird, aloft in a leafless 
 larch, is whistling cadences against his brother in 
 the distant coppice. And on every hedge of every 
 sunlit field the yellow-hammer is iterating and 
 reiterating his insistent message that becomes so 
 monotonous on a dusty summer's afternoon, but 
 seems so bright and cheerful on the morrow of 
 frost and snow. But none of these, nor the tits 
 with their bell-like notes, nor the chaffinches' 
 simple songs, give us the fullest pleasure of music 
 in the early year. 
 
 =ScWhen we say that " Spring is in the air," we 
 feel it, because the air itself vibrates with the high 
 trills and quick crescendoes of soaring skylarks. 
 As you pass from meadow to meadow the song of 
 one skylark grows upon the ear as another fades 
 into the distance, and your circuit of the sunny 
 fields is a linked chain of music, which leads you 
 home again the happier in the knowledge that 
 spring is near. 
 
 38 
 
RENEWAL 
 OF LOVE 
 
 February vii 
 'Si^The wagtail, wKo ran lightly over the pond the 
 when it was frozen, runs merrily round it now, swans' 
 flirting his tail and catching little flies. Nothing 
 makes him sad, not even the recollection of the 
 young cuckoo which he had to rear last year, or 
 the fear of another this year. 
 ^But that is a long time ofF, and just now every 
 day without frost means another peg in the score 
 of spring, with more gnats in the air and more 
 time to fight with that other wagtail who lives 
 behind the barn. 
 
 ^And the swans feel the change coming too, for 
 they have recommenced their scurrying flights, 
 side by side, along the surface of the water. These 
 are the first indication of the swans' renewal of 
 love. Not that they are not always a devoted 
 couple. Threaten one, and the other will hiss ; 
 and when one takes a flat-footed stroll away from 
 the water the other always waddles close behind, 
 with all the staid affection of old Darby and 
 Joan. 
 
 ^But now there is something in the air which 
 gives Joan, in Darby's eyes, all the bloom of her 
 beautiful youth again ; and he, as he fluffs his wings 
 and sails proudlyround her, why, Joan never saw him 
 looking younger and handsomer ; and then, as 
 they raise their heads and look into each other's 
 eyes, they read each other's thoughts, and by 
 mutual impulse they race together, as they used 
 to do, from one end of the pond to the other. 
 
 39 
 
February viii 
 THE ^JtkTHE returning tide of migration runs daily 
 RISING stronger towards the north, and the fields are now 
 TIDE OF thronged with the same travelling birds as passed 
 
 SPRING ^ ox 
 
 MiGRA- through in November. But their course is now 
 TioN reversed, so that, whereas in November we scarcely 
 noticed any but the earliest arrivals of migrants, 
 now we shall hardly remark that the fieldfares or 
 redwings are going until the very last disappears. 
 =ScStill, as a party of human trippers generally 
 includes individuals whose costume or conduct 
 betrays the whole company, so these incon- 
 spicuously wandering thrush-birds have fellow 
 travellers who proclaim their movements. Hawks 
 cannot hide their identity or their presence ; and 
 since gamekeepers compel even that useful little 
 falcon, the wind-hovering kestrel, to be scarce in 
 most British districts, we can always tell in 
 November and again in February when migrant 
 birds are passing, because kestrels suddenly become 
 common for a day or two, halting on their way to 
 northern breeding-grounds where gamekeepers are 
 few. 
 
 ^And when, as to-day, you may see many kestrels 
 where f&w or none have been during the winter, 
 you may look out again for any rare migrants 
 which you or others were lucky enough to see in 
 autumn, if they have been lucky enough not to be 
 shot. 
 
 40 
 
February ix 
 ^St^iWhen February Filldyke elects to operate part- 
 upon dykes already overflowing, with an energy ridge 
 which it seldom displays when the dykes are R'^ai-'^ies 
 empty — to say that the country becomes a damp 
 place states the case mildly. We do not " walk " 
 in the country then ; we slosh and plodge. 
 ^The rain never fell, however, that would damp 
 the ardour of the wooing partridges, and every 
 secluded corner of a field in partridge-land is now 
 the daily scene of diverting dramas, when half a 
 dozen Bombastes Furiosos simultaneously creak 
 out their challenges to all partridgedom ; and the 
 next instant, perhaps, each is scurrying for his life 
 before a momentary hero, who had been scurrying 
 for his life from somebody else a minute before. 
 ^For the deadly rivalry of male partridges in the 
 early year seems always to resolve itself into a 
 game of catch-who-catch-can, in which nobody 
 catches anybody and all is honour and glory. 
 And as all our resident breeding-birds are playing 
 a cognate game with rules of their own, the 
 country is full of interest, no matter how it rains. 
 
 41 
 
February x 
 MIGRANT ^5r5|THE resemblance of February to November in 
 BIRDS OF the matter of passing bird-life becomes accentuated 
 SONG AND (jaiiy On the east coast especially, where bird- 
 traffic is always congested when the winds shift, 
 flocks of fieldfares and redwings, mixed with 
 migrant song-thrushes and blackbirds, drift again 
 in an aimless way about the fields, uncertain where 
 to go when disturbed. 
 
 ^Flocks of migrant skylarks have increased, too, 
 irritating our resident skylarks to pour out in 
 fuller volume the stream of silver song which, 
 sometimes in flood, sometimes a mere trickle, runs 
 almost ceaselessly round the long year. 
 ^But the skylark's music is suddenly hushed when 
 your wandering feet put up from his hiding- 
 place a migrant of another sort, the short-eared 
 owl, who wafts himself on wide, easy pinions across 
 the wondering landscape. No blundering barn 
 owl he, dazed by the glare of daylight and subject 
 to easy gibes from every tit and finch, but a 
 diurnal bird of prey, spreading terror wide as that 
 of the swift and silent passage of the sparrow- 
 hawk between the hedges. And the sparrow-hawk 
 is travelling, too, reviving in unaccustomed places 
 the panics of November for small birds already 
 thinking of the spring. 
 
 42 
 
February xi 
 ^5r5|CoLD winds and snow may return, but they settling 
 will not unpair the partridges. The " covey " family 
 has ceased to exist as a social institution ; and Q^^^'^'^n^ 
 though on coming suddenly into a sheltered 
 corner of a field you may put up a dozen par- 
 tridges together, these are no more a " covey " 
 than a crowded ballroom is a nursery. 
 ^For the great change which annually comes over 
 partridgedom in the early year has taken place ; 
 and while the father of each covey has withdrawn 
 with his wife for the year's honeymoon and will 
 soundly trounce any son of his who ventures near, 
 the sons have set up rivalries against each other. 
 The older and stronger have, like their fathers, 
 already taken wives ; but the younger still gather 
 daily to sort themselves out with " other fellows' 
 sisters," and there is much flinging-out of chests, 
 strutting, crowing, and brawling in that quiet 
 corner of the field every morning. 
 ^The moorhen families are breaking up now, too ; 
 and with his raucous war-cry and furious dashes 
 the old male is forcibly persuading his sons that 
 the water where they have lived peaceably during 
 the winter is only big enough for two in spring- 
 fever time. 
 
 43 
 
February xii 
 SUDDEN ^StSlTwo days of frost and snow in February bring 
 HARD- tjie small birds to a sad pass. The robins look 
 thT ir"^ ^^""y f °""'i ^^'^ fluffy, and as you pass along the 
 sheltering hedgerow it is pathetic to see them come 
 hurrying towards you and attend upon your steps 
 in the hope that you may be going to do some- 
 thing for them. The thrushes tamely await your 
 advance, and, when they fly, seem so light and 
 weak, showing that very little flesh indeed is 
 left upon the bones inside those loose-hanging 
 feathers. The blackbirds are in as woeful plight, 
 and for once are silent. 
 
 ^Down the whole of a long hedge, snow-drifted 
 on one side and bird-haunted on the other, only 
 one blackbird utters the familiar alarm-note, and 
 he chatters it forth without rising, sitting belly- 
 deep on the drift-snow. The fieldfares that feebly 
 wing their way out into the open field fly low and 
 slowly, alighting with caution and evident diffi- 
 culty. When these birds are starving and the 
 wind carries them you may see them strike the 
 snow and roll over like shot rabbits. 
 ^You can go and pick them up, if you like, and 
 find that they weigh only their bones and feathers. 
 They will scarcely struggle to escape ; for death 
 is so near that fear has gone. 
 
 44 
 
February xiii 
 =Sr5cAFTER three days of hard weather the field- the 
 fare's hopeless misery becomes the common lot of starving 
 many poor little folk in feathers. Your own '^°'^"^ 
 robins round the house, with a solid breakfast 
 tucked away behind their red waistcoats, may be 
 pert and smart as ever ; but if you tread unfre- 
 quented woodpaths where the springs stand still in 
 icicles, or the hollow lane where your foot poises 
 uneasily on the razor-edge of frozen ruts, you will 
 scarcely recognise as a robin that fluffy, loose- 
 winged shadow of a bird that flits past your feet, 
 and with thin black legs grasping a bramble-spray, 
 looks at you with a large black eye that seems to 
 ask for food. If you turn and look back you will 
 see the brave little chap down again in the frozen 
 rut pecking at some hard crack where a scrap of 
 food may lurk. But he is very weak, and the day 
 is short ; and perhaps another long night of whist- 
 ling, freezing wind may leave him too frail to 
 work, and, later, when the birds of spring are 
 looking for nesting-places they may find a mummy 
 of a robin hanging from the twig which his little 
 black feet still grasp, untouched by fly or beetle, 
 because there was no flesh on those frozen bones 
 to tempt them. 
 
 45 
 
SUNSHINE 
 
 February xiv 
 SAVING ^5r5|WiNTER in February seldom lasts more than 
 three days, and when a clear sky and bright sun 
 bring relief, the uplands facing south show brown 
 and yellow through the melting snow, and all the 
 southern hedge-banks grow green and soft. Thus, 
 though the ice on the pond still holds, there is food 
 for all ; and we rejoice to see the field birds wild 
 again. 
 
 =SlBut the thrushes and blackbirds are too sobered 
 by their experience to sing, and even the robins 
 are almost silent. Only the hedge-sparrow — 
 the little mouse-like bird that patiently searches 
 every inch of the matted hedge-roots and peeps 
 under every dead leaf and into every crevice — 
 sings all day long as before. No doubt his minute 
 methods of seeking food, which even the wren 
 cannot completely imitate, enable him to fare 
 comfortably while others go hungry. The star- 
 lings, too, by methods of feeding peculiar to them- 
 selves, manage to keep up the brave heart which 
 implies a full stomach among birds, and assemble 
 punctually in the top of the big poplar and on the 
 gables opposite, to whistle and fizzle to the setting 
 sun, which returns the compliment by gilding 
 their glossy plumage till they shine like beetles to 
 a distant view. 
 
 46 
 
February xv 
 =5riS»WHEN the birds which live upon the small life hardy 
 of lower things were almost dying through the ^^^^^^ 
 severity of the weather, it is wonderful how little "''^ 
 the insects and caterpillars suffered. On the even- 
 ing before the frost came the males of the early 
 moth were fluttering about the hedges or sitting 
 disconsolately at the ends of twigs, waiting to 
 catch the first telepathic intimation of the presence 
 of a wingless lady of their kind in the vicinity. 
 At the foot of the hedgerow on the blades of bush- 
 grass the caterpillars of the yellow underwings, 
 like little, fat, brown worms adorned with rows of 
 jet-black dashes, were feeding busily. After that 
 came the frosts and blizzards and hail and snow, 
 and with last night's thaw, I sallied out again to 
 see how the small wild life had borne the hard 
 times. There were the male early moths in 
 equal numbers, and with equal patience sitting on 
 their twigs or fluttering to and fro ; and there 
 beneath them were the little brown caterpillars, as 
 abundant and as hungry as ever. Naught did it 
 matter to them that the clump of grass on which 
 they were feeding was only a small oasis of green 
 in the dull white of a half-thawed snowdrift. 
 They knew that the temperature was above 32°, 
 and so they were out feeding in the dark as fast 
 as they could. It might freeze again before 
 morning, and therefore the more food they could 
 cram into themselves between frosts the better. 
 
 47 
 
February xvi 
 BIRDS AND^iStSlTHE jays still jar and clamour in the woods, 
 ^'AN chasing one another with ribald outcries from tree 
 to tree, as they settle questions of rivalry in love, 
 where presently each harsh-voiced wrangler, having 
 acquired mate and nesting-site, will become one of 
 the stealthiest and most secretive: of birds. Where 
 to-day you cannot walk down a woodland glade 
 without hearing raucous protests round every 
 corner, when real spring has come you may stand 
 within a few feet of a sitting jay and neither she 
 nor her mate, furtively peeping at you from a 
 neighbouring tree, will stir or utter sound. 
 ^But the jay seldom nests until long after many 
 nests of other birds hold eggs for him to suck ; 
 though this will be soon now, for already the thrush, 
 one of the jay's chief victims, begins to complain 
 of your approach towards a certain evergreen 
 bush or a particular ivied stump. The thrush 
 does not mean to tell you where his nest is going 
 to be ; but Nature has taught him the useful trick 
 of making a noise to attract to himself the atten- 
 tion of a marauder near the nest, and has not 
 taught him to distinguish between man, who in- 
 telligently puts two and two together, and other 
 robbers with mere animal impulses which are easily 
 misled. 
 
 48 
 
February xvii 
 ^StScIn a field hard by, several pairs of partridges — a force- 
 for in February two partridges cease to be a ful 
 " brace " and become a pair — have already marked wooer 
 out their spheres of influence for the summer, and 
 all would be peace and happiness but for the 
 outrageous behaviour of a bachelor partridge who 
 insists upon paying his odious attentions to one of 
 the brides. Unfortunately, too, he is a bigger 
 and finer bird than her husband, whom he hunts 
 mercilessly all over the place. This must be very 
 trying to his wife ; for you have only to look at a 
 partridge to see that he comes of a family whose 
 ladies have always placed strength and courage 
 before mere good looks as qualifications in a 
 husband. She is faithful, nevertheless, and 
 wherever her husband flees for his life before her 
 overbearing admirer she follows. Luckily for the 
 devoted couple there are other partridges in the 
 field, even stronger than the persecutor; and though 
 they chivalrously allow the fugitives to pass 
 through their territory, the swaggering interloper 
 knows that he would have to fight for it. So he 
 always desists from pursuit when he sees an erect 
 form like his own reared above the stubble in front 
 of him, and the harassed pair have a little peace. 
 But this state of things cannot continue for ever, 
 and unless the interloper takes himself off or 
 something unexpected happens, the hunted 
 husband will lose his wife. Even in wifely con- 
 stancy, one must draw the line somewhere. 
 
 49 
 
FULL 
 DRESS 
 
 February xviii 
 TRAVEL- =5r5|THE hedges are thronged again with flocks of 
 LERs IN chaffinches, not so rigorously segregated by sexes 
 as they were when they passed that way in autumn. 
 Although there is still a marked tendency, when the 
 flocks are disturbed, of the hen birds to assemble 
 in one tree, and though, when you see one cock 
 chaffinch feeding, his half-dozen nearest neigh- 
 bours will be cocks also, still the two sexes are 
 evidently beginning to appreciate each other's com- 
 pany. They are, however, only young birds of 
 last year, and you can see that the pink breasts of 
 the males have not yet the full blush of their 
 breeding colours ; but they are old enough to 
 know that they are on their way home to make a 
 start in life, and prospective wives become matters 
 of interest. 
 
 ^Close by the sea, on the wide salt-marsh and the 
 grass-fringed sand-hills, other migrants are making 
 their way northwards too. Where our own paired 
 redshanks wind along the familiar dykes in arrowy 
 flight on white-barred wings, the female always 
 dutifully following the warning whimper of the 
 male, now small flocks of redshanks flit aimlessly 
 from dyke to dyke, whimpering in chorus as they 
 go. These are travellers destined to supply more 
 pairs of breeding redshanks for the north. 
 
 5° 
 
February xix 
 ^5r5cA SIGN of the times is the dapper pied wagtail spring's 
 by the sides of streams or ponds near which he ^''^''^ '" 
 nested last year. Bright and businesslike he looks, ^*'^^*'^^^. 
 as he flirts his tail and dips his head to the margin 
 of the water, suggesting a busy, white-aproned 
 "dish-washer," as he is called in many country 
 parts. Cheery, too, is his quick cry, " Tizit, tizit," 
 reminding one of the family call of the swallows, 
 when they were sunning themselves on the gables 
 before their autumn flight. 
 
 ^Businesslike, also, is the pied wagtail in the matter 
 of announcing his return to other small birds who 
 during his absence have haunted his water. The 
 pair of chaffinches, which were perkily parading the 
 bare margin where the horses come to drink, stay 
 not upon the order of their going into the nearest 
 tree, when they hear the wagtail's war-cry and see 
 him looping through the air towards them. 
 =5cAnother homely sign of the times is the bright 
 carmine which now tips the bank-side daisy-buds. 
 We have had daisies all the winter, but they were 
 pallid things. It seems to need the quicker-pulsing 
 sap of spring to bring the blushes to the daisy's 
 face ; but much cold may yet come before we 
 reach spring's real daisy-time. 
 
 5^ 
 
MARCHES 
 AT ALL 
 POINTS 
 
 February xx 
 
 SPRING =Si=SiOften at this time the patches of golden gorse 
 are murmurous with honey-bees ; -and even if there 
 is no sound of bee to-day, the gorse is golden in 
 patches again, waiting only for the sun to bring the 
 bees ; and even if, as sometimes in mid-February, 
 we can trace the trodden highways of the hungry 
 rats upon the snow, we have somewhat to be thank- 
 ful for, in the knowledge that spring cannot linger 
 for ever on the way. 
 
 =5|For the year certainly marches. The curlews are 
 on the move — though they spread their migration 
 over months — and the voice of the wild geese has 
 not been heard for days in places where their clang- 
 ing chorus, as they swung across the sky in ordered 
 V-shaped squadrons, had been the pleasantest of all 
 wild Nature's music in the winter months. 
 ^Though the going of the wild geese is difficult to 
 fix exactly, because they shift their feeding-grounds 
 and lines of flight so often towards the end of their 
 time, they seem really to have departed now, leaving 
 us to listen to the lesser chorus of the song-birds, 
 swelling daily in volume despite wind and rain. 
 The storm-cock missel-thrush especially now re- 
 iterates "Tyrr-a-weet-a-weet" from every coppice, 
 and between the storms the skylark shrills aloft. 
 
 52 
 
BLUE- 
 BOTTLE 
 
 February xxi 
 ^5l^A BLUEBOTTLE on a window-pane is not a spec- the 
 tacle to fill you with joy in August, when anything wakened 
 that buzzes makes you feel hotter than before : but 
 a bluebottle walking up the window as I write 
 compels rejoicing. For the welcome whisper of 
 February sunshine has reached him, even in the 
 dusty crevice behind the book-shelf, where he 
 would have been wiser, perhaps, to remain, deaf 
 even to such seductive summons, for another month 
 at least. He is a very feeble bluebottle, and he 
 walks with a jerky, high-stepping action which 
 suggests that he is very stiff in the joints, and at 
 the same time very light and empty. If, like 
 Uncle Toby, I open the window and let him go 
 free, he will make one glad, whizzing, semi-circu- 
 lar flight through the sunshine, and tumble head 
 over heels on the gravel path when he tries to 
 settle. And there, if a robin does not promptly 
 discover and eat him, he will be caught by the chill 
 of early dusk, and there will be an end of him. 
 So I will not open the window, because in spring 
 one feels charitable even towards bluebottles. 
 
 53 
 
BIRDS' 
 EGGS 
 
 February xxii 
 THE 'Jt^lA sparrow's egg, that has fallen from the nest 
 EARLIEST iji fjie gable, offers mute but rather messy evidence 
 to-day of the approach of spring ; but the sparrow 
 and the starling, with the advantage of rainproof 
 roofs of man's safe dwellings to nest under, can 
 begin their multiplication sum of the season early 
 and carry it on late. Perhaps this is partly the 
 reason why both of these birds are increasing in 
 numbers everywhere. 
 
 ^But the missel-thrush, who regards changing 
 weather with contempt ; the song-thrush, who finds 
 cosy nooks on ivied stumps or in the hearts of 
 sheltering evergreens ; the tits, who nest in holes in 
 trees ; and the robin, for whom any eccentric chink 
 is good enough — never lag far behind the sparrow 
 in the early year ; and the persistence with which 
 the great tit, self-constituted bellman of the birds, 
 rings out his cheery summons, " A-ting, a-ting, a- 
 ting, a-ting," from the coppice, tells his nesting 
 thoughts. 
 
 ^Cold winds may blow and blizzards return, but 
 every day now has its little story of the coming 
 spring. To-day it may be only a bluebottle taking 
 shelter on the stable wall, and a drone-fly, that 
 large-eyed, hairy fly so often mistaken in houses for 
 a bee, walking slowly up a staircase window ; but 
 in February even the flies seem welcome. 
 
 54 
 
February xxiii 
 ^5rkNo unkindness of late February weather pre- the 
 vents the missel-thrush from putting the finishing missel- 
 touch to his new nest — a cunning touch, which '^"'^"*" ^ 
 
 NESTING 
 
 Nature's wisdom of ages has devised, to hide the troubles 
 newness of the structure. This is that straggling 
 tag of sheep's wool, without which few missel- 
 thrushes think their nests complete. Fluttering in 
 the wind it makes the nest look so ragged and so 
 manifestly tattered that no creature — except man, 
 whose intelligence from experience goes one better 
 than Nature's best devices — would give a second 
 glance at it with thought of eggs. 
 ^A-gainst enemies from above, however, the trick 
 is a poor defence for an open cup-like nest, which 
 contains ruddy-speckled grey eggs, plain to view. 
 ^In the "jarring " fury, therefore, of the assaults 
 which the missel-thrushes are making to-day upon 
 every passing rook, one may read a domestic 
 announcement of an egg already laid. Yet in 
 spite of their pluck and vigilance^, it is a poor 
 chance that the missel-thrushes have, in many 
 coastwise districts, to save their first nest of eggs 
 from the stealthy hoodie crows. 
 
 SS 
 
HAMMER 
 
 SINGS 
 
 AGAIN 
 
 February xxiv 
 THE ^5r5lA NEW voice, which seems to sing with mean- 
 YELLow- ing, has been added to the feathered choir ; for you 
 can never hear the jingle of the yellow-hammer, with 
 its curious catch at the end — familiarised in the 
 rustic phrase, " Little bit of bread and no cheese" — 
 without thinking of shimmering days of summer, 
 when towns are hot and roads are dusty, but life 
 among green lanes and flower-starred meadows 
 sweet. For it is then that the murmurous music 
 of birds and buzzing insects seems beaten into 
 rhythmic bars by the regular reiteration of the 
 yellow-hammer's metallic trill. 
 ^The wren, who began to sing more than a fort- 
 night ago and then seemed to find that it was not 
 singing weather, has now burst into full song again 
 — a song always so jocund and so musical as to be 
 almost the happiest in birddom. Before the host 
 of summer warblers arrive from oversea, the wren's 
 song is worth getting by heart ; because no other 
 but the skylarJi's is so joyous, fast and sweet; and 
 when you cannot see the little cock-tailed singer, 
 you can always recognise the music by the merry 
 "Sip, sip, sip, sip," with which it ends. 
 
 56 
 
February xxv 
 'SrScAs you wander round the garden, a robin sud- married 
 denly carols, clear and loud, from some tall shrub robins 
 near at hand ; and by quick association of ideas 
 it carries your mind back to foggy November, 
 when the same confident trill sounded so welcome 
 in the shrubbery, as a sort of pledge from Nature 
 that, though winter was falling, spring would surely 
 come again. 
 
 ^But now, when spring is coming, that same con- 
 fident trill reminds you that there are scarcely half 
 as many singing robins as there were in midwinter. 
 And if you, retiring discreetly, watch the proceed- 
 ings of this solitary songster, you may observe 
 the reason. 
 
 ^Descending presently to the ground, he will re- 
 sume the work which you interrupted, seeking dry 
 grass and moss for the nest, which is already shaped 
 in the rockery bank. And close by, watching him, 
 sits another robin, not quite so ruddy-breasted nor 
 so dapper. She must be one of the^weaker-songed 
 robins whose silence you have noticed ! 
 ■iSlAnd so it is : for during the winter the male and 
 female robins have been living separately, both 
 singing. Now they are together, and the male 
 only sings. 
 
 57 
 
SEASONS 
 
 February xxvi 
 THE ^StSiWhen every hour of sunlight brings the hive 
 COMING bees, yellow-thighed and heavy, buzzing and jost- 
 ling round the yellow crocuses ; when the male 
 starling of the pair that live in the gable parades 
 the lawn alone in the morning because his wife is 
 at home laying her first egg ; and when the fields 
 become more dotted from day to day with daisies, 
 we know that the season marches towards spring, 
 whatever reverses may come later. For the 
 sprinkling of white flowers in the green pasture 
 remind us how soon the green will be sheeted 
 with the snow of innumerable daisies, and how this 
 will later give place to the cloth-of-gold carpet 
 which the buttercups spread for the coming of 
 summer ; when the air will shimmer with small 
 life which the swallows will winnow with the mazes 
 of their swerving flight. Does summer ever wear 
 such beauty as we see in it through the hazy pro- 
 mise of early spring ? 
 
 =SlOn the woodside path, where the heather and 
 dead bracken-tangle seem already full of reviving 
 small life, you may see now how the blindworm, 
 early abroad, confronts unexpected danger. With 
 body curved S-wise and head slightly raised, it 
 halts motionless on the path, like a little snake 
 in bronze. Thus, alas, it too often courts death 
 from hobnailed boot and stick. Centuries of 
 familiarity have not taught the rustic that this 
 gentle, harmless thing is not an adder. 
 
 58 
 
February 
 
 {Oifyn.Jit] I . K„y A',././. 
 
 HOODIE CROWS BEHIND THE LAMBING-YARD 
 
February xxvii 
 'St^NoT the early-nesting missel-thrush alone has a linger- 
 reason to regret that the hooded crow still lingers, ing 
 as an unloved guest, among the resident birds of criminal 
 our coastwise districts. When the pastures be- 
 come more and more thickly dotted with new 
 lambs, as with daisies, the " hoodie " — at other 
 times a handsome and interesting addition to wild 
 life — appears a positively hateful bird. Lurking 
 silent, with silent accomplices, in the trees over- 
 looking the meadow, the hoodie waits until the 
 coast is very clear, and then silently drops to the 
 ground not far from some lamb lying by itself. 
 Alertly vigilant, the feathered criminals advance 
 
 with sidelong hops towards their victim, and 
 
 ^What would have happened next, had you not 
 shouted and scared the wretches into the next 
 parish, is told in the occasional discovery of a poor 
 weakling lamb with its eyes plucked out. 
 ^But the hoodie crow soon finds that the lambs 
 grow beyond his strength, for spring moves quickly. 
 And soon its voice will call him too, and he will 
 drift across the sea to Norway. Then the missel- 
 thrush will be able to rear its brood in peace. 
 
 59 
 
February xxviii 
 FEBRu- ^^t^iWhen blizzards come racing over the land 
 ary's from the eastern sea, one cannot help feeling sorry 
 SCORE £qj. ^j^g little lambs. But they have sense to 
 huddle into what scraps of shelter their pasture 
 affords — a dozen will pack easily down the length 
 of a feeding-trough — and by the end of February 
 the sun has power, so that ten minutes of sunshine 
 after snow will draw them all, frisking and wriggle- 
 tailed, into the open again. 
 
 ^Thus the balance of alternating extremes of 
 weather now is always to the credit of spring. 
 Above its glossy rosette of heart-shaped leaves the 
 lesser celandine, like a many-rayed buttercup, 
 strikes a bolder note of golden promise than its 
 forerunner, the pale primrose. You may gather 
 scented wood-violets too, to-day, where were none 
 a week ago, and an hour of sunlight now brings 
 the bees humming round the opening blossoms of 
 the box, whose inconspicuous flowers are more 
 beloved by insects than many of gayer hues. 
 ^Every day now also come tidings of those little 
 events which make up wild country life — of 
 another song-thrush's nest with eggs in the 
 shrubbery, of missel-thrush's eggs in the coppice, 
 and a robin's nest ready for eggs in the wood- 
 yard. Blizzards indeed ! 
 
 60 
 
Mfin-h 
 
 yCopyrijhf] 
 
 /:. Kay Rot'inso' 
 
 MARCH ARRIVES WITH A TEARING WIND 
 
WELL 
 
 March i 
 ^F^EvEN when a tearing wind with a torrent of when 
 rain and hail announces the arrival of March with march 
 auspicious bluster, the " lion " fit does not last ; 
 long, and, very soon, alternate sunshine and 
 showers suggest April rather than March, but for 
 the fact that there is a wind generally waiting for 
 you round the corner, to tweak you by the nose 
 and drive your hands into your pockets every time 
 the sun goes behind a cloud. 
 i?But the wind cannot reach the primroses, nest- 
 ling in the sheltered angles of the shrubberies ; and 
 the garden violets, running wild there, lend a 
 purple bloom to the shadow of the warm pines. 
 In handsome, glossy patches the wild arum spreads 
 abroad the glory of its rich greenery, and deep 
 green tufts show where the Star of Bethlehem is 
 hastening upwards to meet the sunlight that filters 
 through the larches. On these the round leaf 
 buds are swollen, so that a little squeeze reveals 
 the clustered points of tender green within. The 
 honeysuckle's stems are jointed at six-inch intervals 
 with tufts of half-opened leaves, to feed on which 
 many a nightly caterpillar crawls industriously up 
 those twining stems. 
 
 ^But the bulk of the caterpillars find their pro- 
 vender below, with the slugs that creep over the 
 rich carpet of springing grass that edges the path, 
 and over the green lacework of the fern-like 
 leaves of young hedge-parsley plants that are 
 already jostling for space above the decaying 
 needles of larch and pine. 
 
 6i 
 
March it 
 AFIELD IN %'^To a dweller In the country the study of wild 
 ALL Nature brings large rewards, filling the fields with 
 
 WEATHERS ^^ interest which is always tempting one out of 
 doors, no matter what the weather may be, 
 ^Even the cold winds amid which March 
 usually enters have their interests, for in such 
 weather the wariest birds permit a near approach, 
 and on the grass-field and ploughland one can 
 watch at close quarters the delicate probing of the 
 curlew's five-inch bill, count how many of the 
 laughing gull's heads have already turned black 
 for summer, and how many of last year's young 
 rooks still have black feathers on their faces, or 
 observe the absence as yet of rosy breeding tints 
 from the plumage of the flocks of migratory 
 linnets, the close order of whose bobbing flight 
 proclaims them travellers. 
 
 5?There is interest in the landscape, too, even 
 when no life moves. The osiers, swelled with sap 
 and fringed with bursting bracts which half reveal 
 the silken catkins hid within, glow almost crim- 
 son ; stretches of gorse have already struck the 
 higher note of green that tells of myriad swelling 
 buds ; and the alders are rich purple and auburn 
 with promise of the spring. 
 
 62 
 
March in 
 ^iFWhen snow and frost return in March the menaces 
 botanist takes an unwelcome holiday ; for, even o^ more 
 were it pleasant, it would be scarcely profitable to ^"^'^^'^ 
 poke among the draggled herbage for frost-bitten 
 blossoms. The very aspect of our hardiest plants, 
 which, like the primrose, tufted the shrubbery 
 glades last week with bold clusters of upright 
 vigorous leaves and peeping buds between, but 
 now lie prone and limp on the cold earth, tells the 
 botanist that he must wait until spring turns her 
 face this way again. 
 
 ^Insects and reptiles take the hint of winter's 
 return as quickly as the plants, to retire into hiding 
 again ; and perhaps it is one large reason of our 
 greater fondness for the birds than for other crea- 
 tures, that, as the weather hardens, instead of dis- 
 appearing, they draw nearer to us, silently but 
 eloquently hinting that they need our charity. 
 ^^Only when the ground is too hard for him to 
 probe does the fieldfare, handsomest of thrushes, 
 allow you to come near enough to admire the 
 beauty of his plumage. For his sake, halting now 
 with us in large flocks on his northward way, one 
 is glad that frost in March can be no very serious 
 matter. The country is a sad place when you 
 pick up starved birds in every field. 
 
 ^Z 
 
March kt 
 WEATHER- ¥iPThe Vitality of the gnat is one of the most 
 PROOF amazing things in Nature. In the cold, drizzling 
 rain which comes after the thaw that follows the 
 frost that followed the rain, you hardly make up 
 your robust mind to face the weather, clad in 
 mackintosh and leggings ; and, when you do, lo, 
 all down the leeward shelter of the hedge you find 
 clouds of filmy gnats dancing in the air as merrily 
 as if it were a sunny day in April. You may have 
 seen them dance as merrily, too, in December, when 
 the sunlight glinted upon the snow. What is the 
 magic of life in these spectral atoms which makes 
 them regardless of the weather ? And why do the 
 heavy raindrops never strike their filmy figures to 
 the ground .'' 
 
 iflt is happy defiance of the weather, too, which 
 you see to-day in the hawk-like swoops that the 
 missel-thrush makes, with jarring clamour, at every 
 bird which approaches a certain tree. If the snow 
 and the wind and the rain had injured the speckled 
 eggs that lie in that conspicuous nest, with its tag 
 of sheep's wool fluttering in the air, the missel- 
 thrush would not be excited in their defence. 
 Wherefore his clamour is a good sign of spring. 
 
 64 
 
TEMPER 
 
 March v 
 ^^You can almost tell what week of the year it annual 
 is by the behaviour of the swans. Like the captain =^° 
 of the Channel packet who used to start "on""' 
 Thursdays, weather permitting, or on Fridays 
 whether or no," the swan does not seem to care 
 what sort of weather the first week of March may 
 bring. The time has come for him to begin to be 
 very bad-tempered, and very bad-tempered he 
 begins to be. 
 
 ^It would be hard to guess for how many scores 
 of generations domestic swans have lived in cir- 
 cumstances which make their displays of temper, 
 as breeding-time draws near, a nuisance to others 
 and a danger to themselves. But it wpuld be 
 harder still to guess the number of centuries which 
 taught the wild ancestral swans that they were 
 monarchs of their Arctic breeding-haunts and, as 
 such, entitled to drive off all trespassers. And 
 you cannot expect the inheritance of untold ages 
 to be abandoned in the little while that man has 
 kept tame swans for pleasure, 
 ^Yet it is sad to know that Nature's conserva- 
 tism "decrees the extinction of so grand a wild 
 bird. For, with man — who kills to live and lives 
 to kill — swarming into every corner of the globe, 
 how will a large, edible bird, which cannot fly 
 during certain months, hope to survive " 
 
 ? 
 
 65 
 
March, vi 
 MUSIC OF ^¥The song-birds seem to have no manner of 
 THE SONG- doubt that the season of love and hate and song 
 THRUSH ^^^ fighting is at hand. Every week, every day 
 almost, the chorus of their matins and evensong 
 swells louder with new voices and more resonant 
 emphasis of faith and hope. And of all these 
 early singers the song-thrush pleases best. 
 iFRetired apart and sitting lowly, like some demure 
 brown nun, in a hedge-corner of the shrubbery, 
 the song-thrush seems to be trying over all its 
 notes and cadences to see which will give its 
 listeners the greatest pleasure. Some are crystal 
 clear; some low and full; some almost harshly 
 quaint ; and all are repeated separately, or in twos 
 and threes, as if to test their full value against the 
 obligato accompaniment of the woodland chorus. 
 ^Listening to the song-thrush, the feeling grows 
 upon one that the bird is talking in song, that it 
 means something all the while, whereas the black- 
 bird seems to be consciously " discoursing sweet 
 music," as the phrase goes, and to invite you to 
 listen to his best passages. Every one has fancies 
 about the song of birds ; but I cannot help regard- 
 ing the blackbird as a finished performer, conscious 
 of his powers, and the thrush as a sweet singer, 
 singing from impulse. 
 
 ^The blackbird sings to please ; the thrush pleases 
 to sing — so at least fancy would have it, did one 
 not know that both sing from sexual rivalry. 
 
 66 
 
March vii 
 ¥^Ths fields may be soaked,"' but you need not a quick 
 go beyond the garden, hardly beyond the porch, change 
 to discover the difference which a shift of the ■^° ^'"""'^ 
 wind to a warmer quarter makes in early March. 
 The sparrows which throng the shrubbery are 
 twice as vociferous as they were yesterday. In 
 their disorderly parliament a majority are now 
 recording their votes at the tops of their voices in 
 favour of a "forward" nesting policy. Yesterday, 
 with a cold wind blowing, they sat fluffed out in 
 sheltered gables and chirped disconsolately at in- 
 tervals in favour of caution. 
 ^The song-thrush and the missel-thrush sing 
 rather louder, and a good deal longer; and it 
 cannot be only fancy that the skylark's rippling 
 music seems more insistent and positive than it 
 was in yesterday's chill wind. 
 ¥But the real change came last night, when the 
 hedgehog, who had not been abroad for many 
 days, sniffed the milder air and shambled forth 
 with quivering nose intent upon the fat caterpillars 
 which — obeying the same weather summons — had 
 crawled out to feed upon the dripping grass. 
 Even should frost return, both hedgehog and 
 caterpillar have snatched a meal upon which they 
 could sleep for weeks. 
 
 67 
 
March viii 
 
 BIRDS AND ^iPThe swclUng buds of the horse-chestnut are 
 
 FLOWERS already very large and very sticky; the straight- 
 
 OF EARLY fQj.]5^e(j rods of the sycamore are double-beaded at 
 
 regular intervals with tight knobs of green ; even 
 
 the late-leafing trees look gouty about the twigs. 
 
 The leaf-shoots of the roses are lengthening fast and 
 
 the round twin blades of the honeysuckle — there 
 
 is scarcely a year when the honeysuckle does not 
 
 leaf at Christmas somehow — show little trace of 
 
 the nip of last week's cold. 
 
 iFThe elm is in full flower, but it bears its blossoms 
 so high — as if ashamed to let you see how paltry 
 they are in detail for so large a tree — that they 
 only give a fuzzy aspect to the upper branches. 
 In sheltered corners, the box, beloved of bees, is 
 flowering freely too, and the ash-leaved barberry, 
 the rabbit-proof undergrowth of coverts, and the 
 butcher's broom, spikiest of British shrubs. Al- 
 ready, too, the silken catkins of the sallow are 
 peeping out, as if they knew that they must come 
 in time for use as Easter "palm." 
 5? And what is that familiar hum which, as the sun 
 is setting, seems to hymn the passing of the day ? 
 The dor-beetle is blundering abroad again ; and 
 spring is coming, " weather or no." 
 
 68 
 
WILD LIFE 
 
 March ix 
 ^VWhat a difFerence one day of sunshine after rain multi- 
 makes in early spring. The crocuses, which last plying 
 week stood in rows like thin, unlighted tapers, have 
 become dazzling constellations of many-pointed 
 stars of yellow, white, and blue, amid which the 
 hive-bees murmur with contentment as they pass 
 from chalice to chalice, loading their thighs with 
 golden spoil. 
 
 ^Small flies on quivering wings dance in the sun- 
 shine, and a solitary tortoise-shell butterfly 
 flickers down the garden path ; while the chaf- 
 finches' frivolous trill on every side lends light- 
 hearted meaning to the earnest music of the soli- 
 loquising thrushes in the trees. When spring is 
 really spring, one walks with exhilaration and 
 pauses with delight. 
 
 5i^Even for the railway travellers in London 
 suburbs, the banks are starred with coltsfoot 
 blossoms, striking a purer note of yellow than the 
 full-blown vulgarity of the dandelion in the later 
 spring ; and in the country meadows all the cows 
 are lying down in comfort for the first time for 
 many days. 
 
 VAs evening draws on, the bats come forth in 
 twos and threes and flitter to and fro under over- 
 arching trees, where the flimsy spring-moths fly. 
 The year has made a great advance since two 
 days ago. 
 
 69^ 
 
WINDS 
 
 March x 
 DESPITE ¥^QuicK succession of cold winds and storms to 
 sunny days seems always to be the rule of March ; 
 but the vociferous gratitude of the birds for one 
 day of " real spring " fills the shrubberies with 
 more music for many days thereafter. 
 ^Especially the missel-thrush, perched high in the 
 storm-swung branches of some hedgerow elm, 
 twists and untwists his loud, wild phrase in 
 defiance of chilly wind or driving rain. Only 
 while fog hides his nest below from his swinging 
 station the missel-thrush descends silently to a 
 lower level ; but with the passing mist he rises to 
 his perch again and sings almost through all the 
 livelong day. 
 
 ¥And the same burst of southerly wind and sun- 
 shine, which gladdened our home-nesting birds, 
 brought hosts of passing migrants northwards.- 
 Fresh flocks of curlews are halting on our eastern 
 coasts (and stocking our poulterer's shops), while 
 birds of prey, harriers and peregrines, are appear- 
 ing again where they have not been seen since 
 Autumn. Many of our winter fieldfare? and red- 
 wings are departing too ; and this is the last 
 change of bird life which precedes the coming of 
 the wheatear and chifF-chaiF, the first of summer's 
 visitors. 
 
 70 
 
March xi 
 ^^In the rookery, though some nests are scarcely rook, 
 half-built, others — those of the older birds, who wood- 
 act more promptly upon the familiar impulse of^^^^^^ 
 
 • 1 J L ^l_ • r 11 1 *ND GULL 
 
 commg spnng — already have their full comple- 
 ment of eggs : and all day long the multitudinous 
 cawing of the busy birds, passing to and fro with 
 sticks or food for their mates, or swinging with 
 fan-spread tails upon the wind-tossed boughs, 
 restores that pleasant background of murmurous 
 sound without which no peaceful wooded land- 
 scape in spring seems quite complete. 
 SPAnd the laughing love-cry of the green wood- 
 pecker echoes loudly now from tree to tree ; for 
 the young birds of last year, weary of winter 
 wanderings, are coming back ^o the vicinity- of 
 the glades that they know as " home," and are 
 challenging each other for wives and nesting- 
 sites. 
 
 i?The same impulse that brings back the laughing 
 woodpeckers is drawing away the " laughing 
 gulls" — as the " blackheaded gulls," which visit 
 us in winter with white heads, are also called 
 from the scoffing notes that they often utter on 
 the wing, very unlike their querulous cry for food. 
 But as their heads grow blacker day by day, so 
 each warmer wind leads their thoughts back to the 
 lonely meres amid wild wastes of heather where 
 they will nest by hundreds ; and presently only a 
 few immature' herring gulls will remain inland, to 
 steal the eggs of the early plovers. 
 
 71 
 
MISHERS 
 
 March xii 
 
 spring's SF^Chill winds from north and east may still 
 sKiR- keep back the wheatear and the chiff-chafF, earliest 
 of our summer birds to reach their British breed- 
 ing-homes, and cold fogs may obscure the sunshine 
 during the best hours of the day ; but they cannot 
 prevent the general onward march of Nature's 
 forces. 
 
 ^Cunning guerillas are these, taking cover and 
 advancing in skirmishing order wherever any shel- 
 ter breaks the wind. Where a three-inch buttress 
 of the brick wall to which an apricot-tree is trained 
 provides a wind-proof angle facing the south-west, 
 there a milky way of white blossom breaks the 
 dark monotony of the close-pruned branches. 
 Where last year's dead bracken in the open park 
 chances to be tangled tent-wise over a dog-violet, 
 there the eager plant is already unfolding its blue- 
 tinted buds, though you may search a hundred 
 violet-plants on the wind-swept slopes and find 
 scarcely a sign of any buds at all. 
 ¥By the edge of the footpath through the pasture, 
 you may see more evidence of returning spring in 
 the rapidly multiplying little heaps of earth, like 
 miniature mole-hills, beside the burrowed holes of 
 dor-beetles. Seeing these, one realises the utility 
 of the vast strength of the beetle in proportion to 
 his size, since his daily shelter must be found deep 
 in the solid earth beyond reach of the rook's 
 probing bill. 
 
 72 
 
March xiii 
 *^^There has been stirring among the flocks of the 
 waterfowl that assembled for the winter on lake or mallards 
 mere where man's kindness or Nature's inaccessi- "'^i'^'^*^ 
 bility protected them. The young mallard, now 
 gorgeous with sheeny green neck and ruddy chest, 
 seems to know that the reign of the wild-fowler is 
 over for the season. Instead of consorting with 
 mirrored battalions of his kind on the lake's still 
 surface, where they rode as peaceful and almost 
 as still as toy ducks in a water-basin, each mallard 
 has discovered that his brethren are licentious per- 
 sons, with whom he and his young wife — especially 
 his young wife — must hold as little communication 
 as possible. 
 
 VSo, following the earlier example of their parents, 
 the young wild duck are scattering themselves 
 in devoted couples over the secret waterways and 
 rush-beds, and from one bend of the winding dykes 
 after another they get up, quacking, heavily into 
 the sky. They make-believe to be flying into the 
 next county at least ; but if you watch them you 
 see that their flight curves aimlessly in the distance, 
 and if you linger they will presently appear again, 
 flying across your front at no great distance. They 
 are waiting for you to go away, in order that they 
 may return to that corner of the dyke-moated 
 coppice, without letting you know that they have 
 fixed upon that spot as the site for their nursery. 
 So, as it is not your object to go about irritating 
 ducks, you pass on. 
 
 73 
 
THE LAMBS , 
 
 March xiv 
 THE ^^FThe lambs in the fields grow daily more in- 
 
 ANTics OF teresting. At first they were so absurdly long in 
 . ^^ \^g^^ so staggery and so weak, as to excite more 
 pity than pleasure in the observer's mind; and even 
 later, when they could walk with ease, they accom- 
 panied their mothers so dutifully as to appear mere 
 adjuncts of the sober sheep. Now, however, they 
 are emerging from the nursery stage, and, like 
 boys, evince more liking for the society of their 
 equals than of their parents. 
 
 ¥So, except at feeding times, they collect in shel- 
 tered corners or on any hillock where they can 
 play rough games together ; and there they curvet 
 and prance in such comically unexpected ways that 
 surely no dyspeptic could watch them for ten 
 minutes without forgetting for a while that there 
 are such things as deranged livers. Week by week, 
 too, the lambs' fun will continue to grow faster 
 and more furious, until long after the cuckoo's 
 " two old notes " shall have become a commonplace 
 of country music. 
 
 n?Three weeks hence, however, will be soon enough 
 to begin to listen for the first cuckoo ; and, if you 
 can hear the blackbird to-day — making sure that you 
 distinguish its song rightly from the loud reitera- 
 tions of the missel-thrush — you have every reason 
 to be satisfied. 
 
 74 
 
March xv 
 ¥¥The Ides of March have come, as eventful al- nature 
 most in the year's as in Caesar's fortunes ; for it turns 
 happens rarely that Nature has not by now set her '^°^*'^° 
 
 i. i J J SPRING 
 
 face definitely toward spring. 
 ^The redwings, smallest and weakest of the 
 foreign thrushes which come to us in autumn, seem 
 to have returned northwards ; but some of their 
 companions, the chattering fieldfares, still remain 
 over from the winter, and the hoodie crows still 
 enviously watch the lambs, which have grown too 
 big and active to be attacked. 
 SFBut even the murderous hoodie feels the impulse 
 of love in spring, and there is new motive in the 
 persistent, croaking call which he utters by the 
 half-hour together from some solitary tree. To 
 some listening female hoodie that harsh " Kurrar " 
 speaks of love and a home oversea. 
 ¥Some flocks of foreign peewits still linger too, 
 like the fieldfares and hoodie crows ; but our own 
 peewits have now all found their own nesting-sites 
 — if you can call a shuffled hollow in the soil a 
 " nest " — where they bow elaborately to the distant 
 stranger and on his nearer approach rise and gyrate 
 bewilderingly round the waste, uttering with each 
 swoop and swirl the rollicking " Pee-a-weet-a- 
 weet," which falls on the wanderer's ear as the very 
 shibboleth of spring. 
 
 75 
 
BAD 
 TIME 
 
 March xvi 
 THE ¥¥The bunnies have a bad time in the country 
 rabbit's now. The gamekeeper's opportunities of cam- 
 paigning against them, without interfering with his 
 master's sport or disturbing the breeding game, are 
 few, and he makes the most of them, with his 
 pink-nosed ferrets that never " lay up," his old gun 
 that seldom misses, and his wavy-tailed dog that 
 always retrieves. 
 
 ¥" But they be a-gettin' all over the place," he 
 grumbles, even as'^he surveys his solid perquisite in 
 the long row of fluffy corpses which represent a 
 hard day's work ; for the gun must speak often 
 that would keep pace with the reproductive rabbits, 
 scores of whom have even now their little blind 
 families safe in their stops where they are " not at 
 home " even to the most pertinacious ferret. 
 ^The mallard, who shares with the rabbit the 
 doubtful privilege of being an object of sport 
 without being game, is also breeding now, as you 
 can tell without finding the cunningly hidden nest 
 in the stream-end of the spinney ; because you can 
 see him in solitary state by the water-side, preening 
 his lovely plumage, while he waits for his plain, 
 brown wife, who has sneaked into the spinney to 
 make her daily addition to her growing store of 
 eggs. 
 
 76 
 
March xvit 
 ^^One of the pleasantest tokens of coming spring welcome 
 is the calling of green woodpeckers all over the wood- 
 park. In the open country, when a solitary wood- ^^'^''^'^ 
 
 VOICES 
 
 pecker has strayed thither, you may see him sitting 
 upright on some high branch of a commanding 
 tree uttering his ringing, laughing call and then 
 pausing for a response. None coming, he will call 
 again, perhaps many times in succession ; but at 
 last he will take wing, and in drooping loops of 
 flight will cover the straight distance to another 
 conspicuous tree perhaps a quarter of a mile away. 
 Then he will call again, and, failing response, will 
 pass on as before. But for the wandering wood- 
 pecker whom lucky chance leads into the timbered 
 park, it is no question of listening in vain for 
 voices of his kind, but of making good his right 
 to raise his own voice among so many rivals. 
 From half a dozen directions over the oak-clustered 
 expanse of turf, dotted with hares like molehills, 
 the cheery woodpecker voices are ringing, now 
 with a rhythmic peal of measured calls and now 
 with the single note of affirmative response. 
 ^It is interesting, toOj to hear the nut-hatch, 
 whose habits are largely those of the woodpecker, 
 using the same dual call-note and response. Like 
 the woodpecker, also, he has an astonishingly 
 loud, voice for his size, although, as he slips along 
 the tree-bark in his buiF-vested suit of Quaker 
 grey, he is seldom noticed. Even when seen he is 
 often mistaken for a tit ; and his habits seem to 
 place him halfway between the woodpeckers and 
 the tits. So does his voice. 
 
 77 
 
March xviii 
 BLACK- i?^Where the cold wind reaches, the blackthorn 
 THORN still holds back its flower-buds, while only in very 
 *'*" sheltered corners the hawthorn yet shows decided 
 
 GREEN- . - , . 1 J ^ . . ,-, 
 
 FINCH points of green along its reddening twigs. But 
 even in rooms which have had no winter fires, 
 the houseflies — grandparents-to-be of the buzzing 
 swarms of autumn — already crawl upon the 
 windows, seeking egress to the spring sunlight 
 without, in which the gnats and a few tiny beetles 
 flicker and float like threaded gold. 
 it'And the stout greenfinch has added his voice to 
 the choir of nesting birds. It is only a twittering 
 song, interspersed with wheezy croaks, which he 
 achieves ; but the domestic call-note, " tee-w^^," 
 with which he expresses anxiety upon your 
 approach to his nesting-site, is one of the most 
 plaintively musical sounds of birddom. 
 ^In winter you could scarcely distinguish the 
 dull shades of the greenfinches among the mob 
 of sparrows with which they consorted, and they 
 scarcely twittered as they flew. As winter passed 
 they became conscious of the brightening tints of 
 green and yellow which, with flickering wings 
 and outspread tails, they displayed in the cox- 
 combry of courtship. Now wedded, they sing 
 and call in every shrubbery ; and presently they 
 will become almost a nuisance with the wheezy 
 summer-note which will dominate the nursery con- 
 verse of your garden. 
 
 78 
 
^ 
 
March xix 
 ¥^BiG yellow-banded bumble-bees have joined early 
 the buzzing hive-bees round the parti-coloured bees and 
 crocus-beds, and you can hear their more resonant ^'^"^ 
 hum yards away. Drawing close, you see that, 
 while the hive-bees are gathering pollen from 
 crocuses of any colour, only now and then sucking 
 syrup from the stigmas of the white flowers or 
 diving to the bottom of the tubes for hidden 
 sweets, the bumble-bee seeks no pollen but, need- 
 ing refreshment only, forces her strong way down 
 one white tube after another, caring nothing 
 whether she splits the flower, so long as she gains 
 her end. But crocuses are plenty ; and the 
 bumble-bees of March are a welcome sign of 
 spring. 
 
 ^So, too, are the hostages to fortune, in the 
 shape of eggs which, by this time in mild seasons, 
 song-thrush, missel-thrush, rook, robin, wood- 
 pigeon, great tit, and wild duck may have given 
 within their various nests. And now the hedge- 
 sparrow's cup of moss, neatly hidden where the 
 dead tangle of last year's herbage clings to a 
 branch that sweeps the ground, may contain its 
 miracles of lovely blue. Half a dozen times a 
 day you may have passed and, but for the hedge- 
 sparrows themselves nervously flicking their wings 
 before you down that bit of path, it would never 
 have occurred to you to tilt the branch and see 
 what was hidden beneath. 
 
 79 
 
AND THE 
 
 March xx 
 
 ^¥The glossy blue oil-beetle now becomes a 
 BEETLE familiar object of the way-side bank, scrambling 
 over the grass, where the early bumble-bee goes 
 bumbling among the blossoms of deadnettle and 
 ground ivy. Alike as these insects are in their 
 clumsiness, one would not suspect the close con- 
 nection which exists between their simultaneous re- 
 appearances in spring. 
 
 ¥ For the fat oil-beetle, which seems to be pro- 
 tected from all creatures that might otherwise eat it 
 by the nasty liquid which it can produce from its 
 limb-joints, is out on business which very nearly 
 concerns the bumble-bee. 
 
 ^If a few weeks hence you look closely at the flowers 
 which have decked themselves out in colours— so 
 we are told — to attract the bee, you may see other 
 things that are waiting for the bee too, active little 
 six-legged things, so utterly unlike an oil-beetle 
 that you would never guess that they came from 
 its eggs. Yet it was to lay those eggs that the 
 blundering oil-beetle went tumbling among the 
 grass and trailing its fat body over the leaves of 
 the flowering plants by the pathside haunts of the 
 bumble-bee. 
 
 ^Later, when the bee comes to those flowers, the 
 active little six-legged things jump upon her back 
 and hold on to her hairs, and so get carried to the 
 bee's home, where they first eat the bee's own eggs, 
 and then turn into leglessr maggots, which grow 
 fat upon the food stored up by the bee for its own 
 young. Nature in detail is often really horrid. 
 
 80 
 
March xxi 
 ^^Very few days now ot soft south-west winds the 
 and balmy air bring the earlier summer birds to first 
 the south ; and even on the east coast at night the ^"^''^ °^ 
 voice of the passing whimbrel — that mysterious, *^'^'''° 
 repeated cry, coming out of the dark sky and 
 dying away in the distance, which has given rise to 
 weird superstitions of the " seven whistlers " — is 
 heard ; and, when the whimbrel travels, all the 
 migrant hosts of birddom are on the move. 
 ¥In the midlands and north, however, the change 
 of wind and weather is chiefly marked by the sud- 
 den reappearance in unexpected places, as in autumn, 
 of widgeon, teal, snipe, and other wandering birds of 
 the waterside, travelling now in couples towards 
 their breeding-haunts. 
 
 ^The last of the foreign peewits have departed, 
 and the lingering flocks of fieldfares and wood- 
 pigeons have dwindled ; and the " crows' hotel," 
 the hillside wood where sable foreigners — rooks, 
 jackdaws, and hooded crows — are accommodated 
 by tens of thousands all the winter through, has 
 emptied rapidly. 
 
 ifAt night the small bats already flickering in every 
 direction, and filmy insects dancing upon the lighted 
 window-panes, tell us that spring is coming and 
 the swallow on its way. 
 
 81 
 
March xxii 
 MOBiLisA- ¥iFThe unanimity of toads is one of the most 
 TioN OF marked of their many pecuHar features. For 
 THE TOADS j^^iQjjj-jjg ^g j^^yg ]-,ggj^ allowed to forget almost that 
 there are such things as toads, save when a random 
 spade-stroke in the garden, or a shifted barrel in 
 the cellar, revealed one, rough, dry, and wrinkled, 
 bulgily attempting to look invisible. And now 
 suddenly comes a mild evening when you have to 
 walk with care, because toads are crawling, almost 
 literally, " all over the place." Even on the high 
 road they boldly court publicity and sudden death 
 under cart-wheels or hobnailed boots, when their 
 squashed corpses will remain for days to remind 
 squeamish passers-by that there can be something 
 less attractive even than a living toad to look at. 
 iFThis annual resurrection, as it seems, of the toads 
 illustrates well the perfection of the hibernating 
 instinct — that myriads of cold-blooded creatures, 
 which simultaneously disappeared on a chilly night 
 in autumn, should so nicely gauge the temperature 
 as simultaneously to reappear on a mild evening in 
 the following spring, absorbed with a passionate 
 longing to find the water where they were born, 
 there to conduct their domestic affairs and string 
 the water-plants with winding necklaces of jelly 
 eggs. 
 
 82 
 
March xxiti 
 ^VWhen the changing winds of March are doing useful 
 their useful work, drying the land for the sower but ""- 
 and forbidding the spring plants to open more ^^''"^""^ 
 blossom than is safe by the calendar, we may not 
 have so flowery an April as we should like; but 
 we may suffer less disappointment after. 
 ^Yet, though the winds of March may do this 
 welcome work, they are extremely unwelcome 
 themselves. They are the corrective of the year, 
 like the cane of the school — very useful in result 
 and very unpleasant in application. And the 
 older one grows, the less one likes it. 
 ^Each twist of the wind to the south, however, 
 brings balmier air and refills our fields with birds, 
 though, with the exception of a f&Yf wheatears, 
 these are usually only birds of the same kinds 
 which have been with us all the winter. Still 
 goldfinches in small flocks, and linnets in large 
 companies, solitary hawfinches, and pied wagtails 
 in twos and threes are restocking the old breeding- 
 haunts. At the same time wandering woodcocks 
 may be disturbed from coverts where they never 
 breed; and down by the waterside you put up 
 snipe and duck which were not there yesterday ; 
 and, if the wind should turn to the south again 
 to-night, they will not be there to-morrow. 
 
 83 
 
March xxiv 
 THE ¥^The cheery, cock-tailed wren has now joined 
 HASTY tfje bold band of hardy birds who have given 
 ^^^^ hostages to fortune, in the shape of esrss laid in 
 
 AND THE , , V -^T . • 1 1 
 
 EARLY March. Not that it can matter much to the 
 FLOWERS wren, one would think, what the weather may be, 
 once the nest is completed; for this is such a 
 miracle of cosiness — a soft globe of felted moss 
 with even a penthouse shelter over the tiny en- 
 trance — that cold weather outside must almost be 
 a comfort to the sitting wren, in the same way 
 that we revel in a warm bed when the wind shrieks 
 in the chimney and the rain rattles on the panes. 
 ^Fln curious contrast with our hardy British birds, 
 who have eggs and nests before the summer visitors 
 from southern lands arrive, our hardy British 
 plants hold back while exotic plants from warmer 
 regions are rushing into leaf. Thus in a wild 
 hawthorn hedge, whose peeping leaf-buds scarcely 
 yet tinge its i;niform brown with green, you may 
 often see a bright splash of emerald, of some 
 chance bird- sown gooseberry-bush almost in full 
 leaf. 
 
 iFThe bright flowers, too, of our early borders 
 are all children of sunnier climes, whose ancestors 
 never learned by experience that British springs 
 are chilly. 
 
 84 
 
CATKINS 
 
 March xxv 
 ^^The brown squares in our chessboard land- springing 
 scapes predominate most now ; because, thanks to corn and 
 fine, if sometimes cold, March weather, the last 
 field of the spring sowing has been ploughed, 
 while those that were sown earlier are still bare 
 to a general view. But look closely and you shall 
 see them pierced in ordered lines by tiny blades of 
 seedling corn, and where your eye enfilades the 
 springing rows on the swell of a gentle slope a 
 delicate film of green seems to have spread over 
 the earth. In a few days this will thicken to a 
 ribbed pile like emerald velvet; and, before the 
 swallow builds, the crouching partridge will be 
 hidden in the growing corn. 
 ^PBut "slow and steady" is the cautious rule of 
 Nature when March winds are chill ; and though 
 the hazel, which needs only the wind to fertilise 
 it, has been scattering the pollen from its dangling 
 lamb's-tail catkins for many days, the silky sallow- 
 blossoms, which need insect guests, scarcely yet 
 show their golden anther-bloom. It is no advan- 
 tage to the sallow to deck itself with " palm " — 
 as rustics call its lovely flowering wands — in time 
 for plucking on Palm Sunday, in years when Easter- 
 tide falls early, but rather the reverse ; whereas, 
 when soft south winds and balmy air bring out 
 the insects later, it must hasten to dress its shop 
 windows for customers. 
 
March xxvi 
 SPRING ^¥A CHILLY wet morning in early spring invites 
 STRIFE OF one sometimes to stay behind window-panes and 
 ^^t^^^- v?atch the little comedies which take place on the 
 
 BIRDS , ^ 
 
 lawn. 
 
 iSiJust now these are in full swing, for last week's 
 south winds brought in many of our common 
 garden residents, blackbirds especially ; and the 
 strife of blackbirds on a lawn is a matter which 
 commands attention. But the more attention you 
 give, the less you seem to know what it is all 
 about. Whereas earlier in the year the female 
 blackbirds chased each other round the flower- 
 beds, now the cause of quarrel lies with the males ; 
 and whereas formerly two or three females only 
 squabbled for the company of a single yellow- 
 billed male, now three or four males skirmish 
 with each other, while five or six females look on. 
 Every year this happens at about this time, because, 
 it seems, the young birds of last year have come 
 back to fight their fathers and brothers for the 
 right to nest near "home." But their fights are 
 too inconsequential to be humanly understood. 
 
 86 
 
TROUT 
 
 March xxvti 
 **The water has its seasonal signs and its mi- the lam- 
 grants as regular as those of air. On the pebbly ^^^^ and 
 middle shallows of trout-streams near the sea you "^^^ 
 may be sure now of seeing here and there a pebble 
 fringed with one or more waving dark lines which 
 might be weeds swayed by the rippling current, 
 but that now one and now another looses its hold 
 and, half-drifting with the stream, half-wriggling 
 against it, changes its position to another stone, 
 when it becomes in appearance a waving weed 
 .again. These are the little lampreys just returned 
 from the sea, and with their feeble powers of swim- 
 ming and round sucking mouths, they seem help- 
 less, harmless creatures. 
 
 SFIn that pool just above the shallow lies a fine 
 speckled trout, and you can count his spots and 
 mark the perfect symmetry of his strong body, 
 with its broad shoulders and tapering curves, like 
 the hull of a racing yacht. What are those round, 
 white, leprous-looking spots upon the burnished 
 armour of his overlapping scales ? That is the 
 little lamprey's work. 
 
 ^With its round, sucking mouth it clings just as 
 securely to an unsuspecting trout as to a stone ; 
 and its tongue is furnished with rasping teeth 
 which quickly remove scales and skin, and the 
 flesh below. The trout may plunge and struggle, 
 and wriggle through the yielding water-weeds ; 
 but the very flimsiness of the persecutor protects 
 it from injury, and not until it has made a square 
 meal from the living victim does it drop off and 
 resume the innocent habit of sucking stones again. 
 
 87 
 
BIRDS 
 
 March xxviii 
 FIRST ^^Though chill winds have been holding back 
 SUMMER the spring, the sand-martins and willow-wrens 
 already seen in the south, the anxiety of the pied 
 wagtails near their nesting-sites, the cosy pairs 
 of stonechats ' ' chacking " at you as you pass the 
 place where they mean to build, the linnet singing 
 its tasteful song and the corn-bunting tittering out 
 its trivial tremolo over the furze-clumps where 
 they will both have their nurseries, mark another 
 notch toward summer. 
 
 nPSo, too, with the plants : for the ivy berries, last 
 of the old year's harvests, are now full ripe, and in 
 proportion as the blackest of the bunched negro 
 fruit disappear, you find the pink-stained angular 
 seeds lying under the trees where birds have 
 perched. 
 
 ¥Thus Nature's arrangements dovetail with each 
 other. The ivy crop ripens just when in cold 
 springs the birds need it most, and they, perching 
 on trees, drop the seeds just where the ivy, being 
 a tree-climber, wants them to be dropped. But 
 it tantalises one with the desire to know whether 
 the ivy, in the first instance, learned to climb 
 because the birds dropped its seeds under the trees, 
 or whether, being a climber, it learned to tempt 
 the birds to carry oiF its seeds to the right places. 
 
March xxtx 
 ^VNoT all spring's signs are lovely. The wobbly the 
 masses of jelly eggs, which the frogs have piled frogs' 
 up in communistic nurseries to choke the ditches ^^'^™'= 
 and shortly to give issue to army-corps of 
 wriggling tadpoles, are one of Nature's most repul- 
 sive shows. Even the " loathly " toad goes one 
 better than the frog in this : for her jelly necklaces 
 of double-beaded eggs are rather ornamental to 
 look at, if slimy to touch. 
 
 ^Though the frogs' spawn, abandoned by its 
 parents, appears as helpless as unpleasant, it is a 
 deathtrap to the small denizens of the ditch. 
 Even the swashbuckling stickleback, hustling to 
 and fro with drawn sword always extended on 
 either side, dies a horrid death when one of his 
 angry rushes drives him aground upon those 
 yielding billows of jelly. The more he struggles 
 the more his weapons are entangled, and to-day 
 you may see his pale corpse, very conspicuously 
 defunct, on almost any lump of spawn in almost 
 any ditch. 
 
 ^But one's mind inclines in spring rather to over- 
 leap a ditch than pause to see what is in it ; for 
 the south wind is bringing the swallow birds and 
 summer warblers up from the south, and when 
 swallows are in the air, though you may not have 
 seen one yet, frogs' eggs in ditches may be left 
 unnoticed. 
 
 89 
 
March xxx 
 NEW iFiFOnly the sand-martin — earliest, smallest, and 
 ARRIVALS dullest of our swallow birds — may have been seen 
 yet ; but the south-west winds have effected a 
 large change everywhere. 
 
 iFThe meadow-pipits have returned, in devoted 
 and jealous couples, to the pastures where they will 
 breed, and have been joined by migrant tree- 
 pipits. Both are better known, perhaps, by their 
 common, rustic name of " titlarks," as little brown- 
 ish birds which run, instead of hopping, in the 
 meadows, and in voice, habits, and appearance seem 
 a connecting-link between the lark, the wagtail, and 
 the hedge-sparrow. 
 
 ^These almost complete the nesting population of 
 our marsh pastures, where, in mid-April, with the 
 skylark shrilling aloft, the snipe " drumming " at 
 each descent from soaring flight, the redshank 
 musically whimpering as it circles on clean-cut, 
 white-barred wings, the peewit rollicking through 
 the air with its sweet weird cry, the little pipits 
 shooting themselves up into the air like squibs and 
 floating down to earth again with a simple, treble 
 song, finish a picture of bird-life and bird-music in 
 a quiet, sheltered valley such as the wooded [hills 
 where circling buzzards whistle, or the moors where 
 breeding curlews yelp and call, or the cliffs where 
 thronging sea-birds clamour, can hardly surpass. 
 
 90 
 
March xxxi 
 i?^March may try to go out like a roaring lion, march's 
 giving us in its last few days a rapid assortment of legacy 
 all its rough samples of " spring " weather ; but it 
 is always a kind and useful month all the same. 
 We do not want to be always breaking the records 
 for " abnormal mildness of the season," since we 
 always suffer for it afterwards ; and it is better to 
 be more or less nipped in the bud than to be 
 wholly wrecked in the flower. 
 ^When the blossoms, proper to April, unfold in 
 January, they must take the inevitable consequences; 
 and the dog's-mercury and periwinkle in the cop- 
 pice, which presumed so far upon the absence of 
 north-east winds in winter, are only now decently 
 covering the shrivelled evidence of their past 
 blunders with newer flowering shoots. 
 ^Beside them the wood anemone — the virgin 
 " windflower " of windy March — makes a starry 
 heaven of the woodland's shade, and the hellebore, 
 indifferent to weather, still spreads its pale cande- 
 labra wide. The primrose path of dalliance in the 
 sheltered margin of the wood is a creamy way of 
 clustered glory, and where the wood soil slopes to 
 dampness the wild daffodil, more beautiful in its 
 wildness than all its costly children of the florists' 
 catalogues, now spreads a halo in its shady shrine. 
 Our forefathers worshipped in the woods in spring. 
 
 91 
 
April i 
 ^5l^EvERY changing fit of weather fills the sky with skylarks 
 music, where the skylarks shrill aloft, each pro- ^^d 
 claiming in his silveriest top notes that a certain ^''^' 
 number of square yards of the landscape spread 
 below are his private nesting-property, upon which 
 any other skylark will intrude on pain of being 
 swooped upon, shrilled at, and hustled into the 
 next field. And it is the changing weather which 
 upsets the skylarks and makes them spill their music 
 so recklessly, because, although our own resident 
 skylarks have long ago settled their respective 
 boundaries, stragglers are still wandering north- 
 wards, and each new wind brings them to new 
 places where they cause new commotion among 
 the residents. 
 
 ^SlWithout the same excuse of migrant interlopers, 
 the partridges still quarrel as freely but less musi- 
 cally than the skylarks, because they are almost all 
 idle as yet, and every man who crosses a field in 
 partridge-country sends several pairs scuttling into 
 their neighbours' domains, when double duels of 
 male with male and female with female promptly 
 ensue. But no harm is usually done, each com- 
 batant in turn chasing the adversary and being 
 chased until honour is satisfied, and both can retire 
 to their favourite corners to crow creakily at each 
 other. Not until all the hen birds are safely on 
 their eggs will there be peace in partridge-land. 
 
 92, 
 
April a 
 GULLS ^Sc^iThe very last of the black-headed, gulls seem 
 AND to have left the coast-fields, where they flickered 
 PLOVERS jjj^g ^ cloud of wind-tossed paper behind the 
 ploughman in the earlier year. Nursery duties 
 call them to some lonely mere until October. 
 Many common gulls, however, have come ashore, 
 as is their wont, while the storms make surface- 
 fishing off the coast unprofitable ; but, as the 
 weather calms, they drift seaward again, and, in a 
 day or two, only immature herring-gulls, still 
 wearing the mottled drab livery of youth, will be 
 left. 
 
 ^Watch these as they loaf through the air, skim- 
 ming the waste uplands and coasting lightly down 
 the valley's slopes to the rough marsh pastures. 
 Their sharp-beaked heads, turning this way and 
 that as they slide by, tell you plainly that 
 plovers' eggs are coming into season. 
 ^And the plover tells you the same, when, at 
 sight of the marauders from a distance, he dashes 
 across the sky with quick wing-beats whose pulsing 
 you can plainly hear, and, with his tempestuous 
 war-cry, " Willow-a;(?(?/-pee-weif;," flings himself 
 across their path. Iron-beaked and cruel, greedy 
 and tireless of wing they may be, but before the 
 meteoric onslaught of the gallant peewit they drift 
 away in fear. 
 
 94 
 

April in 
 ^Sc^When the April sun shines, even on theBUTXER- 
 windiest stretches of our coast, you have only to fi-'Es and 
 search out a sheltered glen, on a sunny morning, to '^^"^^^ 
 enjoy " real spring." 
 
 All the earliest butterflies have awakened from 
 their winter sleep — the brimstone, flickering by 
 like a scrap of yellow paper, the peacock, spreading 
 the glory of his damask wings with azure eyes on a 
 sunny corner of the footpath ; the tortoise-shell, 
 tawny and yellow with splashes of black ; the red 
 admiral, velvety black, barred with scarlet and 
 flecked with white — each as lovely as the others. 
 =ilA rustle by the dry margin of the wood path 
 through the heather has drawn your eyes to the 
 grey, glistening curves of the escaping adder ; and, 
 where the herbage is already rank upon sunny 
 hedgerow banks, a quick swirl among the lush grass 
 has given you half a glimpse of the grass-snake's 
 long, spotted, olive body that, like a waving whip- 
 lash, is suddenly jerked from sight. 
 'Slln many districts the harmless grass-snake seems 
 now to be utterly unknown, and I think that its 
 fate is sealed wherever high farming is carried on, 
 with its bare- trimmed hedges full of ratholes. The 
 rat, I believe, exterminates the snake, eating it not 
 only when it is small and weak, but boldly seizing 
 and killing full-grown snakes over two feet in 
 length. 
 
 95 
 
NESTS 
 
 April iv 
 BOYS AND =SrkWHEN the Easter eruption of boys " home for 
 birds' tiie holidays " will have broken out all over the face 
 of the country, with its unaccustomed rows of 
 healthy young faces in the family pews of each 
 village church, then many many scores of thrushes 
 will reap the consequence of building nests now in 
 absurdly conspicuous places. 
 
 ^As, however, this habit of the thrush seems the 
 direct result of overcrowding, we may fairly ask it 
 the schoolboy, who cannot help diving his hand 
 into the thrush's neatly-plastered cup for its black- 
 speckled eggs of glorious blue, may not be a whole- 
 some natural check upon the over-multiplication of 
 the bird. 
 
 ^Men who own fruit-gardens and encourage their 
 boys to take thrushes' and blackbirds' eggs, paying, 
 perhaps, a penny apiece for each clutch brought in, 
 argue that each nest destroyed means four fledged 
 birds fewer in strawberry time, each one of which 
 would have spoiled more than a pennyworth of 
 strawberries every day. They aver, too, that there 
 is never any lack of thrush-music in their gardens 
 In consequence, and that quite as many birds are 
 left as can find sustenance in hard winters. 
 ^That is one side of the " birds'-eggs question " ; 
 and the other is obvious. But we shall never 
 reach right judgment unless we fairly view both. 
 
 96 
 
April V 
 ^^The signs of the season now "leap to the eye" spring 
 in the coppice. The larches, with their sprouting every- 
 leaf-buds like tiny green shaving-brushes set in '^^^^^ 
 buff handles, and their budding cones yellowing to 
 pink, show all pale ochre in the middle distance, 
 contrasting finely with the dull reds and deep 
 purples of leafless alder and birch and the dark 
 blue of the thick pines, on which the pale points, 
 that will be new needle-fringed branchlets before 
 autumn, grow longer day by day. 
 =SlFrom the pines a wooing wood-pigeon soars aloft 
 on smiting wings, only to sail down again in the 
 fancy curves of courting flight. From before the 
 steps of the human wanderer afield, wild duck and 
 snipe in the marsh-meadows, partridge and lark in 
 the ploughland fly reluctantly afield, always in 
 couples. Where a pheasant runs from beyond the 
 furze-clumps, you can see the quick-darting peewit 
 flash from black to white as he swoops and swoops 
 again at the intruder upon his nesting-site. So you 
 may pass from horizon to horizon revealing the 
 charms and raising the strife of spring in every 
 mile. 
 
 97 
 
April vi 
 
 summer's ^i^On the sheltered hedge-bank, where the scented 
 
 WAR violets spread a haze of blue, small wild life multi- 
 
 BEGiNs pjjgg rj.^^ ^^^ steel-blue oil-beetle, who burst her 
 
 way with toil out of the earth in March, still blunders 
 
 over the herbage, seeking her slimmer but scarcely 
 
 less clumsy mate. As you pause to watch her 
 
 heavy-bodied promenade, the flick of a leaf betrays 
 
 the leap of a black hunting-spider, who, as he 
 
 scuttles in alarm from your shadow, frightens in 
 
 turn a basking bluebottle. 
 
 ^Following its flight, your eye catches the first 
 ladybird of the year, already hunting in the spring- 
 ing herbage for the green "blight," which it is her 
 function to devour through all the stages of her 
 active life. 
 
 =5lAlready, in fact, the great campaign of summer, 
 the recurrent war between the eaters and the eaten, 
 has begun ; and every day new hosts are reinforcing 
 either side. Two months hence, with the thickets 
 full of greedy young birds and the air thick with 
 flies, the whole working-plan of Nature will almost 
 seem to resolve itself into the ceaseless grinding of 
 innumerable jaws. 
 
 98 
 
April vii 
 ^S^Recovered from the aftermath of March's growing 
 stormy finale, it is pretty to see how all Nature, at plants 
 a smile from April, comes gladly forward, so that ' 
 
 COMING 
 
 you can almost watch the anemones opening and g^^^Lows 
 hear the growing herbage jostle for room on the 
 woodland's velvet carpet. Even in the sun-smitten 
 east the long-prayed " breaking of the rains " 
 works no lovelier miracle than the onset of an 
 English spring, when the summer birds come 
 crowding in to fill the woods and hedges, which 
 grow greener every hour. 
 
 ^The lilac and chestnut are leafing fast, the almond 
 is in full bloom, and the daffodils are blazing in 
 their prime. The swallows — whose hardy van- 
 guard of little sand-martins reached the south-west 
 coast a fortnight ago — are in England now, and, 
 though we may not all have seen them yet, we 
 may within another fortnight reasonably hope, not 
 only to have seen the swallow, but to have heard 
 the cuckoo and the nightingale, and counted the 
 little warblers' voices in the thickets. To-day, 
 however, the winter clamour of the fieldfare re- 
 minds us that spring may still be fickle. 
 
 99 
 
SEASON 
 GOOD AN 
 
 April viii 
 SIGNS OF =JficTo-DAY is the traditional " earliest date " for 
 THE the first cuckoo; but you may strain your ears in 
 
 vain for his " two old notes " so early in an ordi- 
 nary spring. The first of the swallow birds may 
 have indeed appeared already in the south-west; 
 but chilly winds often check the general advance 
 of the summer birds and the cuckoo never exhibits 
 any daredevil desire to lead the van. 
 ^Still the season steadily advances and the 
 gardener's first crop of the year is being richly 
 harvested in tight bundles of ruddy rhubarb-stalk, 
 and even the farmer may admit for once that his 
 springing corn looks well. 
 
 =5|One " crop " of the season, however, looks far 
 from well, except to the eye of ignorant prejudice. 
 Glance at the gamekeeper's gibbet to-day, and 
 you will almost certainly see, swinging thereon, the 
 corpses of newly slaughtered kestrels. These 
 were welcome travellers of the season, voyaging 
 northwards and devouring rats and mice wherever 
 they halted. But the gamekeeper is no respecter 
 of " hawks " ; and the average landowner seems to 
 take no pains to prevent the slaughter of the most 
 useful birds the land can have. So every spring 
 and autumn bears its crop of murdered kestrels. 
 
 lOO 
 
April ix 
 ^StSiChilly winds with a dash of rain now and more 
 then, sandwiched between our hours of "spring- summer 
 like" sunshine, may still hamper the advance of the ^'^°^ 
 returning host of summer birds ; but in the south 
 almost all the hardier migrants — sandmartin and 
 swallow, chiiF-chafF and willow-wren, wheatear and 
 wryneck, redstart and blackcap — have been noticed 
 here and there ; and even in the London parks at 
 least one of these, the willow-wren, should be seen, 
 creeping and flitting about the bushes, looking as 
 much at home, as he pops hither and thither catch- 
 ing tiny flies, as though he had lived there all the 
 winter and knew naught of Africa. 
 ^This is that wee greenish-bufF bird, whose rising 
 and descending trills of plaintive notes, accom- 
 panying his restless antics among the willows of 
 the Thames, will seem the natural musical setting 
 to May sunshine on the river. 
 ^To-day the new blossoms of the wild cherry in 
 the coppice gleam more chastely white, the murmur 
 of the bees sounds more full of restful hope, the 
 bursting willow glows more golden-green against 
 the ruddy- catkined poplar, and in the village 
 churchyard even the new-spread dandelions shine 
 like golden glories among the graves. 
 
 lOI 
 
April X 
 
 ^StSiThe fields are full of the strife of skylarks 
 every morning now, though if you watch their 
 quarrels you are apt to be disappointed that they 
 should be so inconclusive. Accompanied by so 
 much vociferation and such elaborately hostile 
 obeisances, one expects some serious sort of con- 
 flict when at last they dart up from the ground 
 and meet, beak to beak, in the air. For one or 
 more seconds they remain suspended, pecking and 
 musically screaming at each other, and then the 
 affair of honour is decided — one alights on the 
 field of battle and the other at a little distance. 
 Perhaps the latter once more courts combat by his 
 menacing attitudes- and quick pecking at the 
 ground; but he very seldom awaits the other's 
 attack, but skims far afield when he sees the 
 winner of the first round approaching for another. 
 Thus the whole sixty-acre pasture becomes like a 
 school playground where, although one serious 
 fight may not take place in a twelvemonth, every 
 boy knows (or thinks he does) whom he can 
 " lick " and who can " lick " him. The few 
 serious fights which do occur arise from the dis- 
 covery of a boy's mistake in this respect, and now 
 and then, perhaps, skylarks accidentally find that 
 there has been a miscalculation, which can only be 
 rectified by a genuine rough-and-tumble. 
 
 1 02 
 
April xi 
 =5f^FEw things in Nature seem so unnecessary and winds of 
 vexatious as persistent winds in spring. Though d's- 
 the general advance of the army of summer's life ^°^^^°^- 
 in bird and flower and insect cannot be stayed, it 
 is a battered and war-worn vanguard which slowly 
 heads the host when unkind winds prevail. 
 ^In such weather the leading companies of 
 swallows which had struggled to our south-west 
 coast scarcely make good their footing in a week ; 
 and in few places will the " first white butterfly " 
 of April yet be seen. 
 
 ^The sallow, whose gold-fringed catkins now 
 spread one of the year's great feasts for honey- 
 seeking insects, tosses its studded wands idly, for 
 even the assiduous hive-bee can hardly hold her 
 own against the gusts which carry her away from 
 the swaying blossoms. And where are the hosts 
 of moths, the furred and beplumed guests of the 
 sallow at night, whose eyes should gleam like 
 opals in the light of the collector's lantern.'' Here 
 and there a weather-worn survivor from last 
 autumn clings, with the grim courage of a veteran, 
 to some more sheltered spray, foraging for his 
 last campaign of life ; but for the gay throng of 
 spring's young revellers, the " moths of the 
 season," you may search the sallow-blossom vainly 
 when April winds are chill. 
 
 103 
 
HUM 
 
 WITH 
 
 LIFE 
 
 April xii 
 THE ^St^From the hill-slope that has breasted April's 
 VALLEYS March-like winds you may pass over the crest into 
 the sheltered valley, where another season seems to 
 reign. There the hedge-banks are hazy with the 
 blue of blossoming ground ivy, and in rosy patches 
 the red deadnettle, weed as it is, seems almost 
 worthy to be a " garden flower." 
 ^The bumble-bees, yellow-banded and fire-tailed, 
 love the deadnettle, and the still air of the valley 
 is murmurous with their drowsy hum from flower 
 to flower, while many smaller insects gleam and 
 flicker to and fro. There, too, the sitting robin 
 in her cunning nook among the flowers — and 
 often it is not until you have seen her on her nest 
 that you realise that the robin's forehead is as 
 ruddy as her breast — peeps out upon a world of 
 peace ; and loitering in the heavy air of spring you 
 gladly postpone the hill-climb home again. 
 ^But from the line of willows by the slow dyke, 
 where the toads are still stringing the tangled 
 water-weeds with necklaces of jelly eggs, the last 
 large flock of fieldfares raise their winter clamour 
 as you approach and trail chattering across the 
 valley. The fieldfare seems most weatherwise of 
 all our winter visitors, and it will be time to culti- 
 vate the languor of summer when he has finally 
 decided to depart. 
 
 104 
 
FARE 
 
 ENTER 
 
 SWALLOW 
 
 April xiii 
 =S»5|Y ESTER DAY, when the winter chatter of the exit 
 lingering fieldfares checked over-confidence of^'^i''' 
 spring, one little thought that perhaps they were 
 clamouring for the last time over British soil 
 until next autumn. But the south wind was 
 already blowing and, as they trailed across the 
 valley and topped the wind-swept hill-crest, only 
 the sea lay before them — nothing but wide open 
 sea between them and their nesting-homes in 
 Norway. 
 
 ^The hoodie crows seem to have gone too ; 
 though a few pairs may remain still, to rob the 
 shore-birds' nests. 
 
 ^But when the marsh-marigold blazes in patches 
 it seems no time for winter birds ; and already the 
 sand-martin and the swallow have reached even 
 the " bleak " east coast. 
 
 ^Considering how much happy sentiment we all 
 attach to the return of " the swallows," it is 
 curious how few take the little trouble to distin- 
 guish our swallow birds. The first to arrive and 
 the smallest is the sand-martin, all rusty brown 
 above; the next to arrive is the swallow, all steely 
 blue above, with two long, thin feathers in its tail; 
 the third is the house-martin, with a conspicuous 
 white patch on its black back. The swift, much 
 larger, long-winged, and all sooty black, comes 
 later. 
 
 105 
 
VOICES 
 OF THE 
 
 SUMMER 
 
 April xiv 
 SMALL ^^In quick succession the eager summer birds 
 come thronging in. Daily new notes are added to 
 the chorus of the spring, striking so familiarly 
 again upon the ear that one wonders how they 
 have been missed so little during winter's silent 
 months. 
 
 ^At every few paces in the rough marsh-pastures 
 the anxious cry, "Tizee, tizee," of the yellow wag- 
 tail begins again to be the accompaniment of our 
 steps, while every rod of the tussocky hoof-ridged 
 grass seems vocal with the thin, quick, piping notes 
 of the nesting pipits. Small voices these, of little- 
 noticed birds, yet they seem so natural to such a 
 landscape that one hardly realises that they were 
 not here in winter. 
 
 =SlThere were some pipits in winter of course ; but 
 the sharp alarm-note of the solitary frightened 
 bird differs as much from the assertive persistence 
 of his breeding call, as his slow bobbing flight, 
 with expanded tail, does from the swift evasions 
 and sudden disappearances between dyke-banks, 
 with which in winter the same bird baulked even 
 the keen-winged hawk. 
 
 ^And wherever the pipit flies to-day his mate 
 follows scarce two yards behind, both jerking 
 through the air together as if connected by in- 
 visible string. These scarce-noticed couples strike 
 the truer note of this season of domesticity in 
 birddom than does the much-advertised catchword 
 of the licentious cuckoo. 
 
 1 06 
 
April 
 
 ■■°^..' 
 
 \ 
 
 V 
 
 '^ 
 
 \ « 
 
 v'^ 
 
 
 
 
 ^•-^ 
 
 "THE ORCHARDS ARE SPREADING SHEETS OF SNOW" 
 
April XV 
 ^^The hedges are greener to-day than they were when the 
 yesterday, and they were greener yesterday than cuckoo 
 the day before. The larch's tapering branches are '^°^^' 
 covered with velvet of brightest emerald, and the 
 blackthorn is powdered white with clustered bloom. 
 ^Its cultivated cousins in the plum orchards are 
 spreading sheets of snow upon the valley's slopes ; 
 and the fruit garden with profuse succession of 
 bloom now begins to vie with the flower-beds full 
 of bright hyacinths aud bursting tulips, while the 
 daiFodils are scarcely past their prime. 
 sSlFor things happen so quickly in spring, when the 
 sun shines after rain and the south wind at last 
 blows gently, that mere narration of them would 
 leave one breathless. It is a mad paper-chase which 
 Nature leads us now, with white butterflies flicker- 
 ing here and there to guide us over daisy-spangled 
 meadows to the flower-starred woods, where the 
 nightingale will sing to-night. 
 ^Looking down over the sunlit valley we see the 
 new-come swallows glancing by°the river, and — yes 
 — it certainly is the cuckoo. Spring is here. 
 
 107 
 
April xvi 
 
 LATE- ^5r5lTHERE is no lazier, more rest-inviting sound 
 
 NESTING than the faint caw of some sitting rook on a sunny 
 
 ^°°^^ spring afternoon, high up amid the delicate tracery 
 
 EARLY of the elm's flowering branches against the dazz- 
 
 THRusHEs ling blue. She is some young bird, who started 
 
 later than her seniors upon the season's cares and 
 
 joys ; for the other nests are tenanted only now by 
 
 callow squabs, and as the flock of rooks returns at 
 
 sunset you will see that, on approaching the 
 
 rookery, it breaks up into pairs, both parents 
 
 having been at liberty to voyage for food for 
 
 their growing young. 
 
 =ScBut through the long sunny hours of afternoon 
 the young mother rook sits alone upon her later 
 eggs, emphasising the silence of the empty rookery 
 with a soft caw at intervals now and then — answered 
 by her mate winging from far afield with food for 
 her. 
 
 ^But nearer interests call one's attention earth- 
 wards. A domestic occurrence has happened in 
 the garden, where four young fledged thrushes, the 
 first of the year, are sitting about the lawn like 
 frogs, with their bufF-spotted backs and speckled 
 bellies. New-fledged thrushes do not appear in 
 mid- April every year ; but these are not puff^ed-up 
 therefore with pride, only with fat and greediness. 
 
 1 08 
 
GALE HAS 
 COME 
 
 April xvii 
 ^When the nightingale first arrives, sunny noon the 
 is the best time to hear him. The nights are nightin 
 scarcely warm enough either for him to enjoy sing- "' 
 ing or for us to loiter out of doors to listen. But, 
 if you can find a sunny, sheltered nook at midday, 
 where you can sit, with the buzz and glitter of 
 spring all round you, and listen to the russet 
 nightingales challenging each other in rippling 
 music from their several' thickets, what more can 
 you want for half an hour of happiness .'' The 
 nightingale has the reputation of being a shy bird ; 
 but if you do not keep moving about you will find 
 that he deliberately comes nearer and nearer to you 
 to sing ; but if you happen to have stationed your- 
 self too close to a position which he desires to 
 occupy, he will drop down into the undergrowth 
 and fidget about all round you, uttering his pecu- 
 liarly harsh croak of protest, like a frog with a bad 
 sore throat. Sometimes, too, he will interrupt 
 himself in the middle of his song to utter this 
 hoarse note, perhaps because you moved, and then 
 go on with his music where he left oiF. At other 
 times you may see one pursuing another through 
 the bushes, both of them uttering snatches of song 
 as they go. Incidents like these more than com- 
 pensate for the loss of that background of silence 
 which throws the nightingale's solo into superb 
 relief at night. 
 
 109 
 
BY DAY 
 
 April xviii 
 FROST AT =5r5|HoT days and bright sunsets, followed by clear 
 NIGHT and rather frosty nights, must at this season be 
 AND BATS succeeded by mornings of heavy dew and clinging 
 mist. We are lucky indeed when the mist does not 
 drizzle into rain ; for in April, which is only half- 
 summer, you cannot have July heat without a 
 following reminder that it is half-winter too. So 
 the bees this morning are sad lie-abeds, and almost 
 until noon the honeyed sallow in the river-valley 
 spreads its dew-drenched blossoms in vain for 
 insect guests. 
 
 ^Where the sun lifts the mist later the insects 
 return in thronging swarms, and sometimes among 
 the insect-eating birds you may chance to see a bat, 
 braving the sunlight and flickering to and fro 
 under the arching trees. For the bat suffers more 
 than others, when each warm day's sun makes him 
 restless and hungry, and each chilly night keeps 
 him still in bed. So at last he comes out to satisfy 
 his hunger in the sunlight, or perhaps to fall an 
 easy prey to the darting sparrow-hawk. 
 =SlAll round the untimely bat the crowd of spring 
 life thickens ; and the whitethroat warblers, com- 
 monest of our summer songsters, have added their 
 scrannel voices to the swelling chorus of the birds. 
 
 no 
 
HERALD 
 
 April xix 
 ^StSiThe surest sign of real spring — one that I have a tiny 
 never known to err — is the appearance of the scarlet 
 scarlet velvety mite. It is a very tiny creature ; 
 but who that observes Nature in small things has 
 not at one time or another been amazed at the 
 loveliness of these atoms, upholstered in the most 
 vivid vermilion plush, which are suddenly found 
 crawling about the soft, warm earth one fine morn- 
 ing in spring, and for a season pursue a beneficial 
 career in the destruction of aphides — known as 
 " greenfly " to the gardener and " blight " to 
 others ? 
 
 =S|The other stages of the velvety mite's career are 
 less laudable ; for it is the parent of those horrid 
 little scarlet things that hang in clusters about 
 what one may call the armpits of the long- 
 limbed harvest spider, and suck its juices, as it 
 slithers over the ground on its tremulous stilts. 
 JJiStill, the moral character of the velvety mite's 
 offspring does not affect its accuracy as a weather 
 guide ; and I have never known this pretty little 
 creature to appear for the first time on any day 
 but that which has proved to be the first of our 
 first spell of " real " spring. 
 
 Ill 
 
April XX 
 SPRING ^^Memory lingers more fondly upon the autumn 
 TINTS tints of a wooded landscape, because the final blaze 
 of foliage has that added charm which always 
 attaches to things we are about to lose ; yet surely 
 nothing could be more beautiful than the mixed 
 hues which the sunlight reveals in the panorama of 
 a woodland valley now ? 
 
 =S|The larch, even when it glowed like a pillar of 
 pale gold in the falling year, was not more lovely 
 than to-day, gossamer-robed in the softest green 
 that Nature knows ; and the bronze-red of the 
 sycamore's opening leaves equals any tint of 
 autumn. The vivid emerald of the leafing willow, 
 the grey-green of the fruiting sallow, and the pale 
 gold wands of the male plant still flowering by its 
 side, the blackthorn wreathed with snowy bloom, 
 and the gorse blazing in yellow patches — all these 
 contrast so finely with the dull reds and purple- 
 browns of bare later-leafing trees that, even if we 
 did not know what wealth of woodland flowers 
 bathe in the sunlight filtered through those bud- 
 ding boughs, it seems strange — nqw — that we can 
 give first place in memory to other tints than those 
 of spring. 
 
 112 
 
April xxt 
 ^Si^The butterfly net in juvenile hands becomes butter- 
 again a common object of the country now ; though f"es at 
 as yet the new butterflies of the season could almost ^^"^"^ 
 be counted on the fingers of one hand. 
 ^Besides the large and the small whites and the 
 green-veined white, distinguished at rest by the 
 greenish lines upon its folded wings, and the orange- 
 tip — which might also seem a " white," save when 
 you see the lovely green mottling of its underside 
 or catch a glimpse of the orange on the fore wings 
 of the male — there are only the small copper, whose 
 spread fore wings glow like burnished bronze, and 
 the holly blue, flickering round a garden like a 
 scrap of the sky broken loose. 
 ^More gorgeous than these, however, are still the 
 veteran survivors of last autumn, the damask pea- 
 cock with eyed glories on each wing, the red 
 admiral slashed with scarlet, the tawny tortoise- 
 shells, and the brimstone all brilliant yellow. Five 
 other " hibernated " butterflies there are, but so 
 rarely seen that the young collector often wonders 
 whether his books rightly tell him to look for these 
 in April. 
 
 113 
 
PINE S 
 LOVE- 
 STORY 
 
 April xxii 
 THE 'StkEACH pufF of the shifting wind sends fresh 
 clouds of golden pollen down the dark avenues of 
 the pinewood, dusting one's coat often as with 
 powdered sulphur ; for, though the funereal pine 
 seems as far removed as may be from the light 
 frivolities of love, it is, to translate the term of 
 botanists, a " windlover," and entrusts its message 
 to the careless breeze to carry to some unknown 
 female on a neighbouring pine, or, more often, to 
 the ground. 
 
 ^So the pine has to produce superfluous clouds ot 
 golden dust, and in its narrow needle-leaves, offer- 
 ing the least possible obstruction to the floating 
 pollen, we see one of those niceties of structure 
 which, in the days before evolution was taught, 
 afforded comfortable evidence to the pious of the 
 special care of Providence. Not that we need be 
 less pious because we believe in evolution, but the 
 old naturalist stood nearer to God in daily thought 
 when he saw in each leaf-blade the unalterable type 
 of His immemorial handiwork. 
 ^And in a pinewood, with the dim light falling 
 upon the pillared trunks of its cathedral nave, its 
 shadowy, cloistered aisles where the wind chaunts 
 deep and slow, while the foot falls silently upon the 
 cushioned ground, it were easy to attune the mind 
 to piety. 
 
 114 
 
April xxiii 
 •JrScCoLD winds from north and east in late April hard 
 revive the pathos which so often attaches to the times 
 return of the swallows. Their companions, the little ''°'^ '^"^ 
 warbler birds, suffer little, no matter what wind 
 blows ; they can always hunt for food in thickets 
 and herbage where the insects find shelter. But 
 the swallow, child of the air, has only one shift ; 
 and when the cold winds sweep all insect life into 
 hiding it is sad to see him and the little sand- 
 martins hawking to and fro, from dawn to dusk, 
 over the cold surface of some wind-swept water. 
 ^It is their only chance of food ; for on land an 
 insect blown from one tussock finds shelter in the 
 next ; whereas now and then some luckless atom 
 whisked from the windward margin of a pond must 
 travel on and on over the rippling surface till it 
 reaches the other side. This is the starving swal- 
 low's slender opportunity — so slender that, after 
 two days of cold winds, our newly returned swal- 
 lows often die by hundreds when the wind is cold. 
 ^It is for this reason that those who study Nature 
 from year to year take no joy in an unduly early 
 return of the swallows. English springs are treacher- 
 ous ; and we would rather miss our little guests 
 awhile than see them come to die. 
 
 115 
 
LINNETS 
 AND 
 
 MATING 
 
 April xxk) 
 NESTING =St5lWHENEVER the wind turns to the south in 
 late April, we find some new, welcome sign that 
 summer comes. Yesterday, in the teeth of a cold 
 north-easter, our returned swallows were fighting 
 for their lives, and the linnets still herded in 
 twittering flocks on the wind-swept grass-fields; 
 but to-day the swallows in couples skim lightly 
 round the barn, and the linnet-flocks are breaking 
 up so quickly into pairs that every furze-bush, 
 where there was a linnet's nest last year, seems to 
 have prospective tenants already, if the reluctant 
 departure of a pair of birds, musically expostu- 
 lating, from one side of the bush, when you peep 
 in at the other, means anything. 
 ^And, peeping among the bushes, your eye follows 
 a small jet-black bumble-bee, busily " bumbling " 
 from flower to flower. Presently a quick-darting, 
 buUety, brownish-grey bee arrives, hovers a moment 
 above the black bee, and suddenly pounces upon 
 it. Both fall to the ground, and then, with an 
 angry-sounding buzz, depart their several ways. 
 Yet it is not attempted murder that you have 
 witnessed. They are man and wife, and that is 
 the spring bee's method of courtship. 
 
 Ii6 
 
April XXV 
 ^Si^Though the swallows "arrived" many days excited 
 ago, they have not yet taken up residence every- warblers 
 where. Circling round the barns, or hawking 
 with the sand-martins over pool or stream, they 
 seem wanderers still, the sport of wind and 
 weather. 
 
 ^But the little warblers, who arrived with the 
 swallows, are independent of the weather now. 
 Foraging all day among the bushes, they have 
 already discovered, or rediscovered, nesting-sites 
 in every coppice, garden and hedgerow. This 
 they tell you plainly. Approach that thicket by 
 the water, and a sedge-warbler, skulking in its 
 depth, breaks out into a voluble, jangling song. 
 Retire a few paces, and he is silent. Approach 
 again, and once more the thicket vibrates with his 
 babbling expostulation. No need to advertise for 
 information when there is going to be a sedge- 
 warbler's nest this year. 
 
 ^And as you wander through the shrubberies, a 
 whitethroat " chaks" at you from a bush on this 
 side, dancing excitedly up and down the twigs, 
 while an invisible nightingale croaks morosely at 
 you on the other. Thus in half a score of different 
 voices a man is told that he is a trespasser on his 
 own grounds at this season of the year. 
 
 117 
 
IN BLOOM 
 
 April xxvi 
 THE ^Si^The willow almost deserves to be called the 
 WILLOW tree of spring. Wherever in April you see a 
 wooded landscape splashed with vivid emerald, you 
 know that it is either larch or willow, boldly 
 wearing spring's colour while the neighbouring 
 oaks and elms are scarely reddening with swollen 
 buds. And the larch cannot compare with the 
 willow as a focus and centre of the life of spring. 
 ^For the larch transacts its wooing by the wind's 
 cold agency; but the willow, casting sweet scent 
 abroad, tempts all honey-loving insects to its 
 service; and the roar of the bribed bees in the 
 willows to-day carries to the mind the same sugges- 
 tion of murmurous peace, as the long rumble on a 
 shelving shore when the storm has passed. 
 ^Yet, in spite of its sweet scent, its early colour 
 and its grace of growth — for the willow is a fern 
 among trees, flinging wide its massive branches in 
 down-curving lines of beauty — it is curious how 
 little the tree is planted in our landscapes. Where- 
 ever you stop to admire some giant willow, you 
 will almost always find the tradition of its origin 
 an accident — how it grew out of somebody's great- 
 grandfather's walking-stick, and so on. Perhaps 
 it is the very ease of its growing which makes us 
 think so little of so noble a tree. 
 
 Ii8 
 
April xxvii 
 'Jt^lAs spring days pass, we scarcely notice how spring's 
 our outlook grows circumscribed. Instead of the narrow- 
 transparency of leafless woodland, through which '"^ 
 we could catch the glint of the wood-pigeon's 
 white-flecked wings as it slanted up to its nesting- 
 pine many roods away, now the bronze green 
 haze of myriad-budded twigs shuts down upon all 
 vision further than a dozen yards. 
 ^In the open, too, the landscape narrows. Here 
 a flowering elm and there a leafing willow shuts 
 up some vista which gave glimpses of many fields 
 beyond. But it is on the closer, smaller scale of 
 hedge-row and shrubbery that we feel most how 
 Nature in spring draws a green veil, growing 
 denser every day, between us and the secret doings 
 of her life. She treats us like children, too — and, 
 indeed, we are her children and deserve to be so 
 treated — embroidering the outside of her green 
 veil with pretty flowers and making gay butterflies 
 dance before it to amuse us. So we go for a walk 
 and rejoice because we see many things ; but the 
 things which we do not see are countless. 
 ^Here is a squat thorn-bush, two feet high, which 
 will presently fire out a volley of nearly a dozen 
 new-fledged wrens, and next winter, when the 
 leaves have fallen, the man who passed daily within 
 a few feet of it will say, '* Bless my soul, fancy a 
 nest in that bush all the while ! " 
 
 119 
 
INSECT 
 LIFE 
 
 April xxviii 
 THRONG- ^^This is the season of pleasant little incidents in 
 iNG country rambles. Every day some new kind of 
 
 flower opens; and every day some new butterfly 
 flickers like a flying flower down grassy lane or 
 chequered woodland glade. Even the roadside 
 hedge-bank, on the sunny side, with its dandelions 
 like clustered suns in a milky way of daisies, its 
 patches of hazy blue where the speedwell's 
 hundred blue eyes peep all together at the passing 
 wayfarer, its purple-red carpet of the spreading 
 deadnettle, and its tangles where white star- 
 flowers tiptoe to look out upon the world of sun- 
 light — even here fresh wild life of the season 
 throngs from day to day. The blundering 
 bumble-bees, some all black, some fire-tailed, and 
 some gold-banded, and others both fire-tailed and 
 gold-banded, honey-bees and many kinds of 
 smaller bees of variant shades of brown and 
 degrees of slimness, as well as flies of every size 
 and shape — almost every one of these is worth 
 watching, to see what it does and why it does it. 
 
 1 20 
 
RETURNS 
 
 April xxix 
 ^5e5|TH E arrival of the turtle-dove seems always to the 
 mark the beginning of the end of spring's onward turtle- 
 march towards summer. For, among British °°^^ 
 migrants, the turtle-dove stands in a class by himself, 
 belonging to the latest group of summer visitors 
 — such as the flycatcher, the swift and the butcher- 
 bird — but not necessarily coming with them. 
 ^For he is under no such necessity as weighs upon 
 them, of loitering by the way until warm south 
 winds are filling the air ahead with insect food. 
 Indeed, save that his smaller gullet and crop could 
 scarcely deal with the tough fare of acorns and 
 nuts which form one staple of the wood-pigeon's 
 diet in winter, there seems no reason why the 
 turtle-dove should migrate at all. 
 ^But he is a true pigeon in his return. With the 
 strong wings and faultless homing instinct of his 
 tribe, you may see him, no matter how the wind 
 may be blowing, smiting his way from horizon to 
 horizon with quick, even wing-strokes which out- 
 distance even the hawk. And when you see the 
 turtle-dove thus, shooting like an arrow to the 
 thicket where he nested last year, you know that 
 the last of the summer birds are not far behind. 
 They only lack his wing-power or his independence 
 of insect food. 
 
 121 
 
IN SPRING ■ 
 
 April XXX 
 THE JOY ^5fi|lN town the rain may mean mud-splashed 
 OF RAIN clothes and wet boots worn through office hours ; 
 but in the country, especially in spring, all Nature 
 so visibly rejoices in the fall of needed rain, and 
 man is so much a creature of Nature there, that he 
 rejoices too. 
 
 ^Apart from material interests in the fields or the 
 garden, there is joy in the growing smell of the 
 wet earth, when you can almost see the flagging 
 barley take on a deeper hue of green, as its patient 
 acres welcome in the myriad-pattering rain. Even 
 the emerald lawn puts on a richer velvet, and the 
 alert thrush's breast seems more boldly speckled as 
 she picks and chooses among the plentiful worms 
 for her chirruping fledgelings hopping after. And 
 behind the civilised distaste for wet feet and mud, 
 there is human elation in the fall of rain. Is it 
 some old instinct of primeval man, who was hairy 
 perhaps and revelled, as the deer do, in a wetted 
 hide.? 
 
 ^And what a difference a week of spring, when 
 rain has fallen, makes in the trees. Last Sunday 
 the churchyard avenue was just " showing green " ; 
 to-day the old church is embowered in foliage, 
 through which the pleasant vista to the porch 
 seems to invite the passing generation, like their 
 forefathers, to guide their steps aright. 
 
 122 
 
May i 
 ^There is joy when May comes in with a balmy may's 
 night, when one can loiter bareheaded under the welcome 
 stars, without thought of chill, and listen to the 
 changing chorus of the life of night. For from 
 dusk to dawn there is no hour of silence in thewoods 
 and fields, when spring's tide of life is at the full. 
 iFIn the evening, when the coppice was silhouetted 
 black against the misty meadows, when the last 
 song-thrush's song had died away, and the big bat 
 alone patrolled the upper air, the partridges still 
 challenged and counter-challenged across the fields, 
 the brown partridge with a voice like a creaking 
 gate, and the red-legged kind crowing in tuneless 
 bars, " Chik, chik, chikor ; chik, chik, chikor." 
 ¥As darkness deepened you heard the peewit's 
 plaintive cry and whistling wings of wild duck on 
 their evening flight, while the jovial " Hooo-ooo, 
 hoo-hoo-hoo-hooo " of the food-bringing brown 
 owl was answered by the glad " Ke-wick " of his 
 expectant mate in the wood. Then the barn-owl 
 " screeeed " comfortably, as he sailed on dim, white 
 wings round the dark farm-buildings ; when sud- 
 denly, like liquid pearls of music, the nightingale's 
 first notes fell into the deep bosom of the night. 
 i?It is midnight and May, but still the nightingale 
 is singing and the owls are calling to their friends. 
 You hear the splashing and rippling of the water 
 where the wild duck feed, with a querking mono- 
 syllable now and then, while still the peewit cries. 
 ^And so to bed, as some wakeful village rooster 
 clangs out the first notes of the chorus of returning 
 day. 
 
 123 
 
LAGS 
 
 May a 
 WHY ^F^The linnets' nests in the furze-bushes — in spite 
 SUMMER of their prickly shelter, the easiest of all nests to 
 find — already contain their ruddy-speckled pale blue 
 eggs ; but summer almost always lags in early May. 
 Weeks may pass after the first house-martins have 
 arrived in the south ; while still on the east coast, 
 among the steely blue swallows, only now and then 
 is the gleaming white back of a solitary house- 
 martin seen, and the mud globes under the eaves 
 remain tenanted only by usurping sparrows. 
 ^And the reason for the weather-wary martin's de- 
 lay is not hard to guess. He winnows a higher 
 stratum of air for food than the swallow ; and 
 though we may everywhere have had warm days, 
 there have been few in the east and north without 
 that windy chill which warns even sanguine human 
 beings not yet to change into thinner clothes ; and, 
 to birds migrating, the breath of the wind is the 
 guide of life or death. 
 
 i?So, though May Day may follow a night balmy 
 and soft as June, the next dawn may break with a 
 keen blossom-shattering tempest which would have 
 carried birds, who trusted it, many hundreds of 
 miles aside. 
 
 1? Wantonly cruel seem these fierce winds in spring. 
 In some years they rob us of the whole rich promise 
 of the season's fruit and of berries for the birds in 
 winter ; and now, when the blushing apple-bloom 
 is bursting and the " may " is whitening in the bud, 
 we may have again a foretaste of storms to wreck 
 at birth the autumn's hopes, 
 
 124 
 
• MARTINS 
 
 May ill 
 ^iFWiTH a welcome turn of the wind to the south return 
 something was sure to happen ; and our own house- of the 
 martins, in twittering couples, are now gliding and ""^ 
 wheeling round the house again as familiarly as.if '" 
 they had not been away for so many months in 
 Africa. 
 
 ^It is pretty to see the first pair of house-martins 
 return. Skimming straight over the encircling 
 shrubberies, they dart up to their old corner under 
 the eaves where the remnant of last year's mud nest 
 still hangs. It makes but a shabby little platform 
 for them to cling to, after their hundreds of leagues 
 of haste over land and sea ; but it is "home," and for 
 a few instants they cling, twittering, side by side. 
 Then, dropping off, they circle quickly round the 
 place, every minute or two returning to the scrap 
 of a nest to exchange congratulations once more. 
 iFIn the south the house-martins return a little 
 earlier, and even in the later north stragglers have 
 been seen for many days ; but the return of ' ' our 
 own martins " is an event of its year to every neigh- 
 bourhood. For the house-martin, more weather- 
 wise than swallow or sand-martin, seldom comes 
 back before all fears of wintry spring have gone ; 
 and his arrival shows that spring is halting no 
 longer. 
 
 125 
 
DAISY 
 
 May iv 
 THE ^F^One of the great transformations of the year 
 REIGN has taken place ; for the grazed meadows are 
 "" """ sheeted so white with daisies that, looking from 
 slope to slope you might almost think that snow, 
 instead of sunlight, had fallen on the grass. The 
 fields, thus veiled in bridal white for the virgin 
 spring, will later be carpeted with the cloth-of- 
 gold of buttercups in honour of queenly summer ; 
 and it is pretty to see how, during the hours of 
 sunshine, each flower turns its faithful face to- 
 wards the sun, and when this has sunk from view, 
 how each little stalk droops and, with closed 
 florets, every daisy hangs its head in sleep. 
 ¥With the daisies have come all the vanguard of 
 summer flowers — " When daisies pied and violets 
 blue. And lady-smocks all silver-white, And cuckoo- 
 birds of yellow hue, Do paint the meadows with 
 delight" — making the brightest show, however, 
 where most eyes can see it, fringing our trodden 
 paths with beauty and embroidering roadside 
 banks in many colours. 
 
 1? Almost most welcome and most sweetly named 
 of all, the speedwell now spreads in patches of 
 heaven's blue close by the dusty margin of the 
 highway footpath, so friendly a flower of so clear a 
 blue that to pause and look down into its bright 
 eyes refreshes the wayfarer almost like a draught 
 of water. " Speed well ! " — has any British flower 
 an apter name } 
 
 \i(i 
 
FINCH S 
 MONO- 
 TONE 
 
 May V 
 i?i?MEMORiEs of sultry summer afternoons are re- the 
 called now by a note which begins to dominate the green- 
 bird-conversation of the garden. It is the long- "'"""' 
 drawn *' cheeee " of the male greenfinch, anxious 
 for the safety of his mossy nest, now stocked with 
 eggs and his wife on top of them. 
 iFThis note of domestic anxiety is not quite new. 
 You have heard it at intervals, here and there, for 
 weeks. But it is only now, when the greenfinch 
 has definitely settled down to the responsibilities of 
 a householder, that he takes up a strategic position 
 in the shrubbery and " cheeees " by the hour to- 
 gether. The note is not very loud, but its mono- 
 tonous persistence compels attention, until it 
 becomes irritating. 
 
 ¥What advantage the habit can have been to the 
 greenfinch in the struggle for existence is not easy 
 to see ; but in many ways this common bird, little 
 noticed as a rule, gives evidence of independent 
 character. Often with flickering wings and ex- 
 panded tail he shows bright glimpses of canary 
 yellow as he circles in the air, fluttering like a 
 patterned butterfly against the sky, singing a 
 pretty medley all the while. Then he is admirable ; 
 but, when he sees you at your open study window 
 and " cheeees " at you all the afternoon, you wish 
 him somewhere else. 
 
 127 
 
PEEWITS 
 
 May vi 
 BABY ¥^Of all the young birds that you can take by 
 surprise in a country ramble, when April has 
 passed into JMay, the most delightful is the 
 baby peewit. When an excited couple of pee- 
 wits wheel, mournfully calling " Pee-a-weet, pee- 
 a-weet" above your head, instead of wheeling wide 
 in that drunken ecstacy that marked their flight 
 while you were at a distance, you must look care- 
 fully at the ground before your feet, or you may 
 put an end to a tiny peewit's life, by squashing it 
 flat. Presently you may catch sight of one little 
 pad of dark grey fluff speckled with black spots 
 neatly filling up a little crack in the ground. A 
 yard off another occupies the corner of a hoofprint, 
 like an accidental clod of earth ; and then you find 
 a third within a few inches of your boot, and a 
 fourth half hidden under a tuft of grass. They 
 are scarcely a day old, perhaps ; but there is all 
 the acquired cunning of ages in the absolute still- 
 ness of those atoms of life. You may walk round 
 them, stamp on the ground, clap your hands — do 
 anything that you like — but not one of them 
 will stir a muscle so long as their parents cry over- 
 head. Retire to a little distance, however, and 
 wait until the anxious mother alights and runs 
 quickly with a stealthy, stooping movement towards 
 the spot where you left the mites. Thus the family 
 is happily re-united ; having beautifully illustrated 
 the life-saving instincts with which peewits come 
 ready equipped into the world. 
 
 128 
 

 o 
 z 
 
 3 
 O 
 
May vii 
 ^iFIn an English spring, when sunshine alternates spring's 
 with shower, we see no such sharp and sudden sudden 
 contrast as the breaking of the monsoon brings to "^^^^ 
 the sun-baked East, because our ground is always 
 green — a restful blessing to the eye, which you 
 cannot appreciate until you have lived in lands 
 where for months together its barrenness glares 
 hurtfuUy to the eyes in the sunlight — but one may 
 doubt whether, inch for inch, the green life of the 
 ground grows anywhere at a greater pace than 
 during a warm week of rain in May in England. 
 iFThis is especially brought home to you when, as 
 usually happens, you have fallen behind with the 
 weeding of your garden. The weeds looked such 
 insignificant little things, scarcely worth the trouble 
 of stooping over, that from day to day you de- 
 ferred declaring war upon them until "to-morrow"; 
 and it always seems as if "to-morrow" arrived just 
 when the pouring rain made gardening impossible. 
 For only a day or two, it seems, the rain compels 
 a truce ; and then, when the sun shines and you 
 inspect the flower-beds, you can hardly believe 
 that those tangles of rank greenery starred with a 
 thousand diamond-drops of rain are the insignifi- 
 cant little weeds upon which you scorned to bestow 
 the labour of finger and thumb. 
 
 129 
 
May viii 
 SURPRISED ^¥OuT in the meadow this morning you may sur- 
 THRusHEs prise a father thrush feeding a couple of youngsters; 
 and as he flies ofli^ with a " chuck " of alarm and 
 warning, the young birds squat motionless like 
 obedient frogs. If you walk steadily towards them, 
 you can watch the struggle in their minds, as they 
 see your great form looming towards them and 
 hear their parent's reiterated warning to sit still. 
 Sometimes they will allow you to pick them up, 
 but more often — whether, at the last moment, the 
 parent changes his note to one which the young 
 thrushes interpret as an order to make a bolt for 
 it, is hard to determine — they suddenly lift them- 
 selves a foot above the ground and go slowly 
 whirring along as far as their weak wings will carry 
 them. You could make an exact imitation of the 
 young thrush's flight with inferior clock-work. 
 At such times, however, it is always charitable to 
 watch where the flight really ends. If there is a 
 brook near at hand, the water seems to exercise 
 the same dangerous fascination as a lamp-post for 
 a drunken man. They see it perfectly well and 
 swerve at the sight, and go plump into the edge of 
 it, sometimes needing your friendly help to get out 
 again. 
 
 130 
 
May ix 
 ¥¥When the first flush of the joy of spring is the 
 over, and the sensation of living in a green world b'^o'^- 
 again has lost the charm of novelty, one is tempted ^g^° ^^ 
 to resentment at times because the thick curtain of spring 
 foliage hides so much, and the greater part of 
 Nature's life is never seen in summer. Wherever 
 we go, by lane or woodland path, we pass uncon- 
 sciously within a few feet of scores of creatures 
 which we would like to see but cannot. 
 ¥ Yet this limitation of our vision to the outside 
 of things has its advantages ; because, after all, the 
 outside is bejewelled with flowers and flickers with 
 beautiful small life, which might buzz unnoticed 
 round our feet if our eyes ranged further. Look 
 at the gems on the hawthorn's thick veil of green. 
 Here a stout caterpillar with blue head, greenish- 
 grey body flecked with brilliant yellow ; and there 
 another hairy one, black and white, with scarlet 
 splashes. Why are these caterpillars of the grey 
 figure-of-eight moth and the white gold-tail moth 
 so brilliant ? Look lower at the lush grass below 
 the hedge where the two-inch caterpillar of the 
 drinker reposes in the sun. The moth will be 
 pale bufi^, but the caterpillar is gorgeous in black 
 velvet laced with white and gold. Why this 
 splendour } Birds are hungry in spring, and large 
 caterpillars to be safe must be uneatable and must 
 advertise the fact. 
 
 131 
 
APPLE- 
 
 May X 
 THE iF¥Now is the time of beauty and danger— too 
 CHARM often conjoined in life — for the orchards. If the 
 threatening winds, which pile up heavy storm- 
 clouds from day to day, fulfil their menace, the 
 wealth of blossom, promising a bumper crop, may 
 be squandered in one wild night. 
 i?Because we grow apple-trees in exposed orchards 
 seems a poor reason for excluding them, as we do, 
 from our sheltered ornamental grounds. Surely 
 the world holds nothing lovelier than the full- 
 blooming apple-trees to-day. And, besides the 
 later glory of its rosy-golden fruit in autumn, the 
 apple-tree seems always the special haunt of dainty 
 bird life. 
 
 if Among the mossy apple-boughs the chaffinches 
 love best to weave the wonderful wool-felted cups 
 of moss and lichen, which, were they products of 
 human art, might be receptacles of jewels. On 
 the same mossy branches in the later summer 
 young swallows sit in cosy rows while their 
 parents circle round twittering and taking toll of 
 the mazy multitudes of little flies that dance 
 among the apple-trees. Here, too, come the 
 acrobatic tits all the year round, and here in the 
 early year the bullfinch's rosy breast glows like a 
 danger-signal — as indeed it is for the apple-buds. 
 With flower, fruit, and wild life no tree is richer 
 through the changing months. 
 
 132 
 
May xi 
 ^^The eruption of young thrushes continues to an 
 spread over the face of the country. The newest out- 
 fledged seem almost tail-less, as they squat, full in ^'^^^^ °^ 
 view, like speckled frogs, and, as if to make sure 1°^^^ 
 of their betrayal, chirrup jerkily as you pass. 
 Those a little older, with an inch and a half of 
 tail, know enough to fly out of your way, but not 
 enough to check their flight. Sometimes they 
 plump safely into a bush; but if a wall is in the 
 way they will plump into that. But the earliest 
 broods have got over these baby troubles, and fly 
 with some judgment, mimicking their parents' 
 simple wiles. 
 
 if^And this juvenile brigade of song-thrushes has 
 now been reinforced by new-fledged missel- 
 thrushes, more shapely and less foolish than their 
 cousins, and by young ruddy-breasted blackbirds, 
 pertly imitating their father's fan-wise flourish of 
 his coal-black tail. Kinship with the robin is 
 quaintly shown in the young blackbird's antic 
 manners ; but you have only to look at the young 
 robins, also now scattering about the garden, to 
 see the fine distinction between well-bred confidence 
 and cheap bumptiousness. In speckled brown 
 suits they look as unlike robins as may be; but in 
 birds, as in men, it is not the clothes that make 
 the gentleman. 
 
 ^ZZ 
 
May xii 
 A SECRET iP^DisTiNGuisHED amvals and domestic occur- 
 NURSERY rences are filling the little pool by the covert. 
 Treading carefully to avoid snapping a warning 
 twig, peep stealthily through the overhanging 
 beech's veil of tender green, and you will see two 
 long-legged long-billed birds, no larger than 
 thrushes, in coats of brownish grey with white 
 waistcoats, nodding their heads and short tails with 
 a quick, nervous, motion as they step daintily along 
 the one-inch shallows. These are sandpipers, 
 familiar in many places as " summer snipe " on 
 their way to northern breeding-haunts, but staying 
 in some favoured spots, like the pool by the covert, 
 to nest in the south. 
 
 iFIt is not for these, however, that your caution is 
 needed. If they should see you they would only 
 skim a few yards off on sharp-curved, white-lined 
 wings. It is for the dozen little black balls of 
 fluff with dull yellow markings, little wild ducks 
 which were only born yesterday, that your wilejis 
 needed. Scattering eagerly over the pool catching 
 gnats, newborn-like themselves, they would dive 
 like one flash if you stirred. And already the 
 handsome mallard and his watchful mate are 
 querking their suspicions that " some one is in the 
 wood." Even as you look the dozen ducklings 
 fade from sight. They came from the shell 
 yesterday armed with the cunning of ages. 
 
 134 
 
May xii 
 ^^FEvERY little breeze that shivers through the sH/iBSY 
 splendid new foliage of the limes sends down a little 
 mimic snowshower of the scales which protected ^"^"^^"^ 
 the leaf-buds in the earlier year. When the lime 
 throws wide its tiers of young spreading leafage 
 for the summer, the old scales fall unheeded. 
 i?The parallel to this in bird life — for Nature 
 always works in parallels — may also be seen now, 
 in the excessive shabbiness of many old birds who 
 are feeding fledged broods of young. A little 
 while ago, when the nestlings had no feathers and 
 little down, or, earlier, when they were only help- 
 less eggs, they would have fared ill during spring's 
 arctic moods but for the covering shield of their 
 parents' thick plumage. Now, they are bulging 
 with comfortable fat in brand-new suits of feathers 
 of their own ; and who notices or cares that their 
 willing, toiling parents, hurrying ceaselessly to and 
 fro to satisfy all their importunate appetites, are 
 dropping their worn-out plumage bit by bit ? 
 i?By the side of her well-dressed, full-grown 
 children, mother thrush or robin often seems now 
 a mere rag of a bird, an undersized, untidy little 
 drudge, but, oh, so proud and watchful of their 
 needs ! 
 
 SFSince nature always works in parallels, we need 
 not go far to find the human counterpart of this. 
 
 ns 
 
May xiv 
 
 summer's ^i?The company of summer is now complete. 
 
 FULL The last of the whimbrel, crying overhead 
 
 COMPANY mysteriously by night and playing at being 
 
 undersized curlews on the coast marshes by day, 
 
 seem to have passed, punctually as their popular 
 
 name of " Maybirds " suggests. The swift, 
 
 wheeling and screaming with straight, untiring 
 
 wings aloft, stamps summer's own broad arrow on 
 
 the sky ; and in the dappled shade of leafy limes 
 
 the hazy veil of insects flickering in the sun is 
 
 looped at intervals by the flycatcher's dainty, 
 
 glancing flight. 
 
 iFBy tangled hedges the butcher-bird's sharp, 
 scolding note now tells you that the petty tyrant 
 of the fields has come ; and, as dusk falls, you 
 hear the nightjar " churring " down the misty- 
 glades. Summer is here ; and, in proof thereof, 
 see the horse-chestnut. 
 
 ^A weedy tree, unloved of birds and insects, the 
 horse-chestnut twice a year is glorious and 
 bountiful : once, in autumn, when the fairy-footed 
 deer scamper across the avenues to the sound of 
 falling nuts which "plop" and burst upon the 
 ground, and again now, when Spring weds Summer 
 and the chestnut's pyramids of splendid green are 
 lit with myriad tapers of waxy bloom, as if in 
 honour of the glad event. 
 
 136 
 
, OF THE 
 
 'may' 
 
 May XV 
 ^i?The first foam is breaking, on the hawthorns, the 
 of the great tidal wave of snowy blossom, which bursting 
 spreads from south to north of England, changing °^ 
 the hedges into billows of white bloom and filling 
 the air with the strong scent of " may." 
 ^Could one witness it from some fixed point aloft, 
 it would be a rare and curious sight, this gradually 
 whitening of England from the south coast up- 
 wards — to homely minds suggestive perhaps of 
 Nature's annual spring-cleaning ! — but a sight 
 the more beautiful because it almost exactly 
 coincides, year in, year out, with another colour 
 change in British landscapes on an almost larger 
 scale, when the daisies that have sheeted the fields 
 with white are hidden by the taller, bolder butter- 
 cups, which give back the sun's own golden glare 
 from myriad glossy cups, until a mere waste pasture 
 becomes almost too dazzling to look upon, 
 if Above the buttercups the hot air shimmers and 
 dances ; and the mazy swallows, skimming low, 
 feed easily from the multitude of insects, newborn 
 every hour, which tempt even the sparrows in the 
 grass to turn flycatchers and send the starlings 
 aloft, gliding, swerving and pirouetting in the 
 air as they chase choice victims from the horde of 
 small life that streams upward to the sun. 
 
 137 
 
CHANGES 
 
 May xvi 
 spring's ^^With the middle of May begins a complete 
 QUICK change in our country interests. One scarcely 
 realises how quickly everything has been growing 
 until everything is overgrown. Perhaps you may 
 leave home for a couple of days, and on the way to 
 the railway station note the meadows silvered with 
 daisies and tufted with pale cowslips. Two days 
 later you return and find the entire fields spread 
 with the buttercups' cloth-of-gold. Then you rea- 
 lise the pace at which Nature is drawing veil after 
 veil over her spring secrets. For the whole surface 
 of the ground and of the hedges is let out for very 
 short seasons in tiered "shop fronts" to the 
 different plants that jostle to expose their wares in 
 full bloom to the insect world. There is a time 
 when even in sheltered woodland nooks the three- 
 inch stature of a primrose easily catches the eye. A 
 little later the forget-me-not's six inches barely 
 suflice, and the periwinkle in succession needs a 
 foot of flower-shoot. After that come the 
 scrambling crowds which are glad if, by tip-toeing 
 up through leafy branches, climbing up on each 
 other's shoulders, and craning long flower-stalks 
 at the summit of three feet of straggling stem, they 
 can occupy.; so much as a back attic in some over- 
 crowded thicket;, whence they can put in an 
 appearance during " the season " of their finery. 
 
 138 
 
May xvii 
 ^sFEvER as new glory comes into the country-side nature's 
 some halo fades. While we have gladly seen the great 
 snowy flood of hawthorn-bloom rolling in billowy "^^"age 
 breakers from hedge to hedge, and the chestnuts 
 alight with myriad tapers of waxy flowers, the 
 cherry-blossom, which seemed the very bridal-veil 
 of spring's wedding with summer, has worn thin 
 unnoticed ; and amid the brown embroidery of 
 withered blossoms the fruit-grower can now count 
 the tight green knobs which promise summer's 
 fruit. 
 
 i?Thus even the wasting of each season's beauty 
 brings assurance of later joys. It is this which 
 gives constant comfort to those who watch Nature 
 with sympathy. There are some who, because 
 their own years are waning or their own promise 
 of spring has been idly spent, find Nature's summer 
 always sadly short and winter always long and 
 dreary. Yet the withered cherry-blossom, whose 
 shed petals reveal the new-born fruit, and even 
 autumn's falling leaves mark stages of success in 
 the circle of annual achievement, which rolls on for 
 ever towards higher things. 
 
 ^This is the spirit of evolution, once deemed 
 hostile to religion, but now, through the mists of 
 doubt, slowly taking form as religion's truest self. 
 
 U9 
 
AND UN 
 NOTICED 
 
 May xviii 
 SINGERS, ¥^FBy this time we have grown used to all the 
 NOTICED ne^ voices in the birds' concert out of doors. 
 When we wander afield, the rippling trills of willow- 
 wren and wood-wren, the trivial repetitions of the 
 whitethroats, the homely twittering of the' swal- 
 lows and the monotonous chant of the chifF-chaff 
 may all be in our ears at once without provoking 
 conscious interest. 
 
 ¥Some birds, however, can always command 
 attention. The sedge-warbler, with his surprising 
 assortment of jangling notes, strung into a sort of 
 barbaric tune, forces you to listen, when he sud- 
 denly strikes up from a bush at your elbow. The 
 blackcap compels admiration, too, by the fine 
 crescendo of harmony which follows an opening 
 almost as scratchy and meagre as the whitethroat's 
 trifling lay. 
 
 ^Then there is the nightingale. No matter how 
 many times a day — or a night — you hear him, he 
 holds your attention almost from the beginning of 
 his song ; not from the very beginning, which is 
 high and thin, like the worst notes of a bad canary, 
 but from the second bar of his music, by contrast 
 so rich, deep, and mellow that, if you are walking, 
 you must stand still to hear it better. 
 iPBut not even the nightingale's melody arrests the 
 ear more surely than the weird music of the peewit. 
 To stand in the midst of a " plover field " with 
 half a score of the birds wheeling and swooping 
 round you, uttering their insistent cries in every 
 tone of anxious entreaty and distress, strikes a 
 more human chord than bird life usually presents. 
 
 140 
 
May xix 
 ^^The role of devil's advocate is sometimes the 
 pleasant ; and, as May ripens towards June, one sparrow 
 can comfortably speak good words even of the ^^ ^'^ 
 
 J r B BEST 
 
 sparrow. 
 
 ^He has desisted now from his aggravating habit 
 of plucking spring blooms to pieces, and the time 
 has not yet come for his devastating picnics by 
 thousands in the fields of ripening corn. In- 
 stead, he has become an exemplary and assiduous 
 destroyer of " noxious insects," 
 iFIt is true that, since insects prey freely upon 
 each other, and many eat only weeds or are use- 
 ful scavengers, it is often a cheque upon the 
 bank of ignorance that we draw to the credit of 
 insect-eating birds. Still, it is a relief to find the 
 sparrow with even a presumption of good work in 
 his favour ; and of all birds he seems willing to 
 make the largest sacrifice to parental duty. 
 ¥Inthe winter the sparrow will chirp hungrily round 
 a richly baited cage-trap, but will not enter. The 
 self-preserving instinct of ages bids him beware of 
 manifest human contrivances. But now, with a 
 family chirping hungrily at home, he flings selfish 
 prudence to the winds and is easily trapped. Such 
 sacrifice of self, as it seems, to a sense of duty 
 ennobles even the despised house-sparrow. 
 
 141 
 
SEASONS 
 
 May XX 
 THE ^^The seasons pass. Already we begin to regard 
 PASSING the rhubarb, the garden's first crop of the year, 
 °LJ^L ^^ almost " over," and most of the remnant is 
 now left in peace to send up great shoots of 
 dock-like blossom amid the huge, wrinkled leaves. 
 ^FVery soon the green gooseberry, which succeeds 
 the rhubarb, will lose its present charm of novelty, 
 and we shall watch the carmine tints creep over the 
 strawberries, where now the tufted plants in 
 ordered lines are only starred with wide, white 
 blooms. 
 
 iFAnd within a week of the hurrying strawberries, 
 the cherries, now. glistening like small green beads 
 among the relics of past bloom, will be ripe red and 
 yellow for midsummer. Then the year will 
 already have passed its longest day, and the calendar 
 will turn towards winter. 
 
 ¥But we may mock the calendar for months to 
 come, when the year fulfils the promise of a gra- 
 cious spring. Only now are the whitethroat's 
 flimsy cups of grass and hair beginning to hold 
 eggs under the shade of quick-growing nettles 
 tangled with the bramble ; only now do the soft 
 green ribbons of the reeds form shelter dense 
 enough for the reed-warbler's deep cradle slung 
 between their stems ; and in many mud nests 
 which are still a-building eggs have yet to be laid 
 from which two broods of swallows and martins 
 will be hatched, fledged, and flown before we say 
 good-bye to summer. 
 
 142 
 
May xxi 
 S^^When the winds of spring take a chill turn to when 
 north and east, the sheltered valleys of the far south- spring is 
 west are best. There between velvet-shouldered ^°^^" 
 
 TIMES 
 
 hills thelaughing stream splashes round the boulders, sweetest 
 on which the neat, white-fronted dippers sit to 
 sing, and swirls in the pools where the speckled 
 trout are lying. Not a whisper of the cold north- 
 east reaches those fern-draped ravines ; and where 
 the narrow valley widens into woodland glades, the 
 blue haze of wild hyacinths makes the ground 
 almost too glorious to tread upon. 
 iFHere, too, throng the early butterflies — damask 
 *' peacocks " with a starry eye on every wing, 
 " brimstones " flashing all pure, bright yellow amid 
 the blue, small " hair-streaks," with undersides of 
 amazingly vivid green, and "small coppers " shining 
 in the sun like burnished metal — rare gems of 
 holiday memory. 
 
 i?But the great tit's bell-like notes echo through 
 the coppice to-day, perhaps, for the last time this 
 year. As it was he who, in early February, seemed 
 to ring up the curtain for the merry play of spring, 
 so his is the first voice almost to drop from the full 
 choir of summer. The nightingale still sings, but 
 the seasons pass. 
 
 H3 
 
AND 
 YOUNG 
 
 May xxii 
 OLD ¥¥It is not for long in spring that the birds allow 
 BIRDS you to devote any attention to flowers and insects. 
 They are so full of excitement about their nests 
 that they cannot help whisking and fluttering about 
 in front of you, and unintentionally telling you that 
 if you look close into the hedge or herbage, you 
 will find something. 
 
 ¥Every little bird, even our friendly and familiar 
 robin, now flutters its wings so quickly in flight, 
 when near its nest, as to make a whirring sound, at 
 the same time spreading its tail so that you can 
 almost count the feathers. This is what makes the 
 chaffinches, with their white-barred wings, the 
 greenfinches, with their yellow-lined tails, or the 
 yellow-hammers with white outer-tail feathers, so 
 much more striking in flight during the nesting- 
 season than at any other time. 
 ¥And the absurd innocence of the young birds that 
 have left the nest makes them as interesting as their 
 fussy parents. Even the young sparrow who sits 
 fatly chirping for grubs on the top of a lilac-bush 
 is interesting. He never seems to think of looking 
 below ; and while he is perhaps childishly won- 
 dering what his parents on the water-pipe are so 
 excited about, you can stealthily tickle his beak with 
 a blade of grass ; when he will suddenly awaken to 
 the horror of the situation on discovering you at 
 the other end of the annoying grass-blade, and 
 whirr off^ in a great fluster of feeble wings, landing 
 " flop " upon a yew-bush and tumbling down in- 
 side. 
 
 144 
 
May xxiit 
 
 ^^Ev ERG KEEN shrubs and trees always figure in ever- 
 
 the mind as the " widow's weeds " of Nature — a greens 
 
 decently sombre consolation for the loss of departed !^,„„„ 
 _4, , , . , . , , . ^ J summer 
 
 joys. They may be costly and fashionably trimmed ; 
 
 but " funereal," " dark," and " dense " are always 
 the epithets which rise to the tongue in their 
 regard. 
 
 ^TYet, if all our foliage were evergreen, we should 
 still recognise spring and summer as the seasons 
 of bright flowers and leaves. What is it that 
 now transfigures some darkest shrubberies with a 
 gorgeous blaze of crimson and carmine ? That 
 gloomiest of evergreens, the rhododendron. What 
 was it, a month ago, that made a blaze of gold by 
 the rides in the covert ? That sturdy " rabbit- 
 proof" evergreen, the holly-leaved barberry. 
 ¥Jn park and avenue the brightest contrasts in 
 leafage now are the black-green of the holm oak 
 and its myriad new shoots, sometimes almost silver, 
 sometimes almost rosy pink. In the coppice the 
 indigo pines are lighted with pale tapers on every 
 needled twig, almost suggesting the horse-chestnut's 
 Whitsun glory ; and in the shrubbery the most 
 vivid streaks of tender green show where the laurel 
 sheets itself with fresh spikes of leaves. 
 ^Look where you will, at the dainty lacework of 
 cypress or juniper, the yew with thousand points of 
 tender bronze, or the bright emerald of the box, 
 and you see that our evergreens of winter are a 
 joy of summer too. 
 
 145 
 
CLUMSY 
 
 " may- 
 bug" 
 
 May xxiv 
 THE ^¥The cockchafer, who has made his super- 
 abundant appearance, as usual, at the end of the 
 third week, of May, is one of those insects which 
 you cannot overlook. As dusk falls on hedgerow 
 and shrubbery, you hear a heavy buzz and catch half 
 a glimpse of some dim object hovering over a bush. 
 There is a blundering rustle among the leaves, and 
 the object disappears. It is a cockchafer, seeking 
 green food or his lady-love with impartial clumsi- 
 ness ; but, as each of his six straggling legs is 
 double-hooked, clumsiness does not matter much 
 to him — he is sure to " fetch up " against some- 
 thing and hang to it. 
 
 ¥It matters a good deal, however, to others 
 sometimes ; for, although to " sport with the 
 tangles of Nerissa's hair " is not the amorous 
 cockchafer's deliberate scheme, yet, if Nerissa 
 paces the garden in the gloaming at the end of 
 May, she is more than likely to find the blunder- 
 ing beetle most effectually tangled in her tresses. 
 ¥For this reason cockchafers are as unpopular 
 with girls as with agriculturists — who call them 
 " May-bugs " as being the pests of May — and, but 
 for the owls and the rooks and the starlings, they 
 would soon lay waste the land. 
 
 146 
 
May XXV 
 ¥^The soft green fronds of the bracken are the 
 spreading wide in the glades, and the second act wood- 
 of the annual drama of the woodland opens. ^^^° ' 
 
 r TRANS" 
 
 ¥First came the dainty flowers of spring, blue ^orma- 
 violets and pale primroses, starring the soft earth, tions 
 which was then all velvet-green with the budding 
 points of later flowers ; and these have carried on 
 spring's scheme of colour music to a high crescendo 
 of vivid pink and white, deep hazy blue and pure 
 golden yellow. 
 
 i?Scarcely noticed at first, myriads of unopened 
 bracken-fronds, like fairy croziers of bronzy green, 
 were thrusting up among the flowers, which have 
 scarcely begun to set their seeds before the 
 uncurled bracken has spread a gracious canopy of 
 green above their withering petals. Denser and 
 higher will rise the tide of growing fern till from 
 tree-trunk to tree-trunk it spreads like a waist- 
 high sea of green. 
 
 ^The third act will come when the sunset hues of 
 autumn begin to glow in the dying bracken-fronds, 
 in every shade of copper, gold, and bronze ; and 
 the fourth will follow when the .brown and 
 broken litter of dead fern rustles to the stealthy 
 tread of the pheasant, listening to the beaters. 
 ^Under the sheltering wreckage of the old bracken 
 in winter, the early flowers will again mature their 
 forces for the coming spring, and thus the cycle 
 of wood life completes itself from year to year. 
 
 147 
 
HARVEST 
 
 May xxvi 
 summer's i?^Harvest treads close on the heels of the 
 FIRST sower ; for, while plough and harrow are still busy 
 on the few remaining brown squares in our chess- 
 board landscapes, the fields of rye-grass already 
 stand high and ripening for the haymaker. 
 ^?To the wild life of the country agriculture thus 
 becomes all change and revolution. Where to-day 
 the peewits are plaintively protesting, as they 
 vainly wheel and swoop round the inexorable 
 plough that is eating up their stronghold line by 
 line, thick cover of green turnips will stand in 
 winter, whence the huddled coveys of partridges 
 will be driven by as inexorable a line of beaters 
 over the boundary hedges to the hidden guns 
 behind. 
 
 iF Where the skylark now shrills joyously over his 
 hidden nest in the tall rye-grass, foreknowing 
 naught of the wreckage of his home that will soon 
 be wrought by the cutter's steel teeth as they lay 
 the hay harvest low — there, in winter, the under- 
 crop of clover will give food and shelter not only 
 to pur own skylarks, but to hundreds of migrant 
 larks from oversea, 
 
 ^Thus agriculture ever gives to the birds with one 
 hand what it takes with the other. 
 
 14B 
 
May xxvii 
 ^^By watching the busy flight of birds you can the 
 almost tell what week of the year this is ; for, as birds 
 they follow a natural order of precedence in build- *^^ ^^^^ 
 ing nests and laying eggs, so their young are 
 hatched in sequence ; and, when each nest becomes 
 a basket of gaping mouths, the parents have so 
 much urgent business in filling them that they 
 disregard all other considerations and spend their 
 days hurrying to and fro with food. 
 ^Thus, although you may now see a flock of 
 starlings seeking food in company, as in winter, 
 their manners are entirely changed. Then, on 
 the alarm of your appearance, the whole flock 
 would rise and wheel, as by some accurate 
 mechanism, to a distance : now, they are almost 
 too busy to notice you at all, but each bird, so 
 soon as he has filled his bill, rises alone and flies 
 in a bee-line to his distant nest. Often he passes 
 his mate on the way ; but, though they were an in- 
 separable couple six weeks ago, neither takes notice 
 of the other now. They are too busy. 
 i?So sparrows and goldfinches, jays, hawks, and 
 all the rest tell you what has happened in their 
 homes as plainly as if they advertised their 
 domestic occurrences in the newspapers. 
 
 149 
 
May xxviii 
 
 MISSEL- ^^Nature's young bird factory has been in full 
 
 THRUSHES blast long enough now for its output to be already 
 
 *''° conspicuous in the country-side. And first, 
 
 perhaps, we notice what a lot of missel-thrushes 
 
 there are about the fields ; for the missel-thrush 
 
 never attempts concealment, and when each nest 
 
 fires out its annual charge of fledged young you 
 
 see and hear them all. 
 
 iFWith up-tilted heads they hop boldly in different 
 directions all over the lawn, and at the first harsh 
 alarm of their parents they trail off in jarring 
 chorus to the shrubbery. In a few days those 
 parents will hunt them out of the garden to find 
 their living in the fields, but just now no solicitude 
 could be greater than theirs. 
 ^Pleasant it is to see how boldly the young robin, 
 though still very unlike a robin in his speckled 
 brown suit, takes up a beat of his own close to the 
 house and thrusts himself upon your notice with 
 just the same alert familiarity, the same cheery 
 " bob " and flirt of his tail, as characterised his 
 father before him. The cat, alas, could tell you 
 what has happened to his father ; but Nature 
 quickly fills up gaps. 
 
 150 
 
May xxix 
 ¥¥Though a fraction of an inch may not seem the 
 much in the expansion of a leaf or the prolonga- veil of 
 tion of a stalk, when it is multiplied by millions ™^ ^^■'^' 
 of millions in the day's growth of a single spinney, 
 the effect is that of a complete change of scene, 
 which one only realises from the way in which 
 familiar landmarks are covered by the rising tide 
 of life. Next winter the bare brown hedges will 
 be conspicuously blotted against the sky by birds' 
 nests in preposterously exposed positions, where it 
 will seem impossible that they could have been 
 overlooked by any passer-by ; but if you analyse 
 the leafy screen that hides, say, a whitethroat's 
 nest from view, you will find that none of its com- 
 ponent parts are meant to outlast the season. Its 
 task achieved in fertilised flower and ripened seed, 
 each plant-root below ceases to pump up supplies 
 through the long thin stem which it has sent up 
 with so much effort, and we do not notice how 
 strand by strand the lush growth withers, weakens, 
 and falls away, until in autumn a few browned 
 leaves, a few wisps of straw-like stalks, hang 
 limply on that solitary branchlet of thorn, which 
 holds out its empty bird's nest to your view as 
 obtrusively as a begging dish. " Fancy a bird 
 building in such a place as that," you say, yet had 
 you found it in mid-May you would have been 
 proud of penetrating the clever concealment. 
 
 151 
 
SPAR 
 
 row's 
 
 RISKS 
 
 May XXX 
 
 THE iF^The season of the young sparrow is now in 
 YOUNG fullest blast; and, though few of us love the spar- 
 row, fewer still can help watching sometimes with 
 interest the solicitude of the unwearied parents as 
 they stuff the greedy youngsters who hop after 
 them with shivering wings, and fill in the intervals 
 of their absence by chirping fatly for " more ! " 
 iPThat the wiliness of the sparrow in dodging 
 human devices has been recently acquired is shown 
 by the fact that the young sparrow inherits it not 
 at all. All birddom scarcely shows anything more 
 gullible and foolish than the yellow-gaped young- 
 ster who squats unsteadily upon bush or railing 
 and chirps aloud as you pass within a foot or two. 
 When he foolishly flies, you can knock him down 
 with your cap almost as easily as a cockchafer; and 
 if a village child at this season is not carrying about 
 a young sparrow in his hot hand it is only because 
 young sparrows quickly pall. They will eat almost 
 anything you give them, and die thereafter with 
 promptitude and despatch. 
 
 ^Thus the sparrows give hostages to fortune in- 
 deed, when they launch a brood into the world ; 
 and one might wonder that the birds should still 
 multiply. But three or four broods of four or 
 five each in a year leaves a large margin for 
 accidents. 
 
 152 
 
May xxxi 
 
 iP^FWiTH the hedges almost weighed down under the 
 their white billows of hawthorn blossom, the straw- season 
 berry-fields white-ribbed from end to end with^^^^ 
 abundant — almost too abundant — bloom, and the ^anes 
 mustard blazing in bright yellow squares among 
 the fields of various-tinted green, our cultivated 
 country looks almost brighter now than it will 
 even when the red clover and sainfoin haze the 
 valley-slopes with pink, and the corn glows golden 
 to harvest. 
 
 ^FNow, too, the multiplying white butterflies, 
 flickering to and fro like wind-blown scraps of 
 paper, herald the procession of painted insect life 
 which will follow in midsummer's train. 
 ^All the birds, however, are now declining some- 
 what from the bright, clean-cut colours of their 
 spring plumage of courtship and combat. The 
 speckle-breasted thrush on the lawn has dropped 
 two tones in colour since his greedy nest-brood 
 commanded hourly drudgery. The spruce blue 
 tit's azure shades seem all merged to dusky indigo 
 as he hurries on his business to fill half a score of 
 little gaping mouths. 
 
 iPBut of all birds perhaps the gap-winged rook 
 now shows most plainly the wear and tear of the 
 nursery, as, slow-flapping across the landscape, he 
 advertises his raggedness against the sky. Yet 
 rags may be the uniform of honour, as when a 
 man wears a shabby overcoat because — well, 
 because his boys have gone to school. 
 
 153 
 
'^une i 
 ^SfilDowN by the trout-stream to-day you may the 
 watch one of the miracles of the year. According u-lusion 
 to the latitude and longitude of your stream, the °^ , , 
 
 _ ,, , . , . . 9, ,.•', ' , DANCING 
 
 " ny that is " rismg may differ — south and pnEs 
 west being earlier and richer than north and east, 
 both in flies and trout — but suppose that it is 
 nothing better than the " black gnat." 
 ^A small, insignificant, two-winged fly this — very 
 different from the stately May-fly, sailing down 
 the dimpled water with four ample wings erect and 
 three divergent tails. Yet the trout know it and 
 love it — the *' fisherman's curse," because, when 
 it is on the water, the fish will take nothing else. 
 ^AU the way down the stream is ringed with the 
 splashes of rising trout, and the air shimmers 
 with the myriad dance of flies; but this is not the 
 miracle. 
 
 ^Watch them, and they pass like a stream of 
 whirling gold in the sunlight ; catch one in hand 
 or cap, and it is sooty black ! Look at them care- 
 lessly, and their dance varies from a mad Bac- 
 chantes' revel to a funeral procession; look carefully, 
 and the pace never changes. Fix your eyes on 
 one of them, and turn your head as it moves : they 
 are all going that way. Reverse the process, and 
 the procession seems to turn. It is all illusion 
 and miracle. 
 
 ^IS 
 
'June a 
 WOOD- ^k5ll WISH that a few acres of a wood that I know 
 LAND could be transferred to one of the London parks, 
 LovELi- jygj ^Q remind the multitude how lovely English 
 Nature can be. Yet the scene owes its beauty 
 almost entirely to some half-dozen well-known 
 English plants growing in natural profusion to- 
 gether. Wild hyacinths, of the intense deep blue 
 which some few soils produce, rose campion of 
 vivid pink, yellow archangel of brightest gold, 
 and starwort, snowy white, give the main tones of 
 colour; but here and there in patches the eye is 
 caught by the cool green of the leaves and graceful 
 white tracery of the bell-springs of lily of the 
 valley, and over all a feathery veil is spread — as 
 when a skilled florist graces his choice " arrange- 
 ments " with sprays of maidenhair or gauze-flower 
 — by the tall, upcurling fronds, just opening, of 
 the bracken; and down below are peeping up the 
 starry eyes of all the little creeping woodland 
 flowers, strawberry and potentil, ground ivy and 
 saxifrage, dog violet and yellow pimpernel. Above 
 this carpet of bloom are tangled mazes of wood- 
 bine and wild rose and hazel, bronze-yellow oak 
 and emerald lime, pillared with mighty conifers, 
 indigo-dark in hue, but lit at every point with 
 tapers of silvery shoots. 
 
 ^To stand there in the hush of the sunlight, while 
 only birds' cries break the stillness and butterflies 
 are the only moving things that catch the eye, 
 is to feel the rush of the full pulses of the joy 
 of life that used to drive the woodland heathen to 
 frenzied worship of great Pan. 
 
 156 
 
June Hi 
 =5tklNDiRECTLY to the rabbit we owe the blaze of thanks 
 tropical colour which now lights up many of our to the 
 woodlands more brightly from day to day ; for the "^^^b" 
 rhododendrons are coming into fullest bloom, and 
 it is less because they are beautiful than because 
 they are "rabbit-proof" that landowners now 
 plant them so freely in the glades and margins of 
 their coverts. 
 
 ^Perhaps there is no plant which a rabbit will not 
 sometimes injure with nibbling teeth ; but he dis- 
 likes the rhododendron as much as any, so that 
 it flourishes where otherwise only stinging nettles, 
 rank burdock and straggling elder might make a 
 stand. 
 
 ^From this point of view the masses of colour, 
 which break upon the view at each turn of the 
 glades in many preserved woodlands, are welcome ; 
 and they recall memories of sunny scenes in other' 
 lands. Yet they are unwelcome, too, because 
 they are un-English, and their magenta hues clash 
 with almost every natural colour of our groves. 
 And the dislike of the rabbit for the rhododendron 
 is shared by almost every wild thing that lives in 
 Britain, insomuch that where it dominates the 
 undergrowth you will hardly see the flicker of an 
 insect or hear the note of any bird. 
 
 157 
 
MALLARD 
 FADES 
 
 'June tv 
 THE ^Ji^SiThe glory of the mallard is departing; for this 
 handsomest of British birds annually undergoes, 
 as midsummer draws near, a debasement of plum- 
 age which almost parallels the old legend of 
 monarchs who, on some fateful day, were com- 
 pelled by fairy curse to doff their jewelled robes 
 and creep forth as ragged beggars, 
 ^Until a day or two ago the mallard — or wild 
 drake — was resplendent in the sunlight. His 
 glossy head and neck shone like pure emerald, 
 separated by a snowy ring from his ruddy breast 
 and flanks of lavender-grey, while his back and 
 wings and tail, with the saucily upcurled feathers 
 of his pride of sex, were a miracle of harmonies in 
 black and white and grey and steely blue. Now 
 the green of his head grows dull, his ruddy breast 
 is fading to sepia, and on his pearly flank blots of 
 dull brown are spreading. In a few days he will 
 be a dull-brown bird, dowdier almost than his 
 dowdy wife. Such wonders can Nature work when 
 the male who has flaunted in breeding plumage is 
 needed as an extra guardian of the nursery. 
 ^While only the safety of the idle male was 
 risked by his bright colours. Nature let him wear 
 them; but so soon as the precious family is con- 
 cerned he must olF with them at once. 
 
 158 
 
ADVEN- 
 TURE 
 
 ^Jt^PuNCTUALLY to the day almost the redshanks a baby 
 are leading their new-hatched young from the ked- 
 rough pastures to the salt marsh by the sea. ^h'^*"' ^ 
 Wonderful is it to see the long-legged babies, like , 
 little feather puffs on stilts, obediently sneaking by 
 secret ways, past village and farm, swimming the 
 dykes and scuttling across the high roads, while 
 their anxious parents overhead whistle encourage- 
 ment and advice. 
 
 =SlThe most anxious time is the passage through 
 the village and across the road, when the mother 
 redshank perches upon the roof of the reading- 
 room — where she looks queer enough with her 
 long legs — and, running excitedly up and down 
 the roof-ridge, calls out incessant directions to her 
 young below. The selection of this particular 
 roof is due apparently to the fact that the only 
 open pathway to the village road runs by the side 
 of the reading-room, and it is there that the young 
 ones in time appear and scuttle quickly across the 
 road into the park field beyond. Here, as a rule, 
 all serious peril is over ; but sometimes a village 
 cricket match unfortunately clashes with the red- 
 shanks' movement to the seaside, with the result 
 that in the midst of the game one of the little 
 fluff-balls, dodging between the fields, appears at 
 last on the pitch itself. The game is stopped 
 while it is caught and safely deposited in the ditch 
 by the hedge, down which its watchful parents 
 summon it by cautious signals to rejoin the family 
 at the corner of the pasture. 
 
 159 
 
LOWS 
 
 June vi 
 WHEN =5i^0ften, in early June, days of chilly winds recall 
 unwelcome memories of wasted " summers," sadly 
 at variance with the happy promise of May. That 
 it may be only a passing phase one always hopes, 
 but always doubts ; for cold north-easters in June 
 usually leave their mark upon the months to 
 follow. 
 
 =5|Upon bird life the effect of untimely cold winds 
 is seen at once : for, although the volume of song 
 hardly diminishes, one can see how ceaselessly the 
 swallows and martins are obliged to hawk for food 
 from dawn to dusk where any hedgerow gives 
 them shelter, and how closely they skim the ground 
 or the cold surface of some grey, rippling water for 
 chance-blown flies. 
 
 ^With them the swifts, whose squealing flight 
 aloft should be one of the most striking features 
 of summer evening life, are beating along, low, 
 slow, and silent, too much engrossed with their 
 overmastering need for food to have heart for 
 those noisy vespers which make them the " screech 
 owl " of many rustic folk. 
 
 ^Even the flycatcher must abandon his easy habit 
 of taking toll of the mazy insect life that danced 
 in the sunlight past his chosen perch, and must 
 closely quarter the waving grass on quivering wing 
 in search of anything that moves. 
 
 1 60 
 
yune vii 
 ^k^EvERY day now the noisy companies of young star- 
 starlings become a more marked feature of the i-ings 
 fields. They are not strong on the wing yet, and ^^ ^"^ 
 
 O Dy' ROUGH 
 
 exhibit none of that skill in aerial evolution which 
 makes their autumn squadrons at roosting-time 
 one of the wonders of wild life. Instead they fly, 
 slow and heavy, with a chorus of wheezy screeches 
 into the nearest hedge, and clumsily quit its shelter 
 by twos and threes, as you draw nearer, for some 
 not too distant tree. 
 
 ^But for the glossy speckled parents still in 
 attendance upon some of them you might be 
 excused for not recognising these drab, brownish 
 birds as starlings ; and not until the winter is 
 passing will any of them have sufficient sheen upon 
 their feathers to distinguish the purple-headed 
 Siberian starling from the green-headed " British " 
 race. 
 
 ^Like most young animals, however, they are not 
 particular as to their associates, so long as there 
 are plenty of them; and as one parent after 
 another drives oiF his young, with that sudden 
 revulsion of feeling which is natural to them, 
 though it would be " unnatural " in us, the mobs 
 of mixed, homeless youngsters grow to regiments. 
 By practice together they will acquire precision of 
 flight, and when the hosts of foreign starlings 
 come from oversea, all will be fit to take part in 
 the army-corps manoeuvres of autumn. 
 
 i6i 
 
'June via 
 
 FALLING ^StSiThe hawthorn bloom has lost its snowy purity, 
 
 FLOWER blushing dull pink where most exposed to the rude 
 
 GROWING '^^''^sses of the wind ; but, the brief heyday of 
 
 FRUIT love-time over, its petals seem all snowy pure 
 
 again as they drift like little snowflakes to the 
 
 ground and make a milky way down our trodden 
 
 lanes. 
 
 =5lOn this side of midsummer we reck little of 
 falling flower or leaf. Their places are soon 
 doubly filled and autumn's riot of the fruit of the 
 year is still far ahead. Yet many times already we 
 have seen the ground strewn with the rags of 
 Nature's changing fashions. Midspring was 
 scarcely past when the ruddy catkins of the 
 poplar lay, like fallen caterpillars, upon the path; 
 and the eddying wind whisked heaps of the dm's 
 papery green confetti down the avenue. Then 
 each fruit-tree let fall her bridaj veil of blossom 
 round her feet, and the evergreens, even the 
 sturdy holm oak, sent down their outworn leaves in 
 showers. 
 
 ^But we rightly disregard these changes ; for the 
 flower gives place to the growing fruit, the ever- 
 greens are radiant now with greener leaves, and, if 
 the "May" remained on the hawthorns, where 
 would be the winter berries for the birds? 
 
 162 
 
PAST AND 
 PRESENT 
 
 June ix 
 'JtSiHere and there haymaking has begun ; but hay 
 what a change in most places from the haymaking making 
 of thirty years ago ! For those who are now — '" 
 well — middle-aged, almost the happiest days of all 
 the country year were those when they used to 
 " help make the hay." In early youth such help 
 consisted mainly in burying playmates or being 
 buried — oh, the delicious smell of it I — under 
 piles of drying grass. Later, pretty faces under 
 sunbonnets, trim ankles and graceful poses had 
 much to do with the joy of helping to make the 
 hay. Later still, the splendid weather — it had to 
 be splendid weather then for making -hay — and 
 the scene of busy mirth for man, woman and 
 child made it a time of happy memory for the 
 older folk. 
 
 ^And now, where is the sweet fragrance which 
 the scented meadow-grass gave to new-mown hay .? 
 Most of the hay is a " crop " now, grown on 
 ploughed land, and there is no need of splendid 
 weather for its harvesting. If it is being cut in 
 places early in June, it means less that the season 
 is forward than that the farmer wants the second 
 crop to be ready in time to fatten the lambs for 
 market, and he wants no amateur " help " in his 
 haymaking. When he wants to cut it he cuts it 
 -^by machinery — and stacks it straightway. 
 ^Thus, to the older generation, the poetry passes 
 from the best phase of farm life, because — because 
 the farmer understands the prose side of his busi- 
 ness better now. 
 
 163 
 
'June X 
 GLORIOUS =Si=S|Flowery wastes and the knuckle-ends of cul- 
 wEEDs tivated fields on hilly, sandy soil are daily more 
 boldly flecked with the scarlet of scattered poppies. 
 Though they come singly, not yet in battalions, 
 these forerunners of July's poppy-hosts have 
 nothing of the spy about them. Each one flaunts 
 its scarlet flag to catch the passing eye as boldly 
 as when later it will stand in close-packed array 
 with its thousand comrades, splashing the landscape 
 in broad streaks and pools of red, and changing 
 the lush cornfields, viewed endwise of the furrows, 
 into the semblance of strange corduroy-velvet of 
 rich green and vivid red. 
 
 ^To the farmer the dazzling contrast seems no 
 more beautiful than the rich haze of bright yellow 
 which the hated charlock now spreads over other 
 luckless cornfields ; for the poppy Is a weed of the 
 worst, as little loved by man as by beasts, or birds, 
 or insects. 
 
 =5|It might seem strange that Nature, credited by 
 science with aesthetic effbrt to attract living things 
 by the hues of flowers, should lavish so much 
 glory on a poisonous weed ; but our own practice 
 of flaunting scarlet-red in flag or signal for 
 " Danger " suggests the real meaning of the 
 brightness of the poppy. 
 
 164 
 
"June xi 
 ^5tkAs midsummer draws near we daily get a better dead 
 idea of the activity of Nature's factory of bird life young 
 from its amazing output of young sparrows. It ^^'"^' 
 is not only the fledged youngster who sits, fatly 
 chirping, on bush or railing, in the satisfied in- 
 tervals when he is not following his parents for 
 food with shivering wings, but more especially the 
 young dead sparrow who has been thrown out 
 from the nest overhead that shows us by his 
 numbers how enormous the annual wastage of 
 sparrow life must be. 
 
 ^In every stage, from new-born nudity, save for a 
 scanty film of yellow down, to full nestling 
 plumage, the little corpses may be found beneath 
 the water-pipes every morning, and a glance shows 
 that in every case " internal troubles " were the 
 cause of death. Whether the stolen viands of 
 civilisation with which the sparrow freely plugs 
 the gullets of his young disagree with them, who 
 can say } But for a hardy bird, such as the 
 sparrow is always supposed to be, this annual 
 infant mortality is almost shockmg. 
 ^Yet I daresay if the farmer knew what special 
 victual caused the trouble he might be inclined to 
 leave lots of it about. 
 
 i6s 
 
ERED 
 FIRE- 
 WORKS 
 
 'June xii 
 rEATii- =5i^Now on a country ramble it behoves you to be 
 prepared for shocks, because at any moment in the 
 quiet corner of a field a pair of unsuspected par- 
 tridges may suddenly explode at your feet with a 
 flurry of wings and a tumult of screechy clucking 
 which make you feel for an instant as if you had 
 trodden upon an infernal machine. 
 ^Stand still for a moment, or you may do serious 
 damage. Of the two birds which so startled you, 
 one — the cock — will probably fly to some distance 
 and presently conceal himself in the herbage, while 
 the other, the more excited hen, will have dropped 
 again to the ground within a very few yards, where 
 she will run to and fro, hysterically cluttering and 
 drooping her wings as if wounded. 
 ^Now examine the ground before you and see 
 where the next step might have planted your foot. 
 At first you may see nothing; but presently a 
 little ball of spotted tawny fluff will catch your 
 eye, and another, and another — a whole dozen or 
 more of baby partridges obediently crouching 
 still as death. Though of little use against human 
 reason, what a splendid defence is this against the 
 partridge's natural enemies, who, dashing to seize 
 the seemingly crippled mother, overleap the help- 
 less brood, which thus escape unharmed ! 
 
 1 66 
 
June xiit 
 ■iSrkPERHAPS there is nothing prettier in the whole the fox's 
 range of English wild life than a vixen and her family 
 cubs at play. If you are lucky enough to drop 
 in upon the family party at a moment when the 
 father fox is at home too, his absurd attitude of 
 pretended aloofness adds to the humour of the 
 scene. You can see that every hair on the tail 
 that curls round his feet, as he sits haughtily at a 
 little distance, is stiff with pride in his progeny. 
 But he looks at the scenery, yawns, gives a lazy 
 lick at his shoulder, and then, when a gambol of 
 the youngsters brings them romping right up to 
 him, he looks down upon them with a sort of idle 
 curiosity, as if he was not quite sure, and did not 
 much care, what kind of creatures they might be. 
 Then he suddenly remembers an appointment — 
 to meet himself alone at the rabbit-warren — and 
 is off. Sometimes, of course, father fox unbends, 
 especially if mother happens to be out of the way, 
 and has a " rumbustious " game of romps with the 
 children on his own account, making believe that 
 they are a pack of foxhounds whom he is slaying 
 single-handed with consummate ease; but just when 
 the youngsters are emboldened to tug his tail, he 
 suddenly remembers his dignity, with a half-snarl 
 sends them all scuttling from him, and goes off 
 " on business." It is all very well for their mother 
 to lie on her back and let them lug her about like 
 a dead rabbit, but a dog fox must draw the line 
 somewhere. 
 
 167 
 
June xiv 
 "A voice^5|=S|One of the glories of the year has departed. 
 WHICH IS Though the soft south wind last night tempted 
 "'^^ one to loiter by the open window to listen to the 
 nightingale, the bird was silent ; and we shall not 
 hear his music again until May once more draws 
 near. We may hear his voice, indeed, in the 
 thickets by day for weeks to come, warning his 
 young to beware of man in tones that there is no 
 mistaking ; for Nature's humour has bestowed 
 upon this prince of singers and his wife almost the 
 harshest family croak in birddom, as if to emphasise 
 the loss of its sweetest music. 
 ^With the nightingale, the redstart ceases singing 
 too for the year, joining the great tit and the missel- 
 thrush in the growing conspiracy of silence which 
 henceforward will remind us, week by week, how 
 summer passes. The little goldcrest's silver trill 
 will be the next to go, and then the robin's cheery 
 carol will be hushed, though not for very long; 
 and before the end of the month both the whin- 
 chat and wood-warbler will probably be silent. 
 •SlYet it is only mistaken human sentiment which 
 interprets the silence of the singing birds for 
 sadness. Because happiness makes us sing, we 
 think the birds are glad when they are really 
 shouting challenges to each other. The silence 
 which follows sounds of quarrel marks the crown 
 of the year's life for the birds, the happy period of 
 peace and plenty. 
 
 i68 
 
'June XV 
 ^5|=S|In a day's travel by rail from north to south seasons 
 you seem to cover almost a month of summer, by the 
 This morning you may have picked with joy the ^'^^^ 
 " first wild rose " of the northern year, a dainty 
 pink-tipped bud just opening into perfect outline ; 
 but, as the train speeds south, you notice many 
 hedges starred with single flowers. Further south 
 long trails of clustered blooms hang on each wild 
 rose-bush ; and, when you reach your destination, 
 some one may say : " Wild roses ? Oh yes, 
 plenty; but you ought to have seen them last 
 week," 
 
 ^Or it may be the elder, which now in the Mid- 
 lands is completing its lavish display of flat discs 
 of creamy white, but in the north scarcely yet has 
 any clustered buds paling to bloom, while in the 
 south already the largest bunches have grown dull 
 and ragged, showing plainly the little green fruit 
 that are destined to provide a riotous purple feast 
 for the gabbling, gobbling birds. 
 ^Thus, when all life in bird and plant races along 
 on the flood-tide of summer, this little record of 
 the country, day by day, must sometimes seem too 
 slow for south, too fast for north; but later, when 
 the tide has turned and migrant birds bring tidings 
 of coming winter, then the north will lead the 
 south. 
 
 169 
 
BIRDS 
 NURSERY 
 
 June xvi 
 THE =iSr5cEvERY day now the number of speckled eggs, 
 SHORE- sprinkled over the shingly spits where the terns 
 breed, diminishes; but walking there is no less 
 difficult. The spotted down of the crouching 
 youngsters among the pebbles is every whit as 
 hard to distinguish as were the speckled eggs. 
 Indeed, as the latter were grouped in twos or 
 threes in some sort of apologies for nests, the 
 eye became sooner accustomed to detect them 
 before one's feet than the day-old balls of fluff 
 which have crawled in different directions from 
 the " nest " and are lying separately in nooks 
 between the pebbles that they so curiously mimic 
 in colouring and size. 
 
 ^And when you have trained your eye to discover 
 the olive-tinted fluff of the young common tern, 
 you almost plant your foot upon a baby lesser tern 
 with tawnier fluff and smaller freckles, while 
 scarcely two feet off may be crouching an infant 
 ringed plover, beautifully marbled and banded 
 with greys and buff and white, all blending into 
 the exact colouring of the shingle. 
 ^Delightful it would be to sit there and watch the 
 stones around you gradually taking life as fluffy 
 little baby birds ; but there are still eggs in plenty, 
 which would be growing cold. So you pass, 
 stepping very carefully, from the wonders of this 
 shore-bird's nursery by the sea. 
 
 170 
 
June xvii 
 ^^Wading knee-deep among the tall-grown farm- 
 buttercups, which shimmer like a golden mist horses 
 over the rich half-grazed pastures, the lazy sleek *^ ^^*^ 
 farm-horses give a finishing-touch to the sleepy 
 summer landscape. For the last turnip-field is 
 sown and, while the men are hoeing the growing 
 crops, slow-moving dots in a waving sea of green, 
 the horses are left idle; and they loll about the 
 gates in the intervals of day-long grazing, like 
 boys whose holidays hang heavy on their hands. 
 ^Like boys, too, they are always ready for riot 
 and mischief. They mob the milkman's donkey, 
 which has strayed into the pasture, and goad it into 
 an unaccustomed canter, following with a thunder 
 of heavy hoofs till the milkman intervenes with 
 lusty whip-cracks. Then they scatter, with up- 
 flung heels glinting in the sunlight, and, presently 
 discovering a newly painted gate, they must all 
 leave long toothmarks on it. One group have 
 found a soft place in the bark of the old willow 
 and are trying to gnaw it naked, while others 
 wander round the farmhouse fence, stretching to 
 reach the plants within. If it is only a branch of 
 resinous pine, they munch with glee to get such 
 unusual food. 
 =SlYes, cart-horses on a holiday are very like boys. 
 
 171 
 
TRAGEDY 
 
 June xviii 
 A PART- ^^fiiFiELD after field of hay has been shaven bare, 
 RIDGE and the first field-crop is being harvested. 
 
 ^But it is not only the hay that has fallen before 
 the horsed cutter that, with remorseless rattle of 
 steel teeth, eats up the field in narrowing circles. 
 The instinct which bids the partridge trust to the 
 protective mottling of her plumage was formed in 
 days before man used to lay out tempting breeding- 
 haunts with grass, sainfoin and clover, only to 
 cut them close with steel. So the partridge sits 
 close as the roar and the rattle of machinery, which 
 has passed her more than once already, draws near 
 and loud again. Perhaps because she was unlucky 
 with her first nest this year — which some yokel 
 poacher discovered in its roadside nettle-bed — she 
 is determined to risk all now. So, though the 
 noise comes very near and very loud this time, 
 she crouches still as death while the heavy 
 hoofs of the horses pass her safe on either side. 
 The next instant all is over, and some one behind 
 the machine picks up what was a living partridge 
 from the wreckage of her nest. 
 
 172 
 
f^. 
 
 X 
 
 Q 
 
 < 
 
 o 
 z 
 
 o 
 o 
 >■ 
 
"June xtx 
 ^St^cPeRhaps nothing is more fascinating to watch the 
 than the dinner of a family of blue tits — ten or blue 
 eleven delicious little atoms in delicate shades of "^ ' 
 grey-green, blue-grey, and yellow, with beaks like 
 glaziers' diamonds, and tails of corresponding tini- 
 ness at the other end ; all the rest fluff. Promoted 
 from the cramped nursery, where ten or eleven of 
 them managed to squeeze into room for two, they 
 exhibit their sense of freedom by sitting well apart, 
 no two on the same branch. But they have as yet 
 no more practical notion of the way to get a dinner 
 than to shout for it ; and it is a pleasant chorus of 
 little scissor-sharpening cries that they raise every 
 few minutes. This means that one or other of 
 their bright pairs of eyes has caught sight of a 
 returning parent ; and the marvel is, that so very 
 small a beak as the blue tit's can carry something in 
 the insect line for each of the family. Neatly as an 
 acrobat the old bird flits and tumbles from branch 
 to branch and twig to twig, knowing exactly where 
 each of the children is sitting, and popping some- 
 thing into the beak of each. And before the dis- 
 tribution is over the other parent has arrived, and 
 is unloading her beakful of atoms down the line. 
 No wonder that little blue tits get so fat, and take 
 such perky views of life. 
 
 ^73 
 
'June XX 
 BUTTER- iJt^iWiTH mid-June passed, the heyday of the 
 ^^^ butterflies begins ; and in quick succession our 
 
 SUMMER flQ^gry haunts are tenanted by new flickering 
 shapes which seem almost flowers on wings. 
 ^Hitherto, with the exception of the "whites" and 
 some worn survivors of last year, the butterflies in 
 evidence have been few and small ; but now the 
 first broods of ruddy tortoiseshells begin to sun 
 the glories of their chequered wings, brand-new 
 from Nature's mint of gold and copper. Her 
 silver, too, is seen in the spots and splashes that 
 glitter on the undersides of the fritillaries,, which 
 now sail across the sunlit glades on wide tawny 
 pinions. 
 
 ^Over the flowers that stand thick among the 
 scented meadow-grass, the meadow brown begins 
 to dance at random, now spreading its eyed brown 
 wings broadly to your view, and now shutting 
 them with a snap, to mimic the veined buffs and 
 umbers of a withered leaf. 
 
 ^White butterflies of sorts we seem to have always 
 with us ; but not until these common " browns " 
 flutter beside our steps on field-path or wayside 
 bank, and the little " blues " shimmer over the 
 sunlit grass like scraps of fallen sky, do we realise 
 that the fulness of summer has come. 
 
 174 
 
June xxi 
 ^Sl^EvEN in the first flush of breeding excitement disturb- 
 in spring the skylarks were scarcely as vociferous ance and 
 as to-day, where the hay-fields have been shorn to ^^"'^ 
 stubble. One would almost think that, as their 
 earlier music throbbed to the quick pulse of spring's 
 new life, so now they sing thanksgiving for a 
 harvest gathered in. 
 
 ^But, like the toad under the harrow, the skylark 
 often sees the seamy side of agriculture. What is 
 merely the hay harvest to us is widespread revolu- 
 tion and catastrophe for him. Inexorable machines 
 have swept away the whole wide forest of grass 
 and clover amid which he nested, leaving a bare 
 yellow expanse with no landmarks to guide him to 
 the spot which was his home. All his neighbours 
 are in like predicament, and hence shrill challenge 
 and counter-challenge fill the sky all day, and even 
 at evening's dusk each haycock has its perched 
 lark, volubly asserting his claim to the surrounding 
 yards of stubble-grass. 
 
 ^With the first pale halo of dawn he will be up 
 and singing again ; and, as his music now almost 
 rings the day, so it is of special interest now as 
 almost circling the calendar. If he is not silent in 
 late summer, his girdle of silver song may run 
 unbroken round the years. 
 
 175 
 
CUCKOO S 
 NURSES 
 
 June xxii 
 THE ^5r5|A BIRD, which might be a hawk were it more 
 YOUNG ^ alert in attitude, sitting low on the ground like a 
 dove, but lacking the symmetry of outline which 
 stamps all the pigeon tribe — this new visitor to our 
 garden might be puzzling but for the simultaneous 
 arrival of a dapper water-wagtail, which exhibits 
 passionate devotion to it, running hither and thither 
 to catch flies for it. Of course the other must be 
 a young cuckoo, its foster-child. 
 ^iScThere is a good deal of absurdity in the situation ; 
 for the collected flies are so very small for so large 
 a mouth and are so ungraciously received. The 
 service, however, is evidently attractive ; because 
 sometimes you may see other small birds than the 
 foster-mother volunteering their assistance to feed 
 the overgrown youngster. 
 
 =^What is the charm by which the greedy young 
 cuckoo compels strange birds to bring him food ? 
 Probably it lies in his voice, which is one of those 
 sounds, like the chittering of bats and the needle- 
 pipe of the goldcrest, which all ears are not 
 attuned to hear. It has, perhaps, a note of appeal 
 that every bird recognises as the primeval accent 
 of helpless young. 
 
 176 
 
yune xxiii 
 ^SfiiAs midsummer arrives, those insects which are insect 
 nuisances to man and beast begin to assert them- "uis- 
 selves. Your picnic in the shady wood is half-*^'^^^ 
 spoiled by the host of flies which assemble from all 
 quarters to the viands and fill in the time between 
 courses by parading upon your features. They do 
 - not bite ; but their tickling is offensive. 
 ^In the avenue's dappled shade you are constantly 
 worried by filmy nothings, which keep you busy, 
 brushing their impalpable persons from nose or ear. 
 Sometimes a sharp sensation, as of a slight needle- 
 prick, enables you to locate one of the offenders 
 upon the back of your neck — a thin, pale, sulphur- 
 coloured atom of the most harmless appearance. 
 ■^lEven more harmless, as being practically invisible 
 to the naked eye, appear the forerunners of July's 
 plague of tiny harvest-mites, until they have bur- 
 rowed beneath your skin and raised an irritating 
 pimple. 
 
 =ScThe midges already in some sheltered districts 
 amount almost to a plague ; while the dilettante 
 mosquitoes of the waterside trifle painfully with 
 the lobe of your ear, your little-finger joint, or 
 your ankle ; and, almost worse than all, the " biting 
 fly," in twos and threes, begins to remind you now 
 how unwise it is to loiter where cattle graze. 
 ^Thus the country has its drawbacks at mid- 
 summer. 
 
 177 
 
 M 
 
"June xxiv 
 DUST AND =5i=ScWhen day follows day, ot sunshine and 
 SUGAR summer heat, the roadside herbage flags more and 
 more, and everywhere within a fifty-yard margin 
 of the tract of the flying motor-car we have a very 
 dusty country-side. 
 
 ^And what makes the dust peculiarly conspicuous 
 in such sunny seasons is the stickiness of foliage in 
 general, owing to the amazing output of Nature's 
 sugar-factory through the myriad machinery of 
 " blight," as the " aphides " of the naturalist or 
 " green fly " of the gardener are best known. 
 ^Under lime-trees or sycamores especially, even 
 the pavement of towns is finely sprayed with tiny 
 specks of sugar or "honey-dew," and in places it 
 has fallen from the leaves in solid, collected drops. 
 The leaves themselves are shiny to the eye and 
 sticky to the touch — sweet also to the tongue if 
 you choose to taste their surface — and it is no 
 wonder that the ancients held the fall of honey-dew 
 for an annual mystery and miracle. 
 ^To find the cause, look at the undersides of the 
 leaves. Here the fat green blight reside and 
 multiply, ejecting at intervals from special tubes 
 tiny drops of sugar essence, which sprinkle the 
 leaves below, and sometimes, carried wide by the 
 wind, seem to have fallen from the very sky upon 
 the ground beneath. 
 
 178 
 
°June XXV 
 ^SfilApTER a week of summer drought the welcome lady- 
 rain seems almost to have brought back the birds 
 spring ; for all the trees have jumped up several **"' 
 tones in colour and the roadside hedges, freed 
 from the clinging film of dust which has been 
 thickening upon them for many days, seem 
 radiantly green in contrast with the starry summer 
 flowers, whose rain-gemmed petals gleam more 
 brightly after every shower. 
 
 ^From lime and sycamore and fruit-trees of many 
 kinds the rain has washed the sticky honey-dew 
 which clogged the leaf-pores and collected all the 
 impurities of the dusty air ; so we are apt to thank 
 the rain for clearing away the " blight." But our 
 real friends in this regard are the minute and 
 multitudinous creatures whose special role in life 
 is to prey upon the aphides. These, multiplying 
 thickly upon the undersides of the leaves, are 
 scarcely reached by the rain ; but turn up some 
 blight-infested leaves and you will almost surely 
 find a small greyish, crocodile-shaped creature 
 which lives among and upon the aphides, eating 
 many daily and wandering presently to other 
 leaves in search of new colonies to devour. 
 Where, a month hence, we shall note the abun- 
 dance of spotted ladybirds, we shall recognise the 
 same destroyers in their perfect shape, winged and 
 beautiful, but as beneficently ravenous as ever in 
 appetite for " blight." 
 
 179 
 
SORTS 
 
 'June xxvi 
 
 =k^lN the close sultriness that follows after 
 CATCHERS summer rain, Nature's factory of life works again 
 °^ *^^ at double speed. You can almost see the bracken- 
 fronds uncurling — on a warm night you can hear 
 them quite plainly pushing back the rustling dead 
 fronds of last year. By day the damp earth steams 
 with rising insect life, and almost every bird 
 becomes a flycatcher. The sparrows jostle 
 vulgarly upon the lawn, and overhead the star- 
 lings rise, with quick wingbeats, upwards after the 
 soaring new-born fly, swoop upon it, perhaps 
 several times before they effect a capture, and 
 then with spread wings glide triumphantly down 
 again to their look-out on chimney-pot or tree- 
 top. But the daintiest of the flycatchers, almost, 
 are the tiny wild ducklings which have ventured 
 out from the reeds that fringe the still, wide dyke. 
 Its surface looks almost oily with the shimmer of 
 rising life, of gnat larva, beetle, and water-flea ; 
 and the little ducklings can hardly dip their bills 
 quickly enough to do justice to the good things 
 around them. Now and then a fatter prize will 
 excite them to make swift oaring scurries over the 
 water, several ducklings converging upon the 
 doomed insect ; and then suddenly at a warning 
 "quack" from the mother, who has seen you 
 peeping, every duckling disappears. Each has 
 dived where it happened to be, and not a ripple of 
 water will show where any of them stealthily come 
 to the surface again under the shelter of grass-tuft 
 or water-leaf. 
 
 1 80 
 
'June xxvii 
 'SeSiTHERE is seldom doubt in April as to the day the 
 when you first hear the cuckoo. He is the silent 
 authentic herald of the spring ; and in the pause '^"'=*^°°'' 
 which follows some one's exclamation, " Hark ! the 
 cuckoo ! " thronging memories of pleasant bygone 
 days fill the mind. But as June draws towards its 
 end we may hear the cuckoo for the last time 
 without particular attention ; and, amid many 
 distractions, a week perhaps may pass before we 
 realise the summer silence of the bird of spring. 
 =ScWhen, too, as often happens, he hardly " changes 
 tune " more in June than in April, the cessation of 
 his two old notes is the more unnoticed because 
 the less expected. But least observed perhaps of 
 all his actions is his departure for southern 
 climes. 
 
 =ScUnlike the swallows, who prolong the pathos of 
 parting by lingering into chilly autumn and adver- 
 tise their going during many weeks by conspicuous 
 assemblages on roofs and wires, the silent cuckoo 
 slips unobtrusively away with the first touch of 
 northern chill in the summer winds, not waiting 
 even till his children are fledged. 
 ^Some of these are still squatting, fat and froglike, 
 in nests several sizes too small for them ; and 
 others are leading their undersized foster-parents 
 about with incessant calls for food. That in due 
 course these young cuckoos should leave the 
 birds that have fed them and lake wing for the 
 far south alone is one of the chief wonders of 
 migration. 
 
 181 
 
ING LIME 
 
 'June xxviii 
 THE ^5t5eTHE flowering of the limes makes these late 
 FLOWER- June days the sweetest of the year. Insignificant 
 " " '"'" little greenish-yellow blossoms, hanging in couples 
 from papery labels — which, later, will come slowly 
 twiddling down with every breath of wind, carry- 
 ing the twin seeds slantwise over a wide area — the 
 bloom of the lime makes no boast of beauty. But 
 its delicious fragrance scents the summer wind 
 over many an acre ; and the insects need no 
 flaunting petals to guide them where true sweet- 
 ness lies. 
 
 ^When the midsummer sunshine is filtered softly 
 through the translucent green of the lime's great 
 pyramid of foliage, the multitudinous roar of the 
 honey-seeking bees overhead seems almost to 
 change the wide-spread branches into architectural 
 tracery of some cathedral of Nature, whose million 
 worshippers' voices blend into a vast hymn which, 
 like the moaning of the still sea on a shelving 
 coast, or the chaunting of the night-wind among 
 the silent pines, attunes the mind to larger 
 thoughts than can be linked with mere enjoyment 
 of the hour. 
 
 ^Sticky with honey-dew in drought, untidy in 
 autumn with its early-falling leaves, by nobility of 
 foliage and passing sweetness the lime compensates 
 for such demerit a hundredfold. 
 
 182 
 
AND THE 
 THISTLE 
 
 'June xxix 
 'StkiN the old pasture, brown-tinged after many the 
 days of summer heat, only the thistles look fresh farmer 
 and green, tufted with pale purple blossom, to 
 which the butterflies and the bees come thronging. 
 Later, when the purple bloom will have changed 
 to silky down, goldfinches, pretty and dainty as 
 butterflies themselves, will come flickering over 
 the thistle-heads, in twittering family parties which 
 are a joy to see. 
 
 ^But the wise farmer has no wish to enjoy the 
 sight ; so to-day old men and boys may be seen 
 wandering singly about the pastures laying the 
 thistles low. 
 
 ^This process, in the course of years, has the 
 curious result of causing large spaces of ground to 
 be sprinkled over with thistles of one sex only. 
 For the thistle that is the farmer's bane is the 
 creeping thistle, which has two sexes, and re- 
 quires the agency of insects to produce its seed. 
 This the farmer prevents by cutting down the 
 thistles in their prime ; though he cannot prevent 
 the clumps from spreading annually by shoots 
 running underground. Thus in time a large 
 tract of ground may become covered with female 
 thistles and a neighbouring strip with male thistles, 
 each a colony of offsets from a single plant. 
 Between them, with the aid of bees they would, if 
 the farmer permitted, produce enough thistle-seed 
 to infect the whole parish. 
 
 183 
 
WOOD 
 
 WREN 
 
 yune XXX 
 THE JOY %S(The last day of a "real June" — a month of 
 OF JUNE roses and strawberries, when day after day you 
 AND THE (.Qyij gj(. j^ jj^g goft green shade of some wide- 
 
 wonn- 111 
 
 spreadmg tree and look out m supreme content 
 with half-closed eyes upon hazy vistas of sunlight 
 shimmering with insect life and laced by the wavy 
 flight of swallows skimming far and near, while 
 somewhere, high beyond the green shade overhead, 
 the ceaseless skylarks wound and unwound their 
 chains of silver song. 
 
 ^But, haunting the arched shade with you, the 
 wood-wren seems the fairy spirit of the scene. 
 Graceful as the darting swallow, though his flights 
 are short, musical as the soaring skylark, though 
 his song is only one high trill that dies upon the 
 ear, this dainty woodland mite charms with every 
 pose and note and movement. Now tiptoeing on 
 one leaf-stalk to reach another, now poised on 
 q;xivering wings to peep under a hanging leaf, now 
 darting like an arrow upon a disturbed fly, or 
 running mouselike along the tracery of twigs, 
 spilling his joyous music as he goes, the wood- 
 wren in forester green and buff^ is the very bird- 
 soul of the scenes he haunts. 
 =SlYet his song to-day may be the last of the year ; 
 for in July he must lead his new-fledged young 
 through thicket and glade, until by daily practice 
 their weak wings gain strength for the great 
 autumn journey over southern lands and sea. 
 
 184 
 
July i 
 iPiFBy the slow stream which winds and turns the 
 where covert and pasture meet — where munching Reign 
 cattle lounge together in the willows' shade and °'^ ^^^'^^ 
 the lordly cock pheasant, like a jewelled bird in sweet • 
 bronze, basks on the sunward slope — a new scent 
 fills the air. 
 
 ^For the meadowsweet is blooming by the margin 
 of the stream, and the still valley seems drugged to 
 sleep with its strong fragrance. 
 ¥In creamy billows of soft bloom it breaks along 
 the lush pasture-bank ; and the marshy corner of 
 the covert — " Woodcock corner " it will be again in 
 winter — is heavy with the perfume of its clustered 
 flowers. 
 
 ^Tempting to gather is the meadowsweet, but in 
 a hot human hand it soon flags and the strong 
 odour palls. Better to leave it in its creamy pride, 
 as queen of the July stream-side and dyke, where 
 the heaven's blue of forget-me-not mimics the sky 
 and the water-crowfoot stars the still backwater — 
 where the watercress sheets its massed growth with 
 snowy bloom and the ragged robin flaunts its 
 bright pink tatters. 
 
 ¥Here, where the starry water-bedstraw creeps and 
 twines over the shallows and the yellow waterlily 
 floats its cups of gold, queen meadowsweet will 
 reign in beauty for many weeks. 
 
 185 
 
July ii 
 FLOWER- ^iFThe pale-plumed barley is flowering, and the 
 iNG CORN wind, which marks its wavy course in silvery 
 ^^'^ ripples from hedge to hedge, performs its useful 
 
 SHIFTING ^ O ' i 
 
 p^RT- office in carrying pollen from flower to flower, A 
 RIDGES week ago the upstanding wheat began to ask the 
 same kind service of the summer wind, and in a 
 day or two the oats will need it too. But good 
 rains will still be welcome to the farmer, to start 
 each young grain swelling from its birth. 
 ^Meanwhile the hay has been harvested ; and 
 from the clean-shaven grass-stubbles — wide yellow 
 squares in the chessboard landscape — the pro- 
 testing partridges have drifted into the corn. 
 Thence at harvest the watching gamekeeper will 
 count the strong-grown coveys taking refuge in 
 the green turnip-fields, whence in autumn they wili 
 be driven to the guns. Thus most of the part- 
 ridges' lives begin, and end. 
 
 iPYet, thanks to sportsman and gamekeeper, it is 
 a safe and happy life for two-thirds of the year. 
 That his wife is not murdered on her nest by stoat 
 or weasel, and that he can crow his creaky challenge 
 in mid-field at all hours of the day without fear of 
 sudden death from passing bird or beast of prey is 
 no small debt that the summer partridge owes to 
 those who, a few months hence, will be compassing 
 his end. 
 
 i86 
 
July in 
 ¥^Now the fallow-deer are happy with their new- park life 
 born fawns ; and pleasant it is at night to hear in july 
 the quaint nursery language in which mothers and 
 children assure themselves of each other's presence. 
 " Barking and mewing " perhaps best describes the 
 calls of does and fawns ; but both barks and mews 
 are rather those of toy animals when you squeeze 
 their stands than of real dogs and cats. 
 S?By day, too, the deer cry almost incessantly ; but 
 then their voices merge in the sleepy cawing of the 
 rook, the pleasant querking of the jackdaws, and 
 the long-drawn monotone of the cooing ring-dove. 
 ^The rooks show their rich gloss of purple as 
 they waddle solemnly over the grass, or lie to 
 sun themselves in those loose-feathered attitudes 
 which seem peculiar to the rook, making him look 
 as if he had put on a suit of plumage two sizes too 
 big for him. Now and again a father rook con- 
 descends to find a worm for his hulking youngsters 
 who are lolling about on the grass ; and they come 
 scuttling and fluttering up with wings outspread in 
 absurdly cringing attitudes to receive the food. 
 "^1 may have been mistaken, but sometimes I think 
 I have seen an old rook, after feeding a youngster, 
 deliberately wipe his beak on his son's head, re- 
 minding one of the Indian frontier Rajah who, at 
 a patriarchal durbar, beckoned to one of his 
 courtiers, and when the man, delighted at this 
 token of favour, came up, the Rajah quietly took 
 the tail of his turban, blew his nose upon it and 
 dismissed him, and then proceeded with affairs of 
 State. 
 
 187 
 
COUNTRY 
 " SEA- 
 
 July iv 
 TOWN ^¥DwELLERS in cities, whither the converging 
 channels of the world's commerce bring supplies 
 from every land, lose some of our country joy 
 in the recurring seasons of good things. Where 
 for months to eat strawberries has only involved 
 a question of cost, you cannot realise the ecstasy 
 of the firstplateful of huge, crisp strawberries from 
 the garden. 
 
 ¥And as the strawberry season wanes the green 
 pea season spreads a new wave of satisfaction over 
 the land from south to north, long after so-called 
 green peas have grown stale in the bills of fare of 
 cities. 
 
 iFBut cities have their compensations in this se- 
 quence of dainties. If you ask a country gardener, 
 " What comes after green peas ? " he will probably 
 answer, " Hawfinches." For the hawfinch is a 
 bird which, thirty years ago, was so rare that few 
 knew it except from pictures or museum speci- 
 mens, but is now so common in most places that 
 a garden must be poor indeed in peas if the haw- 
 finch does not come to devour them, bringing his 
 remarkably hungry family with him. 
 iFSo to-day rows of empty pods hang where the 
 gardener had confidently expected to fill another 
 basket ; and no doubt there is sometimes advantage 
 in dining where you need not fear to hear the 
 waiter say, " Beg pardon, sir ; but the 'awfinches 
 'as 'ad the peas." 
 
 i88 
 
°July V 
 ¥^The birds' choir dwindles daily now; and the the 
 growing silence of the song-thrush leaves, earlier ^'^"^ 
 than usual, a widening gap in the country's sounds ™^ 
 which nothing else can fill. Compared with this silent 
 loss one hardly misses the rollicking refrain of the now 
 chaffinch, though there was a time in spring when 
 the cheery greeting, " Tol-lol-lol-lol-gingerbeer," 
 seemed the very essence of the happy promise of 
 the year. 
 
 i?Scarcely noticed, too, the lesser whitethroat in 
 a day or two will cease its little, liquid song, and 
 slink in silence through the thickets; while its 
 young learn how to forage on the march, in 
 preparation for the day when Nature will mobilise 
 the migrant hosts. 
 
 ^FThe tree-pipit is another prospective traveller, 
 whose iterated ringing notes, as he soars aloft and 
 descends on upspread wings, may be heard perhaps 
 in his nesting-haunts for the last time to-day. 
 5pThe sadness of the shrinking music exists, how- 
 ever, only in human sentiment. To the birds it 
 means peace from strife, with plenty for young 
 and old in the rich harvest of the year. In drear 
 November, when times grow hard and a hunting- 
 ground is worth fighting for, the song-thrush will 
 sing again, but not for joy of the season. Why, 
 then, should his silence seem sadness in bright 
 
 July? 
 
 189 
 
PIGEON S 
 MARRIED 
 LIFE 
 
 July vi 
 THE ^^FWhen the July morning stillness still holds 
 WOOD- the quiet landscape, besides the glossy rooks which 
 dot the pasture, soft purple-grey wood-pigeons are 
 sprinkled over the grass. These, you will observe 
 with regret, are generally in parties of three ; for 
 the dove which lives in poetry as the type of 
 married constancy is always making love to some 
 one else's wife, and you seldom see a pair of ring- 
 doves feeding long in the open before they are 
 joined by a tertium quid, who pesters the 
 female with his attentions. He makes queer little 
 runs and skips towards her, bowing ceremoniously 
 with puffed neck to the ground, while he emits 
 that long-drawn coo, which, heard in the distance, 
 we imagine to be some lonely, constant dove 
 crooning over her eggs; whereas it is really the 
 shameful advertisement of a rampant flirtation, 
 SFAnd, if the whole sad truth must be told, the 
 pestered female rather seems to like it; for, in 
 spite of the manifest annoyance with which her 
 husband draws himself up and grunts at the other 
 fellow's impudence, she insists upon walking, 
 though with great show of innocent search for 
 little snails, always in the direction of the pesterer. 
 ¥As the sun rises to midday heat, however, the 
 doves seek the shade of their several tree?, and 
 then it is the husband's turn, for you can hear that 
 deep monosyllable repeated twice in every two 
 seconds, with which mated doves assure each other 
 of their devotion to their home and to each other. 
 
 190 
 
PLOVER- 
 KIN 
 
 July vii 
 ^^ Amazing may be the cleverness of the young catch 
 terns in hiding among the sea-grass and pebbles, ing a 
 but the young ringed plovers, which are reared on 
 the same beach, are more entertaining than the 
 young terns. They add to an even greater skill 
 in hiding behind nothing an amazing turn of speed 
 when discovered, going off on their long legs like 
 a bit of thistledown on stilts. If by chance you 
 should come upon a family of ringed plovers out 
 upon the sand-flats, where there are not even pebbles 
 to sit behind, it is worth while sending a small boy 
 to try to catch one. On his approach the old birds 
 fly off and the young scatter, and the fun begins. 
 ^?Selecting his quarry, the boy easily overtakes it 
 and gets within stooping distance, and there for 
 a hundred yards he remains, the amazing twists 
 and doubles of the little creature on the smooth 
 sand always enabling it to avoid the outstretched 
 fingers by a few inches. It is like trying to catch 
 a hat on a windy day, if you imagine that the hat 
 always, instead of only now and then, made a fresh 
 spurt in a new direction just as the fingers were 
 closing on it. 
 
 ^PThe longest chase has an end, however ; and when 
 the young plover has been caught and inspected, 
 not the least amusing part of the episode is its con- 
 clusion, when you put the little fellow down on the 
 sand, and he goes straight off with a stilted air, 
 comically expressive of contempt for your com- 
 pany. The total absence of tail behind those long 
 legs somehow adds to the impression that he is 
 turning his nose up at you. 
 
 191 
 
SCAPE 
 AND ITS 
 BIKDS 
 
 'July via 
 A JULY ^^Under the noon sun on thin-soiled slopes the 
 LAND- poppies' scarlet lining to the green velvet of the 
 corn flames in the folds and patches. On the 
 rolling upland the baked turf wears brown and 
 threadbare, crisp and slippery to the hasty foot; 
 but in the timbered valley the high tide of cool- 
 waving bracken fills each woodland bay, and along 
 the waterside the reeds are silvered by the restless 
 wind that wanders from the rich, low pastures, 
 purple-filmed with flowering grass and spangled 
 with July flowers. 
 
 i?Hither the wild life of the country gravitates 
 from the sunburnt slopes ; and you pace through 
 the lush grass to the accompaniment of twittering 
 protests from birds disturbed at every step. 
 nFFor the fledged broods of sparrows and green- 
 finches, chaffinches, and yellow-hammers are in the 
 heyday of their long summer picnic, beginning 
 with the ripe field-seeds of midsummer, carried on 
 with the ripening corn, and ending with the wild 
 orgie of scattered grain at harvest. 
 ^Louder than ever is the farmer's complaint each 
 year of the plague of sparrows in the cornfields ; 
 and that he has reason you need only cross a field 
 or two to discover. 
 
 192 
 
yuly ix 
 ¥¥In the early days of July rustic gossip often the 
 revives traditions of great showers of frogs. No miracle 
 one in the village has actually seen the frogs falling, °^ ^^°°' 
 but they can all give you the names of people who 
 could tell you all about it if they had not unfor- 
 tunately left the neighbourhood. Besides, every- 
 body knows that sometimes after a July shower 
 the whole place, even the village green, will be 
 suddenly full of little frogs ; and if they did not 
 come down in the rain, how did they come at all ? 
 ^The answer is simple. In the quiet pond where 
 the moor-hens nest, in the weedy meadow dyke, 
 and the ditch, now dry, beside the hedge of the 
 long lane, strange changes have taken place. There 
 in March the frogs choked the shallows with 
 wobbly masses of jelly eggs. In April the water 
 swarmed with tiny black tadpoles, all head and 
 tail. In May hind-legs grew upon each tadpole. 
 In June their fore-legs sprouted and their tails 
 shrank ; and in the dewy nights, sandwiched 
 between the hot first days of July, battalions of 
 tiny, perfect frogs crept from their water nursery 
 and took close cover on land — for the little frog 
 is good to eat, and his enemies are many. 
 ^Then came the welcome rain, and myriads of 
 little frogs leap suddenly to sight (and keep on 
 leaping) as the cool of evening draws on. This is 
 the " miracle." 
 
 193 
 
PESTS 
 
 'July X 
 WEEDS *¥That July should be the month of flowering 
 AND weeds is natural, for a plant's continued existence 
 as a parasite upon human cultivation requires that 
 it should produce its flowers and ripen its seeds 
 before the crop amid which it grows is cut, 
 ¥Some few, indeed, like the handsome corn-cockle, 
 which always suggests a garden flower, as it spreads 
 its purplish petals high among the wheat, produce 
 large seeds which cannot be sifted from the 
 threshed wheat ; but the great majority trust, like 
 the poppy, to scattering innumerable little seeds 
 upon the ground before the corn is harvested. 
 ^And as July is the month of flowering weeds, so 
 is it the month of flying insects which, in other 
 stages, are the chief pests of agriculture. By shrub- 
 bery and hedgerow at dusk vague buzzing forms 
 now blunder among the foliage, or strike against 
 the passer-by and cling with'^hooked claws to his 
 clothing. These are in themselves harmless, brown 
 " chafer "-beetles ; but they are parents of the 
 dreaded grubs which devastate the roots of plants. 
 The " click "-beetle, too, which now amuses by its 
 automatic somersaults, is only that arch-destroyer 
 of crops, the wireworm, in its perfect stage. 
 
 194 
 
July xi 
 ¥*Now the bramble-blossom spreads one of the the 
 three rich banquets of the year for insect-folk. In banquet 
 early spring the sallow and willow wands were °^ "^^^ 
 studded with honeyed catkins, to which all the bees, 
 flies and moths of the country-side were invited, 
 and came gladly thronging from dawn to dusk ; 
 and in autumn again the later hosts of insect-guests 
 will crowd to drink their fill from the ivy-blossom's 
 clustered cups. Now, midway between these 
 great feasts of the growing and the waning year, 
 comes the festival of the blackberry flowers ; and 
 the entomologist knows that it is of little use to 
 tempt the moths with " sugar " so long as the 
 bramble is in bloom. 
 
 iFThe swallows know, too, where their evasive prey 
 is gathering ; for, looking down the hedge, you 
 may see the July sunlight glinting on their blue- 
 burnished plumage, as they skim and dart close 
 over the brambles, weaving steely streaks of death 
 among the flickering flies. The field-mouse knows 
 it also ; and in the dusk the quick rustling of leaves 
 behind the clustered blossoms tells where this little 
 bright-eyed hunter pounces upon the fat, furred 
 moths. The whirling bats take toll of the revellers 
 too, coming and going to the feast ; for always, in 
 Nature, risk and plenty go together. 
 
 ,195 
 
STRESS OF 
 SUMMER 
 
 July xii 
 THE ^¥SuccEssivE days of sweltering heat have hurried 
 plant life along at fever pace. Flowers that were 
 buds yesterday are overblown to-day, and will have 
 seed-pods to-morrow. So fast, indeed, courses the 
 upward sap that the plants visibly flag by noonday 
 from the effort. Even the nettle-clumps loll limply 
 together, waiting for the respite which will come 
 when the westering sun is followed by the cool of 
 dusk. 
 
 ^Flnsect life needs no pause, but hurries on rejoic- 
 ing, in more tumultuous volume with each hour of 
 blazing sunlight. See the trees, again glistening 
 with the sugar that descends like fine rain from the 
 multiplying blight above. Look at the haze of 
 small flying insects which thickens to mist before 
 the distant landscape. But where there is life there 
 is strife. One-half of the insect world preys upon 
 the other, and the birds on both ; for multiplying 
 mouths must be filled. 
 
 ¥And the strain of summer life is already telling 
 upon the limes. Still richly green without, they 
 have been dropping from their inner branches 
 curled and faded leaves which already whisper to 
 your feet in the avenue of coming autumn. 
 ^But, rustling underfoot one day, rain-sodden and 
 slippery the next, the falling lime-leaves always 
 falsely whisper of autumn for many weeks before 
 it comes. 
 
 196 
 
July xiii 
 ¥^The seamy side of summer plainly shows now m july 
 at the threadbare corners of banks and trodden drought 
 ways, when for days the sun has beaten down from 
 dawn to evening with scarcely the respite of a 
 cloud. The worthless wild barley there has dried 
 flaxen to the roots, and the spindly poppy scarce 
 has sap to lift its yellowing buds. The daisy-leaf 
 shrivels as it lies on the hot ground, and even the 
 tough plantain curls. The rook, with beak agape, 
 glistens like a coal in the browning pasture ; and 
 one almost begins to understand the longing of the 
 sunbaked East for a July raincloud in the sky. 
 ^But this is a land where rainclouds are rarely 
 absent long ; and July, of all months, seldom errs 
 on the side of drought. By the shady covert-side, 
 where the oat-field spreads, cool silver-green, from 
 hedge to hedge, and the grouped pink spires of 
 foxglove lengthen day by day, the cheeping 
 pheasant-broods are big and strong in flight 
 already ; and the partridge covey, with wings now 
 whirring in unison, now glistening aslant and 
 steady, top the hedge in August-fashion though it 
 is not yet mid-July. For in feathers, as in flowers 
 and butterflies, fine weather always puts the clock 
 ahead. 
 
 197 
 
WAY 
 
 WITH 
 
 SNAILS 
 
 °July xiv 
 THE ^^The thrushes should be growing more ashamed 
 thrush's of the state of their breakfast-tables every day. 
 Usually at the distance of about five feet from 
 hedge or bank — a distance calculated with instinc- 
 tive nicety as safest for a dash into cover from a 
 sweeping hawk or away from it in case of an 
 ambushed weasel — each thrush had long ago 
 selected his favourite stone and many times a day 
 resorted thither carrying a snail daintily in his 
 up-tilted bill. Then, holding his victim firmly 
 by the broad rim of the shell and straddling his 
 legs a little to the shock — whack ! 
 ^FWith rapid sidelong sweep from left to right the 
 luckless snail is thumped upon the stone and — 
 whack ! — from right to left, as the slimy splinters 
 fly. If the snail could run there might be still a 
 chance of escape when, the shell breaking short, it 
 is flung from the bird's bill ; but it is quickly 
 recovered, and the merciless hammering proceeds 
 until limp and shell-less the battered mollusc can 
 be swallowed at a gulp. 
 
 ^And the state of that stone after days of drought ! 
 Coated thickly with dried slime and bespattered 
 with fragments, it stands amid a grim museum of 
 broken shells, a valley of dead bones and place of 
 shuddering for every snail that passes in~ the 
 night. 
 
 198 
 
jjP|^if#,F2 '^i" '' ?,!*- ^ '/. W '/''^""^^^^ 
 
 
 '1 -^>' ■ 
 
 
 cj£i^*, --.o ' * '"^^t /--/' i^ 
 
 A. "5 
 
 
 ■'1 - 
 
 ^~. 
 
 •X. °" 
 
WILD 
 CHICORY 
 
 yuly XV 
 ^^As in early summer the speedwell, starring the the 
 scanty roadside turf, seemed to smile its name's charm 
 encouragement to the wayfarer, as from eyes of °^ ™^ 
 heaven's blue, so now not all our days of dusty 
 heat in later summer can dim the pure azure of the 
 wayside chicory, whose broad blooms are always a 
 wonder and a joy to see. 
 
 ¥In rich soil the chicory may be many-branched 
 and tall — in a garden even vieing in five-foot 
 luxuriance with the summer's best flowering shrubs 
 — but by the sandy roadside, where many mishaps 
 are the wild plant's daily lot, it throws up, perhaps, 
 only one or two stunted stems scarcely a foot in 
 height. But the meagre stiffness of a plant thus 
 inured to wayside hardship only enhances the 
 beauty of its large, stalkless flowers, unmatched for 
 delicate purity of blue. 
 
 ¥Thus discovered, the chicory-bloom of mid-July 
 is one of the few surprises of our rustic flora. In 
 colour and size such blossoms seem unfitted for a 
 roadside weed, and especially such a weed, with 
 stiff, scraggy stems rising from coarse-tufted 
 leaves. Like the unexpectedly sweet smile which 
 sometimes irradiates a homely face and ennobles an 
 ungainly presence, so a wayside chicory in flower 
 seems to brighten its whole environment. 
 
 199 
 
FINCHES 
 AND 
 CORN- 
 FLOWERS 
 
 July xvi 
 
 GOLD- ^¥One of the prettiest sights of the year of 
 Nature comes round now again when the blue 
 cornflower, hastening to set its earlier seeds, 
 attracts the goldfinches to the feast. Perhaps, if 
 votes could be taken, the blue cornflower might be 
 chosen as the most beautiful of British wild plants ; 
 and assuredly the goldfinch might head the poll 
 for dainty colouring among British birds : so the 
 two in combination make a partnership of beauty 
 not easily surpassed. 
 
 ^For the goldfinch, besides his yellow-splashed 
 wings and scarlet headpiece, contrasting brightly 
 with the black, white and buflF of his parti-coloured 
 plumage, is all grace and gaiety in movement. 
 Fluttering, more like a butterfly than a bird, 
 among the haze of blue blossoms, he teaches his 
 new-fledged family how to select the ripe seed- 
 head and how to hang in many a graceful attitude 
 upon the swaying stalk, with ever-flickering wings 
 to keep the fairy balance. 
 
 i?Thus happily engaged, a family party of gold- 
 finches in mid- July among the deep blue corn- 
 flowers make a scene which mere words cannot 
 describe, for half of its charm lies in the ceaseless 
 levity of action and silvery twittering with which 
 each member of the group accompanies every 
 movement, as if all are bubbling over with the 
 irresponsible joy of summer life. 
 
 200 
 
yuly xvii 
 ^^The determination of the house-sparrows to competi- 
 rear yet another brood, and the fact that they, as tion for 
 well as the house-martins and swallows, line their ^^'^^^ 
 nests with feathers, have sent up the value of these ; 
 and you may often see absurd competitions taking 
 place for a fluffy feather which a duck has discarded. 
 H?A sparrow may be just going to annex it when a 
 puff of wind blows it into the air and a passing 
 martin seizes it ; but it is too fluffy to be carried 
 far because it covers the martin's face. So it is 
 dropped and snapped up by another martin, and 
 again dropped. Presently, perhaps, it floats into 
 a tree, whence a sparrow retrieves it and essays a 
 straight flight with it to the water-pipe. But its 
 fluffiness is too much even for the sparrow, who is 
 obliged to let it go within a few feet of home, and 
 may even have the mortification to see a martin 
 sweep by and catch it, swerving aside with almost the 
 same curve of flight to deliver it at the entrance of 
 a round mud nest below, where the fluffy treasure is 
 received with glad twitterings by the martin's mate, 
 awhile the sparrow chirps indignantly above, it 
 is pleasant to see the white throats of the two 
 little martins swelling with delight as they con- 
 gratulate each other on their good luck, before the 
 male swings away from his clinging foothold to 
 resume his circling flight, and she settles back 
 upon her batch of eggs. There is a pleasing note 
 of human feeling in the martins' little twittering 
 voices ; and it is so very seldom that they are able 
 to score even a small success in their uphill fight 
 against the harsh-voiced sparrows. 
 
 20I 
 
MOTH 
 
 July xviii 
 THE OAK ^^When the signs of longed-for rain gather over 
 EGCAR a sun-burnt land, the heat grows burdensome, and 
 an ominous stillness holds the country-side. The 
 chattering of the birds sounds far away, and the 
 very butterflies flicker only for short instants close 
 to the hedges, as though they shrink from sus- 
 tained flight into the open sun-blistered field. 
 i?At just such a time, in mid-July, an unexpected 
 contrasting note of vigorous life is struck by what 
 at first sight seems a bright tawny butterfly, zig- 
 zagging boldly at high speed across the sun-hazed 
 field, dashing this way and that with apparently 
 reckless strength, but always, if you watch, quarter- 
 ing all the ground in a wide strip towards whatever 
 wind may be stirring. Sometimes another, and 
 another, will follow the first-comer at short inter- 
 vals, taking almost the same line of country at the 
 same erratic headlong speed. 
 
 ¥They are following upon a hot scent ; for, though 
 facing the bright sunlight like butterflies, they are 
 male Oak Eggar moths, stout-bodied and strong of 
 wing, and gifted with rare faculty of discovering 
 from a distance the birth of a princess of their 
 kind. We may suppose the love-message which 
 their wide-plumed " feelers " gather from the air to 
 be a subtle perfume ; yet it suggests, too, some 
 ancient natural system of wireless telegraphy in life, 
 such as man now begins dimly to guess at. 
 
 202 
 
^ 
 
THE 
 
 PERIOD 
 
 OF 
 
 PLENTY 
 
 July xix 
 ¥*The hawk has fallen upon easy times now. No 
 need for him to range the wide landscape and prac- hawk's 
 tise quick surprises as he breasts each hill or shoots 
 like an arrow of death round the corner of the 
 woodland, often, from hour to hour, with only the 
 mortification of seeing the cloud of strong-winged 
 fugitives on the horizon widening as he advances, 
 and the news of the terror of his coming passing 
 from field to field and parish to parish. 
 iFNow, however, even the burden of finding food 
 for a family sits lightly upon the shoulders of the 
 birds of prey ; for the country-side becomes daily 
 more thronged with chirping young birds, weak- 
 winged and silly. Shooting silently and suddenly 
 from the shadow of some leafy tree which domi- 
 nates a hedgerow, the arrow of death seldom misses 
 its easy mark ; and a fat young sparrow, chirping 
 on one twig, scarcely knows that his brother has 
 been taken from the next. 
 
 iPSometimes it seems as if the very ease of his life 
 in midsummer tempts the hawk to the evil courses 
 which man resents with trap and shotgun. It is 
 bad enough when the wild hen pheasant, cautiously 
 leading her brood across the glade, hears a swirl of 
 wings through the branches and sees one of her 
 chicks carried helpless away ; but when the hawk 
 daily haunts the coops of pheasantry or poultry- 
 yard there can only be one answer from the enraged 
 owner. 
 
 203 
 
FATAL 
 
 PRIVI 
 
 LEGE 
 
 'July XX 
 THE ^¥BuT for the heat between the thunderstorms, 
 swan's the swans' feathers which line the leeward margin 
 of the water might be drifted snow. For always 
 in mid-July we could have rare making of quill 
 pens, when the swans drop all their large wing- 
 feathers together, remaining for many weeks unable 
 to fly a yard. 
 
 ^Thus the swan tells us of the history of his race ; 
 for so splendidly conspicuous a bird could not 
 afford to yield the power of flight if any enemy 
 more powerful than he haunted his native meres. 
 ^Hence, too, the overbearing magnificence of the 
 breeding swan towards all strangers ; for his wild 
 instinct of ages has no record of intruders who 
 might not be browbeaten by the full-sail splendour 
 of his ruffled plumes. 
 
 ¥Yet it is a short-lived and fatal privilege which 
 Nature has thus conferred upon the wild swan. 
 Compared with the uncounted ages during which 
 the swan, " monarch of all he surveyed," acquired 
 the habit of moulting all of his flight-feathers at 
 once, the advance of man to every corner of the 
 globe will henceforth be rapid. And what will a 
 large, edible bird like the swan do when man 
 invades his home at the time when he cannot fly ? 
 
 204 
 
:THE 
 SEASON 
 
 July xxi 
 ^i?Always as harvest draws near small tawny rustic 
 butterflies attract the wayfarer's attention, dancing names of 
 and flickering before him down every few yards of ^ 
 roadside hedge. Especially where gate or gap ' 
 occurs will they spring up at his side, and it is a 
 happy rustic fancy which names this restless 
 butterfly the " Gatekeeper." 
 
 ^Another pleasant rustic name seems to hit the 
 mark, as you pause on the white-dusted road to 
 enjoy for a moment the rich scent that comes from 
 the creamy wreaths of clematis which drape the 
 tangled hedge. For they call it " Traveller's 
 Joy," and, like the sky-blue " speedwell," which 
 cheers the wayfarer with its beauty and its message 
 in the earlier year, it well deserves the name. 
 How many generations of weary wanderers on the 
 high roads must have enjoyed its scent and beauty 
 before the name became adopted in rustic hamlets 
 hundreds of miles apart ? 
 
 ^How long was it, too, before our village ancestors 
 noticed, sitting under a hedge for their noonday 
 meal, that always as harvest approaches slim 
 spidery creatures on long quavering legs begin to 
 appear in numbers, running aimlessly upon their 
 clothing from the herbage, and nicknamed them 
 " Harvestmen " ? 
 
 SFSuch names are always good to know, and good 
 to keep. 
 
 205 
 
AND FINE 
 WEATHER 
 
 "July xxii 
 THE ^^?The farmer always grumbles, they say ; but it 
 FARMER he should make a proverb that " Fine weather 
 '"" ""'" makes a fine mess of things," a few weeks' experi- 
 ence of summer drought might seem to justify 
 him. 
 
 ^It is only in a far-away degree that we all suffer 
 with him. The hordes of aphides, green fly, or 
 blight — whichever we like to call them — which 
 made our shade-trees so sticky with honey-dew 
 and collected the soot upon our garden-seats in 
 sultry days of June, devastated his fruit-trees and 
 market crops, crippling the shoots, twisting the 
 leaves, and sucking up the sap which should have 
 swelled his produce for market. 
 iFAnd now when, day after day, swarms of the 
 winged " blight " drift through the air, what is the 
 passing annoyance of the cyclist, who gets several 
 in each eye, to that of the cultivator, who sees in 
 each blundering atom the prospective parent of 
 more myriads of his foes } 
 
 ¥What were the midge-bites, which irritate so 
 many people to the point of " writing to the 
 papers," compared with the almost total destruc- 
 tion of the promised bumper crop of pears by the 
 pear-tree midge ? Can our just indignation, when 
 our currants come dirty and sticky from market, 
 parallel the feelings of the grower, who had lost 
 half the harvest of his year's work and sold the 
 balance for less than the cost of marketing .'' 
 SF" Fine weather is fine weather," says the farmer, 
 " for insects." 
 
 206 
 
"July xxiii 
 ^^Though winds from south and west may keep old star- 
 back the hosts of foreign starlings, which will ^'"^^^ 
 
 AND 
 
 begin to come over now whenever the weather is 
 chilly, to form the feathered army-corps whose thrushes 
 ordered evolutions are a recurring wonder of 
 autumn, each evening sees our British-bred bat- 
 talions of starlings swelled by native recruits, as 
 they trail across the sky from feeding-ground to 
 roosting-place. 
 
 i?Meanwhile our old starlings, released from the 
 care of the fledged broods which they have driven 
 from home, to enlist, as it were, consort much 
 with the young thrushes, especially the young 
 missel-thrushes, which are scattered all day, feeding, 
 over the pastures. 
 
 ^This might seem to be a queer arrangement ; 
 but the starling is a wily communist and past- 
 master in the craft of living upon his neighbour. 
 For the missel-thrush possesses a hereditary gift, 
 denied to him, of hearing the fat, soft, juicy chafer- 
 grub stirring beneath the turf; and when the 
 young thrush pauses to listen the attendant star- 
 ling pauses too. Then, with quick sidelong digs 
 of his pointed bill, the thrush begins to unearth 
 the lurking grub, and the starling hurries up and 
 eats it. An old " stormcock " missel-thrush might 
 not stand such barefaced swindling ; but young 
 thrushes, like young men, must buy experience. 
 
 207 
 
SPAR- 
 ROWS 
 
 July xxiv 
 CORN AND ^iFThe ficlds of sturdicf wheat still show some 
 depth of green beneath their tawny surface ; but 
 the silvery oats have yellowed, and the barley is 
 bleached flaxen for harvest. 
 
 ^Yet a colour-blind man might tell as easily that 
 the corn ripens, by noting the flickering clouds of 
 sparrows, shifting every now and then from one 
 part of the field to another. Perhaps it is hardly 
 fair to call them all collectively " sparrows " ; be- 
 cause finches, linnets and buntingsof kinds join the 
 marauding mobs. But it is always so hard to 
 extend one's natural sympathy for birds to the 
 sparrow — who forms, moreover, an overwhelming 
 majority of the raiders of the corn — that the trifling 
 injustice may pass. 
 
 ^And, indeed, the time seems to be coming when 
 civilised man will be compelled to measure his 
 strength against the sparrow. There need, however, 
 be no talk of guns, traps, or poison. Naturally a 
 dweller in holes, the sparrow has taken advantage 
 of our buildings, where he nests in multitudinous 
 security ; and at the initial cost of making our 
 buildings sparrow-proof with netted wire, we could 
 drive him to nest elsewhere, when his natural 
 enemies — including boys — would soon redress the 
 balance. 
 
 208 
 
ING 
 SEASONS 
 
 July XXV 
 iF^The pale thrift, which in earlier summer spread the sea 
 a pink film over our sea-wastes, has faded now into waste's 
 the inconspicuous undertone of drab with which ^h*''^" 
 Nature strives to veil the fruiting stage of ground- 
 plants. But we scarcely miss the thrift's lost 
 daintiness, for the sea-lavender has made a haze of 
 blue that spreads in blurs and patches to the low 
 horizon, meeting the misty blue of the low sky and 
 distant sea. 
 
 ^It is a dreamy, undecided colour, suited to the 
 July stillness of the shimmering sea-waste, just as 
 the pink blush of thrift seemed most apt to the joy 
 of spring, when the breeding redshanks whimpered 
 and the plovers drifted, calling, far and near. So, 
 too, the ruddy glow of the dying samphire will 
 suit the autumn-tinted season of the later year, 
 when the waste will be thronged with bird-travellers 
 from the north, wailing as they pass. 
 ¥Yet again, in the old grey year — grey sky meet- 
 ing grey sea beyond the grey stretches of perennial 
 sea-orache that thinly clothes the winter waste — the 
 season still will have its fitting harmony of colour, 
 attuning our minds to welcome gladly the first faint 
 blush of the flowering thrift in another spring. 
 
 209 
 
"July xxvi 
 
 THE ^^It is characteristic of man's indiiFerence to the 
 
 THRips small life around him that few, even of dwellers in 
 
 HARVEST- ^^^ country, can give a name to " those small black 
 
 MITE things" which in the fulness of summer cause 
 
 almost intolerable tickling to tender skins, as they 
 
 creep about the face and neck of every one who 
 
 wanders out of doors. This little pest, only visible 
 
 to the eye as a moving black line, of no width and 
 
 scarcely any length, is a thrips — the thrips of the 
 
 corn, which has made its living by sucking the 
 
 juice of growing grain. As this ripens, the thrips 
 
 wanders abroad on four thin plumy wings, and, 
 
 attracted by the whiteness of human skins, alights 
 
 on the first face it meets and runs about. That is 
 
 all. It just runs about ; yet the annoyance almost 
 
 exceeds mosquito-bites. 
 
 ^Accompanying the thrips in his seasons of 
 troubling, and exceeding him in minuteness and 
 power of pain, comes the harvest-mite — so small, 
 this pest, that but for his flaming colour you could 
 not see him at all. This matters less, however, 
 because when you look for him he is under your 
 skin, where he raises those painfully irritating 
 nodules known to housewives as " bites " and 
 " heat-bumps." Notice to quit may be served upon 
 him in the shape of weak carbonate of ammonia 
 or benzine. 
 
 2IO 
 
July xxvii 
 ^^SiLENCE grows upon the land ; and, though the 
 the air vibrates to the undertone of the family- ^^'^'°^' 
 twittering of common birds, the chorus of song °""''^°' 
 
 1 1-1 ■ 1 ■ 1 LING 
 
 has worn so thm that, as m early sprmg, each chorus 
 voice is easily recognised apart. 
 ¥The scrannel piping of the hedge-sparrow, heard 
 less from day to day, gains distinction ; and you 
 can enjoy each quaver of the linnet's whispering. 
 Even the greenfinch aspires to the dignity of 
 soloist now, though his song — a few twitters and 
 a grating sound or two — suggests " tuning up " 
 rather than performance ; but in the growing 
 silence of the thickets, where the chifF-chafF still 
 hammers out the variations of his name, real music 
 comes only in the sudden, joyous bursts and 
 snatches of the wren. 
 
 i?Out in the fields the skylark still shrills aloft, 
 where the last works of agriculture before harvest 
 disturb his vested interests ; but you may pass 
 from lane to lane and road to road with only the 
 tinkling sentence of the yellow-hammer ringing in 
 your ears. 
 
 ^In February the yellow-hammer's voice sounds 
 sweet and welcome, but when fields are brown and 
 roads are dusty, it suggests the jingling of small 
 change, all that is left of summer's squandered 
 gold. 
 
 211 
 
LOWS 
 FALSE 
 ALARMS 
 
 July xxviii 
 THE ¥¥Because summer is passing, we become nerv- 
 swAL- ously sensitive to signs of autumn, and the gather- 
 ing swallows and martins on the barn-roof seem a 
 melancholy omen. Especially is this the case 
 when, as you pass, the whole host suddenly leave 
 the roof and fill the sky with a maze of darting 
 forms, as though they had all that moment made 
 up their minds to start for Africa. But, if you 
 watch a moment, you will see them all drifting 
 back, by twos and threes and dozens till the barn- 
 roof is as full as it was before. 
 S?But this may have been only a false start ; and, 
 as you watch, one loud-voiced swallow among the 
 few upon the wing will suddenly cry " Tizit, 
 tizit," and in an instant the whole company is 
 whirling aloft again. This loud-voiced swallow, 
 said the old naturalists, is the leader, and this is 
 their drill for the long journey over lands and 
 seas. 
 
 SFAs a matter of fact, that loud-voiced swallow is 
 merely a parent calling to his young, and as they 
 spring gladly from the roof at the summons, all 
 the others by gregarious instinct spring too, but 
 finding the alarm causeless quickly return. 
 SFBesides, these are only the first broods of the 
 year. Months hence when the later broods, now 
 scarcely in the making inside those mud nests, are 
 strong on the wing, we may be enjoying the 
 " little summer " of St. Luke, forgetting altogether 
 how sadly we felt the approach of winter — in 
 July! 
 
 212 
 
yuly xxix 
 ¥^The rolling stretches of heather now take on heather 
 their own soft mountain hue. Hitherto the bell- and 
 heather, blooming in patches alone, struck too ''•'^^"*^^^'^ 
 vivid a note of magenta, or the cross-leaved heath 
 covered the moister hollows of the moorland with 
 a pink haze almost as pale and delicate as the 
 thrift of our sea-wastes in early summer. But 
 now the real heather — or ling, as many who know 
 it best will only call it — spreads everywhere its 
 harmonising hue, half-pink, half-purple, and 
 attunes the whole landscape to that rich subdued 
 tone which dominates all memories of the moor- 
 land at its best. 
 
 5?In brilliant contrast to this pervading purple the 
 ragwort blazes on the lower levels in wide stretches 
 of bright gold, which neither furze, nor broom, 
 nor any yellow glory of our gardens could out- 
 shine. Yet on close view the ragwort deserves 
 its name, as a rank ungainly plant whose massed 
 blooms seem mean and untidy in the hand — a 
 typical flower of the late summer. 
 ^So, too, the purple loosestrife, whose vivid 
 crimson spires of bloom make clustered glory by 
 the water's edge, is almost worthless gathered ; 
 for its crimson clashes with every other colour, 
 and the long spikes quickly droop. The flowers 
 of harvest-tide are best seen where they grow, 
 and left there. 
 
 213 
 
WANDER' 
 ING BIRDS 
 
 "July XXX 
 FALLING ^^WiTH the falling oats we pass into the third 
 OATS AND period of the year ; and it seems appropriate that 
 the commencement of the harvest should coincide 
 so exactly with the appearance of the first few 
 mushrooms and the arrival of the earliest bird- 
 migrants of autumn upon our coasts. 
 ¥The first birds of passage cannot always be 
 observed with certainty, because they may merely 
 reinforce our resident species ; but there is no 
 mistaking the arrival of the curlew in districts 
 where it does not breed. So large a bird with so 
 long a bill is visible at almost any distance on the 
 flat sea-levels that it haunts ; and, as if to make 
 sure that it shall not be overlooked, it rises, as 
 you break the horizon, with a plaintive, protesting 
 whistle, which compels attention. 
 iFYet the curlew breeds on British moors and 
 might not be known as a foreigner, when he 
 appears upon the east coast in late summer, were 
 he not accompanied in this first flight by the 
 whimbrel, a smaller edition of himself with a 
 tittering cry which is unmistakable. For the 
 whimbrel never breeds in Britain, and its appear- 
 ance now is definite proof that the autumn migra- 
 tion has commenced. 
 
 214 
 
July xxxi 
 ^^The long-billed and long-legged curlew and passing 
 whimbrel passing down our coasts, and the gulls birds 
 gradually spreading over the coastwise fields, are ^^^ 
 
 o J X o ' STAYING 
 
 not our only evidence that the great autumn move- blowers 
 ment of the birds has begun. Inland changes are 
 occurring too. 
 
 iFParties of wagtails appear by waters where they 
 were not reared, and the green woodpecker's loud 
 laughter echoes in places where he has not been 
 heard since he passed that way in the spring. 
 Kestrels hover over acres where the mice have 
 forgotten the winged terror of the skies ; and 
 families of butcher-birds are wandering, as yet 
 they know not whither. Thus bird life begins to 
 drift before the cold winds compel. 
 i?But the wildflowers quickly correct any false 
 fears which may be roused by the passing of the 
 earliest birds. Wherever your steps lead afield, 
 you pass up a starry way of summer bloom. The 
 pale mauve disks of the large scabious, the spiny 
 candelabra of the teasel tinted to the same soft 
 hue, the poppies blazing scarlet, and the buUety 
 heads of the knapweeds wearing their wide purple 
 crowns, with the white and the gold which Nature's 
 embroidery never lacks, summer may be passing ; 
 but she is still passing fair. 
 
 215 
 
August i 
 ^5l^LouDER every day now shrills the chorus of the 
 the grasshoppers, until the very air on sunward burden 
 slopes seems to vibrate to their music. Associated °^ '^"^ 
 in memory only with hot days of late July and hoppers 
 August, the " crinking " of the grasshopper echoes 
 down the vista of years, from the schooldays when 
 its high notes proclaimed the advent of summer 
 holidays, as the expressed spirit of our summer 
 laziness. 
 
 ^It is the language of courtship, no doubt ; though 
 one's fancy must stretch a good deal from the 
 human point of view to realise that the suitor 
 whispers his soft nothings with the back of his 
 wings and his sweetheart listens with her front legs. 
 ^Yet there is no mistaking the fierce competitive 
 ardour of the lovelorn insects. No sooner does 
 one break the shimmering stillness of a sun-hazed 
 slope than a dozen rivals strive to strike a higher 
 key ; and combats may ensue in which limbs are 
 torn from kicking bodies. 
 
 ^Thus the music of our drowsy hours is the serious 
 business of life to the singers ; and, since we need 
 no incentive to summer idleness, it may not be 
 amiss that with advancing years the song of the 
 grasshopper is one of the first sounds that we fail 
 to hear. 
 
 217 
 
August a 
 
 THISTLES ^5f5|ALREADY on the sun-burned, wind-swept slopes 
 AND the thistle-down is flying, fooling the tardy farmer 
 LINNETS ^j^Q jj^^ hoped to postpone the job of cleaning 
 the land until after the end of harvest should leave 
 him with idle hands for scythe-work. 
 ^But not all thistle-down which flies before the 
 wind means dissemination of the seed, but rather 
 the reverse. See that patch from which the stars 
 of white fluffs are floating almost in a continuous 
 stream. It is not wind which causes so many 
 thistle-heads to swing and, shake ; nor has the 
 music of the breeze that medley of twittering and 
 softly grating notes. Approach cautiously, and 
 presently you catch sight of a cock linnet, gorgeous 
 with ruddy-crimson patch on either breast and a 
 deep crimson forehead, his body many-shaded in 
 bright browns and greys. Below him, on another 
 thistle-head, swings his plain drab mate ; and as 
 their deft bills separate each tiny seed from its 
 parachute of fluff and let the latter fly, they carry 
 on a constant, twittering dialogue, which merges 
 into the general current of linnet conversation 
 running through the whole thistle-patch. 
 ^ilAs you move there is a twitter of alarm, and for 
 a moment the air is full of scattering linnets. But 
 only for a moment. As you turn to go, they are 
 all at work again among the thistles. 
 
 218 
 
MUSH- 
 ROOM 
 
 August in 
 ^5i?S|Amazing is the promptitude of the mush- the 
 room's response to the summons of rain after sudden 
 drought. Where there were no traces overnight ' 
 — for the sun of previous days had bleached even 
 the rings and patches of darker green which mark 
 the mushroom's foothold — they stand at dawn 
 complete: cool, round, and comfortable as the 
 happy toad that was so shrunken yesterday but 
 now bulges like an alderman in his tight hiding- 
 place. 
 
 =S|One seems to understand, however, how the 
 toad assumes his portly girth through imbibing 
 welcome moisture at every pore; whereas the 
 miracle of the mushroom — swelling with strength 
 to raise a paving-stone, when the pattering rain- 
 drops knock without — remains a miracle. 
 ^Yet it is one which we observe less as the de- 
 cades pass. The science which produces mush- 
 rooms at all seasons and the commerce which 
 brings the produce to our doors make us think 
 less, as summers wane, of being up with the dawn 
 in " mushroom weather," to gather the sudden 
 harvest of the fields. Who searched in April for 
 delicious morels } Who knows the oak-shade 
 where truffles are hiding now? 
 =SlAs the new cult of Nature spreads, we may begin 
 to learn our own country again, perhaps. 
 
 219 
 
OF LATE 
 SUMMER 
 
 August iv 
 
 THE ^5rkONE would think that the insects of August 
 RANKNEss must havc coarser tastes and grosser appetites than 
 those of May, because there is such a striking 
 contrast between the flowers of the two seasons. 
 If it is solely to catch the passing insect's fancy 
 that flowers have acquired their colour, size, and 
 shape, then, just as in the slums of a city you see 
 gaudy cheapness in the goods displayed for sale, 
 you cannot help thinking that the insects of poppy- 
 time must belong to a lower class than those to 
 whom the modest, sweetly scented violet of spring 
 appeals. And though the poppy may be an ex- 
 treme case of flaunting display with small backing 
 of merit, yet almost all of our late summer flowers 
 exhibit the same tendency to grow rankly and flower 
 profusely, but scarcely one appeals to us by deli- 
 cacy or fragrance. The fact is, of course, that the 
 plants of late summer are compelled to be pushing 
 and to advertise themselves, because they find the 
 ground already occupied by the fruiting remains 
 of the plants of spring and early summer. So 
 even the indescribably beautiful blue of the chicory- 
 blossoms and the soft mauve-lilac of the scabious 
 have to be thrust up to poppy level to reach 
 sunlight, and so soon as their bloom is shed they 
 become unsightly scarecrows of plants, giving the 
 windswept banks a ragged and desolate aspect all 
 through the autumn. While, too, you may 
 treasure the gathered blooms of spring's violets 
 and primroses, who has not experienced the, flat 
 disappointment which follows the attempt to 
 arrange a bunch of wildflowers in August ? 
 
 220 
 
AuoUit 
 
 ![. KayK,'h/, 
 
 "BEAUTIFUL BLUE OF THE CHICORY-BLOSSOMS, THRUST 
 UP TO POPPY LEVEL" 
 
KING 
 
 HARVEST 
 
 August V 
 
 ^Ji^Fearful and wonderful appears the agri- enter 
 cultural apparatus which the Bank Holiday cyclist 
 encounters now at the turnings of country lanes. 
 Even the motor-terror of the road must swerve 
 with awe from the path of the weird machine, 
 with windmill arms and rows of steel sharks' 
 teeth, which two sleek horses proudly draw to 
 the harvest-field. 
 
 ^For the reaping-machine is now the autocrat of 
 the country-side, as the partridges — which, with 
 craned necks, cluck anxiously from the other side 
 of the hedge, as they hear it lumbering past — will 
 soon know to their cost. 
 
 ^Already the widening stubble, dotted with 
 sheaves of oats — like pimples on a new-shaved 
 chin ! — has driven many coveys into more public 
 places, where the astonished wayfarer tries to count 
 them, as the mob of birds explodes before his 
 unsuspecting feet. The gamekeeper has already 
 counted them with a chuckle. Last year may 
 have been as bad a partridge season as he can 
 remember, and there seemed to be many barren 
 pairs in spring. There may have been talk, too, 
 of the chicks dying through drought. But — well ! 
 — if the master is not satisfied with his coveys 
 sometimes he is hard to please. 
 
 221 
 
INNO 
 CENTS 
 
 August vi 
 M\ssACRE =5iF5|Because it is August and the law permits, 
 OF THE even the good sportsman sometimes squares 
 matters with his conscience in shooting the 
 *' flappers " — the young mallards, or wild duck, in 
 the new-fledged stage, when they can scarcely, if 
 at all, rise from the water, but flap along its 
 surface, or dive in futile eiforts to escape the 
 deadly double-barrel. " If I do not shoot them, 
 somebody else will," is the salve which the sports- 
 man applies to his conscience for the massacre ; 
 and no doubt it is hard for the man on whose 
 ground the mallards have nested, and whose keeper 
 has marked down the broods for him, to find that, 
 in consequence of his own squeamishness, some 
 village gunner with a ten-shilling licence has inter- 
 vened and bagged the lot. 
 
 ^On the other hand, it is a poor result of the 
 parent wild ducks' cleverness in seeking a secluded 
 spot for their nest, their devotion in shepherding 
 the new-hatched brood, and their passionate 
 devices of simulated lameness when danger 
 threatens, that — simply because it is August — 
 their young should have no protection whatever. 
 Such fine birds — and so good to eat — ought to 
 count in the tables of the law for more than 
 sparrows. 
 
 222 
 
August vu 
 ^SfillN the matter of butterflies the waning summer the 
 seems to reserve its splendours for the end. It is time of 
 now that the brand-new red admiral butterfly ^^^^'^'''" 
 sails over the flower-beds, and, alighting, spreads p^iEs 
 wide the glory of its wings, as if to compel us to 
 transfer our admiration from the flowers to him. 
 With broad expanse of black velvet, slashed with 
 white and barred with scarlet, he can challenge 
 comparison with any living beauty of any land. 
 Yet it is hard to say that the peacock butterfly, 
 fitfully haunting the early Michaelmas daisy 
 blooms, is not more beautiful, with its wings of 
 crimson damask, eyed at each corner with half the 
 colours of the prism. Now, too, is the time when 
 the painted lady butterfly flashes like a streak of 
 carmine among the late summer flowers, or with 
 folded wings exhibits the gracious harmonies in 
 silver, grey, and buff, which blend into a mono- 
 tone of drab for safety during its winter sleep. 
 ^Grandest of all, perhaps, and almost the rarest 
 of our butterflies, the Camber well Beauty, of rich 
 purple damask, flecked with azure, and broadly 
 edged with cream-colour, may now, too, after any 
 day of strong east wind, gladden the eyes of collec- 
 tors on our coasts. 
 
 223 
 
IN THE 
 
 August via 
 THE =St5lHARVEST brings no joys to the rabbit. The 
 RABBIT oats have fallen ; most of the barley is low ; and 
 each day seems one long nightmare of panic for the 
 furred folk that have sheltered so long amid the 
 standing corn. The clatter and rattle of machinery 
 and the swish of falling sheaves now die in the 
 distance, now gradually draw near, till the crashing 
 crescendo of terror sends the luckless bunnies 
 dashing into the open for safety. 
 ^Safety ! A wild " hurroosh " greets each fugitive, 
 from watching farm-hands, and boys with terriers. 
 Bewildered by the strangeness of the open waste, 
 obstructed by the tangled swathes of corn, the 
 rabbit dashes in wild zigzags from enemy to enemy 
 and adds one more at last to the row of furry 
 corpses by the gate. 
 
 ^Wiser might seem the rabbit who, from caution 
 or too great terror, will not risk the dash for life ; 
 but shifts from place to place before the cutters, 
 and so is left in the silent evening, still hiding in 
 the remnant of the standing corn. Now is the 
 time for escape to the hedge ; but at the corner 
 stands a silent figure in the dusk, the gamekeeper, 
 with gun which never misses and dog which always 
 retrieves. 
 
 224 
 
August ix 
 'Jl^EvEN in the wood-shade now the plumed summer 
 bracken is splashed with gold, and every ripple of waning 
 wind upon its waving sea of green stirs under- 
 currents of tawny fronds below. The foxglove's 
 tall spires above the fern are brown, and scatter 
 powdery seed as each breeze shakes them ; while 
 on the sturdy candelabra of the great mullein the 
 last small tapers of primrose-bloom are lit. 
 ^But the bluebell hangs its azure chimes among 
 the brake ; the rosebay still fills the niches of the 
 glades with a haze of bright pink bloom ; and the 
 tall hemp agrimony in the hollows tempts brand- 
 new red admiral and peacock butterflies to its 
 clustered heads of silky pale mauve blossom. 
 ^The same toss of wind that lifts the hazel-bough 
 and betrays the yellowing leaves within, shows the 
 swelling nuts still green ; and on the oak over- 
 head the young acorns have bulged little as yet 
 beyond their cups. The beech-nuts are scarce full 
 size and still half-green ; while the blackberry 
 freely blooms, and its earliest fruit is scarcely 
 tinted. Autumn has many messages to send 
 before she comes. 
 
 225 
 
August X 
 nature's =Sr5|BiRDS and plants seem to like to take their 
 HOLIDAYS holidays in August like the rest of us. As you go 
 along the lanes and hedgerows after harvest you 
 cannot help being struck by the disorder of it all. 
 The hedge flowers no longer seem to care how they 
 grow or what they look like. They have finished 
 their work for the season, and " anything will do " 
 for the holidays. In the dry tangle of yellowing 
 leaves, brown seed-pods, and fluffy untidiness of 
 flower-heads, it is as hard to recognise the hedge- 
 bank of graceful greenery, starred at midsummer 
 with yellow, pink, and blue, as it is to identify a 
 bedraggled group of holiday-makers on the sands 
 for the trim City man with his wife from Hyde 
 Park and the boys from school. Perhaps it would 
 be pushing the parallel too far to say that flowering 
 plants which have done with work for a while and 
 the human holiday-makers at the seaside run espe- 
 cially to "legginess," but both do certainly exhibit 
 some disregard for appearances in this direction. 
 ^And if the August holiday-making of plants re- 
 sembles ours in some respects, the resemblance 
 between families of birds and men is almost ab- 
 surd. See the sparrows taking their fat — I had 
 almost said chubby-cheeked — youngsters out for a 
 jaunt in the harvest-field : the way they gobble and 
 chatter and enjoy themselves is worthy of any 
 Hampstead Heath picnic party. Every wheat-field 
 is the rendezvous of whole beanfeasts of finches, 
 and riotous excursions of starlings spread them- 
 selves over their selected waterside resorts, chatter- 
 ing, feeding, quarrelling, and shouting to each other. 
 
 226 
 
SIDE 
 
 August xi 
 ^5e5|A.LM0ST all wild life seems to wear a worried a 
 aspect. The reaping of the harvest has revolu- harassed 
 lionised the country-side, and neither hare nor «^°untry- 
 rabbit, partridge nor outlying pheasant, stoat, 
 weasel, nor rat quite knows where it is or where it 
 ought to be. 
 
 ■5|Between two wide cornfields, which sheltered the 
 multitude of fur and feather, runs a sunken lane 
 with high hedgebanks. Now that the fields are 
 bare, the game and vermin regard the hedged lane 
 as shelter, and great is the commotion when your 
 figure breaks the skyline at the end of it. 
 ^How many coveys explode over the hedge, and 
 what all those things are which pop into cover on 
 either hand needs a quick eye to decide ; and all 
 the way down you hear them rustling, squeaking, 
 and grumbling at the upset of the natural order of 
 things. 
 
 ^Twelve months make a fairly long life for our 
 wild creatures, and the large majority of the com- 
 plainants have not seen a harvest before and will 
 not see another. All the landmarks of their lives 
 have been obliterated ; and perhaps the bewildered 
 partridges are wondering " What next ? " 
 ^" Next "will be the shooting season. 
 
 227 
 
AUTUMN 
 
 August xii 
 FORE- ^S^iThere is an exhilarating nip in the air now 
 SIGNS OF •when the wind blows in from northern seas ; and 
 Nature responds at once with symptoms suggestive 
 of autumn. A solitary robin sings suddenly in the 
 shrubbery — a half-formed trill which betrays the 
 young bird of the year — but we shall be familiar 
 enough with his full carol before Christmas. Tom- 
 tits drop in, as it were, to inspect the place where 
 you hung food for them last winter ; and they, too, 
 will be " familiar " — not to say cheeky — when the 
 days are short and the cold nights long. 
 =5lUnder the willows wasps buzz lazily over the grass 
 discoloured by honey-dew : we shall find them cling- 
 ing there, numbed to , their last sleep, when the real 
 autumn passes and the willow-leaves are falling. 
 ^Thus Nature always sends her forewords of im- 
 pending change ; and, as you hear and see them, 
 you may look aloft and ask, " Have the swifts 
 gone ? " or listen, " Is the turtle-dove silent ? " 
 =ScThe solitary green sandpiper which quivered on 
 curved wings along the waterside yesterday — all 
 black with a gleaming splash of white behind — has 
 passed on, and new curlews whistle on the marshes. 
 ^It is the echo of the north wind. 
 
 228 
 
August xiii 
 ■^tkFROM to-day a new interest attaches to the'''"^ 
 yellow-hammer's song. It is not much of a song, '^^^^°^" 
 
 J ^ __ o _ D' HAMMER S 
 
 rather like the jingling of loose silver — all that is latest 
 left of summer's gold — with a thin, high note at song 
 the end ; but it has lately gained distinction in the 
 deepening silence of the sunlit fields, and, from 
 the records of a long series of years, August 13 
 comes out as the average date on which the 
 yellow-hammer ceases to sing. 
 ^And in an average year he should be punctual in 
 silence ; for the landmark of his year is not the 
 waning summer, nor the chill in the morning air 
 which bids the swift depart, but the completion of 
 the harvest, not only the grain harvest which men 
 gather, but also the seed-time of plant life at large. 
 It is no longer to the interest of the yellow-hammer 
 to remain near his old nest and sing by right of 
 ownership : better to join the wandering flocks of 
 finches and sparrows that are feeding fat upon the 
 broadcast banquet while it lasts. 
 ^Goldfinch, greenfinch, and linnet should, for the 
 same reason, be dropping into silence too ; and it 
 may be mid-February before the need of owning 
 another nest will urge the yellow-hammer to sing 
 again. 
 
 229 
 
HARVEST 
 
 August xiv 
 
 THE =5rkNo need to talk of autumn yet. 
 
 PAUSE OF jjiBy the margin of the water, where the moulting 
 swans have littered the ground with discarded bits 
 of fluff, competition is still keen among the 
 sparrows for nest material. Nearer to the brink 
 dainty little house-martins, in neatly contrasted 
 plumage of black and white, are shuffling along 
 and filling their beaks with wet mud for a similar 
 domestic purpose. The turtle-dove, although an 
 early migrant, is still nesting ; and in the woods 
 the ring-dove's amorous cooing retells the tale of 
 spring. Autumn is not yet. 
 ■5|We have merely reached that pause in life which 
 harvest brings ; and the peace of the Sabbath 
 never seems so real as at harvest-time. The 
 uncarted wheat standing in rows of ordered piles, 
 and the barley lying broadcast at the mercy of the 
 birds ; the gaunt machines waiting idly by the 
 half-built stack ; the sleek horses loitering in the 
 pasture and the black-coated labourer leaning on 
 the gate — it is wonderful, when one thinks of it, 
 that religion can thus cry " Halt 1 " to agriculture 
 at a time when one fine or wet day may mean so 
 much. 
 
 ^From heathen lands such a spectacle would be 
 quoted by travellers against us as evidence of the 
 reality of religion elsewhere. 
 
 230 
 
August XV 
 ^^C^By mid-August wild country life acquires new a new 
 interest. It is not that the grouse in the shops drama 
 attune men's minds to thoughts of heathery moors °^^^^ 
 and remind them how soon the partridge will 
 hang there too. Nor is it only that the crops 
 have been cut, and the wild life of day-creatures 
 is revealed. 
 
 =5|The fact is that Nature has changed her policy 
 with the waning summer, and no longer hides her 
 little people by couples with their families in secret 
 breeding-places ; but sweeps them together in the 
 open, where food abounds now and there is safety 
 in numbers. 
 
 ^So, where a few weeks ago you might see 
 nothing but a sea of ripe corn rippling from hedge 
 to hedge with only a small bird here and there 
 slipping into cover, now on the golden stubble 
 you can not only count the coveys of partridges 
 and note the flocks of finches, linnets and buntings, 
 but can also watch the ordered company of pee- 
 wits, alert and watchful, and the white gulls sitting 
 near them, with perhaps a cohort of golden plover, 
 whistling plaintively to each other, or a solemn 
 party of long-billed curlew. 
 =5llt is the new company of a larger drama. 
 
 231 
 
SEASON S 
 RIOT 
 
 August xvi 
 THE =Sr5cAs a coming summer sunset lights up small 
 
 "" flecks of cloud in the sky with gold and crimson, 
 
 before the great glory spreads from north to 
 south, so the advance of autumn is betrayed, here 
 by splash of blood-red in the Virginian creeper on 
 the gable, there by the ripe rubies of the fruited 
 honeysuckle on the porch ; here by the flaming 
 Torch Lily in the border, there by the scarlet 
 spike of the seeding cuckoo-pine in the shade of 
 the coppice. But most of all we see autumn's 
 heraldry in the orange-red blotches of clustered 
 fruit upon the rowan-tree. 
 
 =5cFurther north, no doubt, the rowan ripens just 
 when the soft-billed birds need some rich supply 
 of food to replace the diet of insects which 
 dwindles as the dusk of night and dawn grows 
 chilly. 
 
 ^But in the south what a lamentable waste of good 
 provender it always seems, when the thrushes and 
 starlings riot among the overladen boughs, fling- 
 ing to earth five times as much as they can eat 
 of berries which may be sorely needed later. 
 Although now the earth simply teems with insect 
 life which can be had for the searching, the birds 
 may seek long and go hungry when the north wind 
 blows. 
 
 232 
 
August xvii 
 'Jr^cUNSETTLED weather, which interrupts the the 
 harvest, is admirable for observing the migrations arrival 
 of the birds : for every time that the wind shifts °^ '^^^' 
 
 ^ , 1 ^111 • VELLERS 
 
 to the north, one can confidently rely upon seemg 
 birds in the garden which were not there the 
 previous day. With the chill wind come travelling 
 chifF-chafFs, willow-wrens, and flycatchers, while so 
 many house-martins may arrive during the day 
 that there will be nothing like sufficient accom- 
 modation for them in the empty nests under the 
 eaves. As evening comes on they may be seen in 
 clusters hanging on to the outsides of fully 
 occupied nests, resisting and vociferously protesting 
 against the attempts of other martins, from the 
 crowd constantly circling round the house, to find 
 a foothold there too. , They are very like human 
 trippers who have overcrowded an excursion train. 
 ^Sc While this is going on there is great excitement 
 among the sparrows who had taken possession of 
 more than half of the martins' nests. They seem 
 to regard the arrival of all these strange martins as 
 constituting a state of war ; and they lose no time 
 in doing what the Boers were told that they ought 
 to have done — i.e., " seized the passes " — for every 
 strategic point of the water-pipe holds its sparrow, 
 chirping harsh defiance at the twittering crowd 
 that stream to and fro a couple of feet below. 
 And the martins evidently know that the sparrow's 
 hard beak gives him the best of the argument, for 
 none of them hover for more than an instant 
 before any of the wide-mouthed, straw-disfigured 
 nests which the sparrows have occupied. 
 
 233 
 
August xviii 
 ARLY ^Si^When the foresigns of autumn come early in 
 [ARVEST bare stubbles and blushing apples, in the rowan's 
 j^^g^^^^ gaudy berries and the bracken splashed with gold, 
 they come late in the silence of song-birds and thie 
 departure of summer visitors. The same long 
 days of sunshine, which hasten the harvest and 
 ripen the berries before their time, cause the 
 summer birds to linger and prolong the nesting- 
 season. 
 
 ^Thus the swift still wheels across the sky above 
 the reaped harvest-fields, although it usually for- 
 sakes us a full week before the first barley is cut ; 
 and the yellow-hammer, having already passed its 
 ordinary date for silence by nearly a week, may 
 go jingling on now till the last days of the month. 
 =5|The linnet and the greenfinch still sing too — 
 small wonder, when the greenfinch's mate may still 
 be found sitting upon eggs in some shrubbery 
 evergreen — and, in spite of passing rain and clouds, 
 the skylarks here and there stiU bear up the chain 
 of their silver song through " the silent month," 
 More than usual interest attaches to the skylark's 
 music now ; because, unless it lapses into silence 
 in August, it may complete the cycle of the year. 
 
 234 
 
Aumst 
 
 {Copyright 
 
 E, Kav Robinson 
 
 THE PEREGRINE 
 
 "The Terror of the Sky" 
 
August xix 
 ^SrkSooNER or later the day always comes in early the 
 autumn to birdland, when the peewits, feeding in terror 
 silent battalions together, and the gulls, watching °^ ™^ 
 patiently to rob the peewits of their worms, sud- 
 denly arise and wheel in wild disorder to the 
 horizon ; when the clustered partridge coveys 
 crouch, like clods, to the earth, and the flocks of 
 small birds, feeding in the open, fling themselves, 
 like a shower of stones, into the nearest hedge; when 
 the blackbird, issuing from cover, turns before he 
 has flown a yard and darts back again with a 
 chatter of alarm ; when, save for the distant cawing 
 of rooks, perched on look-out trees a parish apart, 
 sudden, perfect stillness holds the landscape. 
 ^Then the peregrine falcon passes, smiting her way 
 from horizon to horizon and spreading terror as 
 she goes. Who gave the first warning of her 
 coming, it is hard to tell. Possibly it was a rook. 
 But the marvel is that the majority of the birds, 
 being young ones of the year, can ne^er have seen 
 a falcon before ; yet they fling themselves wildly to 
 right and left long before the speck in the far sky 
 reveals itself to human eyes as a bird of prey. 
 
 235 
 
August XX 
 A TOUCH =Si=S|How great a difference one chilly day in early 
 OF autumn makes ! The wheeling swift has gone. 
 
 AUTUMN -pj^g yellow-hammer's tinkling song is silenced, and 
 even the skylark is dumb. Only the robin sings 
 brief matins in the shrubbery ; and, later, when 
 the steadily falling rain gradually drives the re- 
 luctant harvesters, with sacks round their shoulders, 
 homeward from the sodden harvest-field, we feel 
 that the back of the summer has been broken at 
 last and that we must welcome autumn as we may. 
 =SlMore flocks of wandering peewits have arrived 
 from the north, and the plaintive whistle of the 
 migrant golden plover is heard again on the levels 
 by the sea. More gulls have drifted inland to the 
 turnip-fields and new-made stubbles ; and the 
 missel-thrushes, earliest of their family to come 
 from the north in autumn, are twice as numerous 
 in the fields as they were yesterday. 
 iJiSlight as was the chill in the air which told us 
 that the wind was in the north, and gently as it 
 blew, yet it did its work effectually. Hot weather 
 and bright sunshine may return ; but, with winter 
 visitors arriving daily, it would be folly not to 
 recognise that autumn has begun. 
 
 236 
 
August xxi 
 ^^c^iThe partridges almost seem to know that they par- 
 will be wanted in full size and strong in flight on tridge 
 the " First," from the pace at which they grow and ^'^^^'^^^ 
 the wing-power they have gained since the corn 
 fell and revealed the flustered families of youngsters. 
 Many of the coveys seem to have doubled in num- 
 bers too ; for where ten or twelve young birds 
 laboriously followed their parents over the hedge 
 when the corn was cut, now you may often see 
 more than twenty together in whirring, skimming 
 flight from the stubble to the turnips. 
 =StThe reason is that in the general removal of 
 landmarks caused by the harvest many coveys got 
 mixed, and parents, who had lived peaceably as 
 neighbours with a thicket of corn between, found 
 themselves engaged in broils when only a few yards 
 of bare stubble separated them, the weaker pair 
 being ultimately driven oflF and the stronger re- 
 maining in possession of the combined brood . 
 sjcWhen such accidents happen earlier in the year 
 they lead to disaster, because one mother cannot 
 effectively cover over a score of chicks ; but now, 
 perhaps, the double covey finds safety in numbers, 
 while in the shooting season the weaker parents, 
 rising by themselves to the guns, will the more 
 easily be killed oS. 
 
 237 
 
August xxii 
 AUTUMN =5t5|NATURE is getting to the bottom of her basket 
 FLOWERS of new flowers for the seasons, and there are 
 ^^^ scarcely more than three blooms of note added to 
 
 WINTER ^ 
 
 BIRDS the country-side in these latter days of August. 
 
 ^The tansy, with dark, ferny leaves — once highly 
 valued for their " bitters " — spreads wide its flat 
 button-heads of gold in woodside and cottage 
 garden. 
 
 ^On limestone turf the autumn gentian opens 
 its stiff purple 'bells in upright clusters to each 
 gleam of sun ; and on heath and pasture the 
 devil's-bit scabious has sent up from its queerly 
 bitten root slim stems that carry swaying flower- 
 heads of heaven's blue. After these there remain 
 practically only the meadow-saffron for September 
 and the ivy for October to complete the floral 
 year. 
 
 ^And now is none too early for those who watch 
 the signs of change, and who propose to " feed the 
 birds " during the winter, to set out the victuals 
 for their guests ; for the robins are already mark- 
 ing out their spheres of influence, and the tits are 
 prospecting for good hunting-grounds, while 
 youiig birds of many kinds are wandering in 
 search of easy livelihood, and will gladly stay with 
 you, if you make it worth their while. 
 
 238 
 
August xxiii 
 =5l=ScEvERY day now adds to the number of the bird- 
 birds assembling in the fields for the winter, throng- 
 Each passing party of migrant golden plover is ^^ FiEi-Da 
 larger than its predecessor ; and the flocks of 
 peewits that rise like clouds in the air, as the alarm 
 spreads from stubble to stubble, when you pass, 
 recall the multitudinous panics of birddom, when 
 the dreaded falcon is smiting her way across the 
 sky. 
 
 ^Only, if you listen to the peewits as they come 
 gliding and pouring to earth again when the alarm 
 is over, you may hear that some of them still use 
 their rollicking summer cry and see that these still 
 swoop and swerve in the madcap fashion which 
 they assumed in spring. 
 
 ^That it is not winter yet you can see, too, by the 
 presence of turtle-doves in the stubbles, with 
 straight, clean-cut flight which makes the drifting 
 seagull seem almost like a stringless kite — so 
 arrowy is the passage of one, so airy and aimless 
 the sliding zigzags of the other. 
 ^In a very kyf days at latest, however, the turtle- 
 doves will have departed. Their rhythmic cooing 
 has not been heard since the north wind blew ; 
 and the last nest in the tangled hedgerow has been 
 abandoned. 
 
 ^When the turtle-doves have departed we may 
 begin to watch for the gradual going of the 
 swallows. 
 
 239 
 
SIGNS OF 
 
 AUTUMN 
 
 August xxiv 
 
 MULTi- 'iSi^The least nip in the morning air now brings 
 
 PLYING autumn nearer. 
 
 ^The flycatchers, so soon to be winging their 
 way to Africa, draw together in sheltered angles of 
 hedgeside and avenue, alternately displaying their 
 grey breasts as they perch, expectant, on some 
 swinging twig, and their brown wings as they airily 
 dive after a passing fly. In their quick remarks 
 to each other, " Wee-chick, wee-chick," one seems 
 to hear a note of anxiety because the flies are 
 growing few. 
 
 ^Anxious, too, sounds the ceaseless twitter of the 
 martins as they hawk to and fro to leeward of the 
 wind-swept trees, among which the sycamore 
 already strikes a dull purplish note in prelude to 
 the colour harmonies of coming autumn. Even 
 the sharp " Twink-twink " of the chaffinch, which 
 sounded so brisk and self-assertive in the spring, 
 seems now to our listening ears plaintive and 
 querulous of autumn. 
 
 =iYet that cock chaflRnch, trim and alert, with 
 blue-grey crown, pink chest, and white-flecked 
 wings, is brisk and self-assertive as ever. He has 
 launched his children in the world, and has come 
 back to claim his own special winter quarters in 
 your garden. There is nothing sad or plaintive 
 about the gay cock chaflinch. 
 
 240 
 
August XXV 
 ^5e^As in March, or even February, spring makes chang- 
 many false starts, opening the flowers and filling ^^'^ ^'^'^^ 
 birds' nests with eggs before . their time, so in "^''° 
 
 po ' , LINGER- 
 
 August and September autumn and summer play j^g 
 hide-and-seek with each other so quickly sometimes birds 
 that from day to day you hardly know which is 
 which. 
 
 ^When the chill north-easter dulls the sky with 
 drifting grey, we begin to think of overcoats and 
 wonder what other summer birds will have 
 followed the swifts in their southern flight. Then 
 the wind drops and the sun shines, and lo ! there 
 is the swift himself, on straight-curved wings, 
 stamping summer's own broad-arrow mark again 
 upon the sky. 
 
 ^This does not mean, however, that our own 
 swifts have returned, but that, as the wind fell and 
 the air grew warm, other swifts travelling from 
 north or east have halted, feeding upon the flimsy 
 insects which the sun has tempted aloft. They 
 may depart ere nightfall or remain for many days ; 
 and in the south, where summer birds may linger 
 longer, it is never easy to say when the first swifts 
 go and others arrive. Even in the north glimpses 
 of miscarried travellers may sometimes be had in 
 later months. 
 
 241 
 
August xxvi 
 REMAIN- ^^I^In spite of blusterous interruptions, the harvest 
 iNG draws to a close; and the partridges, hustled from 
 
 SUMMER flgj^jj to field by the unaccustomed whirl and 
 ^^^^^ clatter of so much busy work, have packed their 
 coveys close among the turnips, where a week 
 hence they will find that no long safety lies. 
 =5|Similarly disturbed, the turtle-doves have crowded 
 together on the quietest acres ; but they will prob- 
 ably be winging their swift way to Africa by the 
 time the deadly fusillade bursts upon the bewil- 
 dered rout of partridges. 
 
 ^But the wind, even when it blows from the 
 north, may have no sting in it as yet — not even 
 such chill as in some years makes us light our fires 
 in June — and the turtle-doves may linger still, 
 filling their crops with the scattered grain. 
 =SlThough most of the little warblers have wandered 
 south, the sprightly families of yellow wagtails 
 still run after flies in the pasture, and in sheltered 
 nooks the flycatchers stiU teach their quick chil- 
 dren to pick and choose among the insects that 
 rise from the teeming earth. The crowds of 
 young house-martins still idle upon the sloping 
 roof, and the swallows feed their glossy broods, 
 which swing, twittering together, upon some 
 hanging bough. 
 
 242 
 
HARVEST- 
 HOME 
 
 August xxiiii 
 ^rklN the sunny intervals of a stormy harvest-end the ants 
 other little harvests are gathered by wild life. sad 
 
 ^Why is the green woodpecker — quaint-looking 
 on the ground, with his hammer-head and un- 
 gainly hops — so busy on the hedgebank ? What 
 are the sparrows and thrushes jumping about for 
 on the corner of the lawn ? Why are the swallows 
 and martins trailing in a cloud to leeward of that 
 stunted poplar, and the starlings performing acro- 
 batic feats in the air? Why do even the gulls 
 swoop and check so often in their drifting flight? 
 ■JcBecause the winged ants are flying, and every 
 creature that can eat juicy insects will be full-fed 
 to-day. 
 
 ^There is pathos in this harvest of the insect- 
 eating birds. It seems so sad a return for the 
 ceaseless labours of the common ants, poor sexless 
 "neuters," with only the female instinct still to 
 feed and guard and cherish the precious, helpless 
 infants of the colony for this grand day when, 
 glistening with sheeny bridal wings, the full-grown 
 children shall sweep upwards to the sky with not 
 even a thankless thought for their tiny wingless 
 guardians — up into a sky which is thronged with 
 swift and greedy enemies. Could the little neuter 
 ants, scrambling on the ground below, foresee this 
 end of all their labours, would they labour so ? 
 
 243 
 
BERRIES 
 AND 
 BLACK 
 BIRDS 
 
 August xxviii 
 BLACK- =5l?S|PuRPLE fingers fumble at the fastenings of the 
 gate, which the village children hurry to open for 
 you, and purple lips smile their thanks — round, 
 oh, such purple teeth ! — for the penny thrown. 
 Decidedly the blackberries are ripening; and all 
 the village children know the little sunny corners 
 where they ripen first. On some hedges now are 
 foot-long clusters, with graduated fruit of every 
 shade from purple-black, through red to green, 
 and from fuzzy-headed blossoms shedding their 
 petals to new pink blooms and grey unopened 
 buds. Six weeks hence we may still be filling 
 baskets. 
 
 ^Premature, too, is the reminder which the black- 
 birds on the lawn have been bringing us that the 
 time is coming when the garden will again be a 
 haven of winter refuge for much feathered life 
 from the surrounding country. Not that the 
 blackbirds have ever been completely absent — 
 especially in strawberry time — since they nested in 
 the shrubberies; but, now that the harvest has 
 noisily cleared so many fields, the seclusion of the 
 garden tempts them to drop in more frequently, 
 as if to make sure that the place will really suit 
 them, when they need it, for the winter. But the 
 ripe blackberries will take them away again for 
 weeks. 
 
 244 
 
August xxiv 
 ^^It seems only yesterday that we noticed the an 
 wasteful way in which the missel-thrushes and autumn 
 starlings were flinging the ripening rowan-berries °^'^^^ 
 about, casting three or four to the ground for 
 every one that they ate ; and it certainly was only 
 the day before yesterday when we observed the 
 purple tinge of ripe blackberries on the children's 
 fingers. Yet already to-day a new riot has broken 
 out, and the shaded lane, where the elder-trees have 
 almost crowded the hawthorns out of the hedges, 
 ofFers a disgraceful spectacle. The ground is 
 purple-black with wasted elderberries, while over- 
 head the mobs of starlings are gobbling and gab- 
 bling all together, as if they thought that life in 
 autumn and winter is to be one continuous 
 orgie. 
 
 ^But the elder-tree makes wise provision for these 
 debauches, producing a thousand times more 
 berries than are needed ; and the starlings serve 
 it well, dropping its seeds in the hedgerows and 
 in their roosting- woods amid just such shady sur- 
 roundings as it loves to share with coarse burdocks, 
 rank nettles, and clinging cleavers, in the knuckle- 
 ends of woods whither one never penetrates by 
 choice. 
 
 245 
 
August XXX 
 
 AN AFTER- ^5i^In thc suddcn return of summer heat in early 
 MATH OF autumn Nature quickly forgets the chilly mornings, 
 SUMMER ^}ii(.|^ gent i-j^e swifts wandering southwards, and 
 the grey evenings when the robin's trill in the 
 shrubbery sounded " so like November." The 
 insistent coo of the wood-pigeon through the hot 
 hours of afternoon has announced his new intention 
 to rear another brood, in spite of the golden patches 
 on the lime-trees, which should tell him that 
 autumn is really coming. 
 
 ^The hawthorn hedges, too, grow redder daily 
 with their wealth of ripening berries ; and, if the 
 nesting wood-pigeon has any memories of other 
 years, he should know that the ripe hawthorn 
 berry is the badge of winter's leafless days of frost 
 and snow. 
 
 i^lBut, luckily, wild things have no premonitions; 
 and the splendid butterflies which are again spread- 
 ing their scarlet-barred or peacock-eyed wings upon 
 the Michaelmas daisies make the most of each hour 
 of honeyed sunshine as it passes. 
 ^Thus the return of summer in autumn is all pure 
 gain in the country. Plant, bird and insect all 
 take a bolder grip on life against the coming 
 winter ; and man rejoices too. 
 
 246 
 
August xxxi 
 ^tSt^iThough here and there one of the dappled the 
 fallow bucks in the park may still carry his antlers i-ove- 
 in velvet, most have rubbed them clean. '^'^^ 
 
 ^So, too, have the grand red deer ; and often In j^^^g 
 the still hours of night you can hear the rattling 
 and clashing of the mimic combats of the younger 
 stags, testing the weight and strength of their new 
 weapons. 
 
 ^As yet this is only sport, and the stags are still 
 content to herd for food and company. But every 
 day sees more meaning put into the antler-play of 
 evenly matched rivals, and at the clash of thrust 
 and parry other stags look up and toss their heads 
 and stamp. Every day, too, the shaggier, darker 
 veterans of mighty thews and stature draw more 
 aloof from this bumptious rivalry of youth ; and 
 the young stags respect their privacy. 
 ^For something is moving in all their minds ; the 
 leaven of the lust of victory in love is working ; 
 and, later, when the fallow bucks of milder manners 
 search for hidden acorns among the rustling, fallen 
 leaves, there will rise from the moonlit landscape 
 the slurred crescendo of the bellowing by which 
 each red stag, monarch of the glen, proclaims his 
 lordship of a huddled harem. 
 ^For this is the love-time of the stags, and they 
 only sing the nightingale's May message to another 
 tune. 
 
 247 
 
September i 
 ^^The day of doom has dawned for scores of the the feast 
 plump brown birds whose growth we have watched °^ ^t. 
 with interest from the time when, as tiny balls of ^*^' 
 fluff, they became invisible in the grass at their 
 parents' screechy warning. On large estates, 
 however, " The First " is no longer the year's 
 red-letter day of sport. There, except for the 
 needs of the larder and the rounding-up of the 
 coveys for the great "drives" to come, the par- 
 tridges still enjoy their brief, delusive peace. 
 5iFBut all the land is not in large estates, with 
 owners emulous in " record bags " ; and country 
 landscapes are few where you can walk a mile to- 
 day without hearing the dropping volleys of fire- 
 arms as the coveys scatter. People who do not 
 shoot naturally extend their sympathy to the bird 
 in this matter ; though there are very few who 
 decline on principle to partake of partridge in the 
 dining-room. 
 
 ¥Yet the fact must be admitted that, in con- 
 sequence of the care which is taken of the birds 
 for sport, partridges are more numerous on the 
 land, and on the average live longer lives and die 
 more painless deaths than would be possible in a 
 state of Nature. Still, to applaud the taking of 
 life in sport on humanitarian grounds is no more 
 consistent than to condemn the sport and eat the 
 bird, as many do. 
 
 ^Better to admit that sport is sport — for those 
 who like it — and cooked partridge excellent. 
 
 249 
 
September it 
 
 SPIDER ^^" Plop ! " goes the falling apple into the sodden 
 
 TRACE- gras^, but the schoolboy, whose country holidays 
 
 °'^' are drawing to a close, is too sated with windfalls 
 
 this year to run to the sound, as he would have 
 
 done a month ago. Besides, after heavy rain in 
 
 autumn, orchards and gardens become too moist 
 
 and sloppy even for a schoolboy's taste. Wet 
 
 feet he does not mind ; but douches of cold water 
 
 down the neck from hanging apple-boughs soon 
 
 pall. 
 
 i?Worst of all in the wet orchard are the clammy 
 spiders' webs, with fat, patterned spiders squatting 
 in their geometric centres, which appear to have 
 been spun during the night across every aperture 
 where one might wish to pass between the boughs. 
 When not offensively clinging to one's face, how- 
 ever, the strange concentric web, with diademed 
 spider seated in its midst, has many interests. 
 The life of each is a thrilling tragedy for which 
 human dramas have no parallel of horror. 
 iFMurderess and cannibal of tfie vilest type is each 
 of those fat spiders, who permit the caresses of 
 their wandering lovers — smaller, slimmer, and 
 longer-legged than they — and then, when chance 
 offers, seize and devour them. And there is no 
 wasting away in remorse of the female spider after- 
 wards. Why should she .? The male has fulfilled 
 his function, and may feed the race. 
 ^The wonder is that such tragedies are not among 
 the commonplaces of Nature. 
 
 '-5° 
 
CO 
 
September in 
 ^iFTo-DAY you m^y see the completion of the man- 
 revolving cycle of farm life in the measured pace golds 
 of laden carts down the rutted tracks from the *^° 
 big " beet hill," where last year's mangold-wurzels berries 
 were stored under covering of straw and earth. 
 The farmer had then to wait until the big par- 
 tridge " drive" was over before he could store 
 his roots, because it was only from the treacherous 
 shelter of their broad leaves that the partridges 
 could be driven over the guns in duly concentrated 
 multitudes. And to-day he is carting his last 
 loads of roots from the old " hill " with partridge 
 shooting going on once more. 
 i?Perhaps his roots will not last so well through 
 the coming twelvemonth ; nor will it be any great 
 loss if they do not, for it is quite possible for a 
 farmer to have almost more turnips than he knows 
 what to do with. But you must take harvests as 
 they come in agriculture, and the boy who leads 
 the great cart-horse that brings the last loads of 
 beets has mastered this principle. He walks on 
 the hedge side of his charge and scans the brambles 
 as he passes for ripe blackberries. 
 iPScientists who profess to have discovered the 
 secret of colour in the tastes of insects and animals 
 may perhaps explain why to-day the acrid fruit 
 of the cuckoo-pint — the " lords and ladies " of 
 village children in spring — is scarlet and the sweet 
 blackberry purple-black, seeing that the edible 
 rose-hips are now scarlet and the deadly-nightshade 
 berries purple-black. 
 
 251 
 
TIME 
 
 September iv 
 FUNGUS- ¥^If you walk in the coppice to-day you can 
 hardly fail to be struck by the autumnal smell of 
 the woodland. It is not the dank odour of de- 
 caying herbage such as almost makes you sneeze in 
 late November, nor is it the fragrant smell of the 
 woods in spring, when the wide glades seem faint 
 with primroses. It is a rich, healthy scent, sug- 
 gestive of mushrooms, and no wonder ; for, wher- 
 ever you probe beneath the tangled web of herbage, 
 you will find the mellowness of autumn breaking 
 out into quaint fungus shapes. Many of these are 
 edible and many beautiful, but almost all defy col- 
 lection save for scientific purposes, " flopping," and 
 melting, and losing colour almost before you get 
 them home, 
 
 awhile quietly fungus-hunting you cannot help 
 noticing how active and numerous the voles are. 
 Three times out of four when you see a " mouse " 
 in a field or woodland it is not a mouse, but a vole 
 — a little creature which differs from a mouse in 
 having a rather short tail and its ears almost buried in 
 its fur ; whereas the ears of a mouse are conspicuous 
 and its tail long and tapering. This is the harvest- 
 time of the voles, and their families are all at large. 
 ^Passing from the woodland, with its long withered 
 spikes of foxglove scattering their last seeds, you 
 come into the open, where the assembling swallows, 
 house-martins, and sand-martins hawk for flies 
 together over pond and stream. When the sand- 
 martin, with his russet back, comes to the water- 
 side from his distant home in the sand-quarry you 
 know that the time for his departure draws nigh. 
 
 252 
 
September v 
 ¥^WiTH shifting winds the signs of autumn depart- 
 thicken. The first detachments of our house- '^g and 
 
 ARRIVING 
 
 martins have wandered south. So have most of^j^^j^^ 
 our common spotted flycatchers and turtle-doves. 
 So have many yellow wagtails and whin-chats ; 
 and nearly all the warblers have gone too. In 
 the south, perhaps, these are lingering still ; and 
 even in the north belated wanderers will now and 
 then be seen for many weeks ; but the tide of 
 migration has set, and from day to day, as the wind 
 changes, we may count new arrivals and departures 
 among the birds. 
 
 nFFor it is not all loss — far from it — of bird life in 
 Britain, when the swallows begin to go. As you 
 walk down the hedgerow to-day, unusual numbers 
 of song-thrushes and missel-thrushes precede your 
 steps. It is not usual for our common thrushes 
 thus to consort in flocks ; but travel, with birds as 
 with human beings, has a herding influence, and 
 these nervous crowds of thrushes are strangers in 
 the land, uncertain of their welcome. You can see 
 them arrive, too, with a north wind at sunset, 
 flying high and in doubt, watching the hedges 
 below for flicker of wings of their kind. 
 
 "^SZ 
 
PAR- 
 TRII 
 
 SEEK 
 
 September vt 
 
 ^^The fewer partridges you have in your garden 
 the better, perhaps, for your flower-beds ; but in 
 September even the gardener can be induced to 
 sANc- refrain from scaring them out of it. Fair play is 
 TUARY the essence of sport, and when, by good luck, a 
 harassed covey have discovered your quiet refuge, 
 where there are no men tramping about with guns 
 and dogs, it is only fair to let them stay and rest. 
 iFAnd they are worth watching, as they creep in 
 brown procession across the drives and lawns. The 
 old cock, who always constitutes himself sentinel- 
 in-chief to the party, is never at his ease in a 
 garden. He seems to recognise the recent handi- 
 work of man, the enemy, in the shaved lawns, trim 
 flower-beds, and gravelled walks. Above all, the 
 dense shrubberies seem full of horrid possibilities. 
 ¥¥So he marches a little aloof, with up-thrown 
 chest and head erect, listening and watching for 
 danger, while his wife, good soul, is absorbed in 
 her duty of leading the way to the best feeding- 
 places. And among the full-grown youngsters you 
 already seem to see which are to be — pace the guns 
 — protecting males and which protected females. 
 ^But somebody opens a door, and with a clatter 
 and whirr the whole crowd is off. 
 
 254 
 
September vii 
 ^^From the carriage window the railway cutting summer's 
 seems, in the sunshine after rain, almost more gay flowers 
 with flowers than at midsummer. The large '"' ^^^^ 
 mauve disks of scabious and the moon-faced 
 white lychnis shine like planets in a firmament of 
 dandelion stars. The ragwort is still spread with 
 gold, and the clustered spikes of toadflax make 
 brave primrose patches. The crimsom of mar- 
 joram, the heaven's blue of chicory, and here and 
 there the scarlet of lingering poppies add to the 
 flying kaleidoscope of colour which forms a fair 
 embroidered margin to the landscape beyond, with 
 its golden stubbles already green-veiled with 
 springing fodder or ploughed brown in stripes, 
 between hedges ruddy-crested with their wealth of 
 berries. 
 
 ^And this passing glimpse is the best, of autumn's 
 flowers. On closer view, the rankness of the 
 herbage round them, and the wreckage of dry 
 stems and seeded grass, make too sordid a frame 
 for beauty. For every scarlet flower, the poppy 
 bears a dozen seed-pods, and the white lychnis- 
 blooms are only the straggling aftermath of plants 
 that were overblown a month ago. They are like 
 patches of red and white on a worn and wrinkled 
 face. 
 
 255 
 
ERS OF 
 
 THE 
 
 PLOUGH 
 
 September viii 
 FOLLOW- ¥¥Though the parson's talk is still of the coming 
 harvest festival, and the farmer's thoughts are bent 
 on markets for his garnered grain, the work of 
 the farm has turned already towards next year's 
 harvest ; for Nature never rests, nor can they who 
 win their food from her. Already the slow, 
 strong horses, pacing from hedge to hedge, have 
 widened the new-ploughed stripes across the 
 stubble till on many a rolling cornland only thin 
 lines of gold remain between the brown, 
 if And in coastwise districts flickering snowstorms 
 of seagulls follow the ploughmen while they rule 
 the furrows, resting lightly as snowflakes for an 
 instant where the smooth-cut earth betrays each 
 bewildered worm, then melting into the air again 
 amid the haze of drifting wings behind the 
 plough. 
 
 iFDay by day the flocks of gulls grow larger, for 
 their gathering proclaims the plenty of food 
 through many miles of air to other gulls still 
 wandering down the coast. But the rooks, which 
 will join the winter feast of the ploughland, are 
 still few ; and the silent skylarks are sparsely 
 scattered as yet upon the clover-stubbles. Keen 
 winds must blow from north and east before their 
 ranks will be filled with thronging recruits from 
 colder lands. 
 
 256 
 
September ix 
 ^^While the wind remains in the west and south while 
 in September, Nature almost stands still. The ™e 
 mushrooms multiply, more blackberries ripen on ^"""^^ 
 the hedges, and the hawthorn-berries flush brighter blows 
 towards scarlet daily : but nothing " happens." 
 Awaiting the certain onset, later, of cold winds 
 from north and east, wild life at large is " marking 
 time," if, indeed, it is not audaciously backing 
 towards summer. 
 
 ^?A11 arrangements for retreat in good order before 
 winter have been made. The wild plants have 
 ripened their seed in plenty ; the summer insects 
 have secured the existence of their species for 
 another year ; and the autumn host of skirmishers 
 are ready to fight their rearguard battle, when they 
 will take cover before each assault of early frost 
 and reoccupy the ground whenever mild winds 
 prevail. 
 
 iPBut as yet there is no fighting ; and the linger- 
 ing summer flowers daily take courage to flaunt 
 their banners more, while the marshalled regiments 
 of swallows on roof and wire gain local recruits 
 each morning. Here and there a young cuckoo 
 still loiters, or a plucky little chifF-chafF still pro- 
 claims its name in the coppice. A whitethroat 
 still flirts in and out of the hedge, the yellow 
 wagtail still hunts flies in the pasture, and the 
 flycatcher still loops in flight from branch to rail — 
 while the south wind blows. 
 
 257 
 
THE 
 YEAR 
 
 September x 
 A LAND- ^^WiTH baskets and tin cans and hooked sticks 
 MARK OF from every village half-holiday processions of chil- 
 dren diverge by zigzag routes " a-blackberryin' " ; 
 while favourite thickets in sunny corners might be 
 hung with clothes to dry, so many small girls in 
 pinafores are performing tiptoe feats of scrambling 
 over the brambles to reach the clustered fruit. 
 Scratched hands, torn clothes, and purple mouths 
 often go home again, with only a thin layer of 
 berries at the bottom of the ambitious basket — but, 
 oh, for the days again when one had to reach up on 
 tiptoe to gather blackberries ! 
 ^In the evening more than a mere Sunday throng 
 winds up to the village church, and black-coated 
 groups of sun-burned men, who have waited round 
 the gate till the bell ding-donged out its final 
 summons, come shuffling and crowding in together 
 during the pause which precedes prayer. 
 iFThe sermon never seems long when the parson 
 preaches from a bird's nest of corn and flowers ; 
 and the beauties of font and lectern, " done " by 
 the ladies from the Hall, help to keep admiring eyes 
 open. Harvest hymns, too, have a meaning for 
 the ploughman and a lilt that suits his fancy. 
 There are no laggards in the service at this land- 
 mark of the year. 
 
 258 
 
September xi 
 ^^SiGNS of autumn multiply. Not only may you autumn 
 hear towards dusk that chittering note of the robin surely 
 which recalls foggy November afternoons, but ^°^^^ 
 when from the top of some small tree he breaks 
 into his short buoyant song, you are reminded by 
 its sudden seeming loudness of the silence that has 
 fallen of late upon the shrubberies. 
 ^In the hedges at sultry noon, however, the yellow- 
 hammer still enters his high-pitched protest against 
 having cheese with his " little, little bit of bread " ; 
 and at night the overcrowded multitude of house- 
 martins still twitter loquaciously under the eaves 
 of your bedroom window, expostulating with one 
 another apparently for taking up so much room in 
 the mud cubicles, which were never meant to hold 
 half a dozen full-grown birds apiece. In the 
 spinney, too, the wood-pigeon still coos comfort- 
 ably through the sleepy hours of afternoon. 
 ^But even these tokens of summer have their 
 autumn underside, for you may also see the wood- 
 pigeons winging their straight-ruled way across the 
 sky at evening in considerable companies — just like 
 winter, while the very multitude of the martins tells 
 us that their breeding-season is accomplished ; and 
 the yellow-hammer's feebly persistent trill would be 
 less audible did he not sing alone. On the stubbles, 
 too, you may se^ dozens of peewits collected in 
 autumn gatherings ; while the white and grey of 
 the herring-gull flickering over the turnip-fields 
 tells the same story of a waning year, which is 
 echoed in the treble piping of the mixed tits in the 
 pine-woods. 
 
 259 
 
NUTS 
 
 September xii 
 
 THE iF^Harvests succeed each other quickly now ; 
 
 HARVEST and juvenile enthusiasms for mushrooms and then 
 for blackberries give temporary place to nuts. The 
 chittering squirrel protests in vain — jerking himself 
 backwards up an oak-tree with each protest — 
 against the invasion of his mossy glades by groups 
 of sharp-eyed children, who go peeping under the 
 hazel-boughs and rarely miss a cluster of the ripen- 
 ing nuts in their ragged yellow overcoats. 
 5?Perhaps the frequent cawof the high-circling rook 
 is protest, too, against the crashing sounds which 
 reach him from the outskirts of the village below, 
 where lads have gathered with cudgels to knock 
 down the green-shelled walnuts. 
 ^For the rook has a sort of vested interest in the 
 village walnut-trees. They were all planted by 
 his ancestors who had conveyed — " convey the wise 
 it calls" — ripe walnuts from the parson's garden to 
 other trees outside, and there, trying to crack the 
 hard shells, had let them slip and fall into the grass 
 below. Those rook-dropped walnuts have become 
 large timber, growing, mostly haphazard, upon 
 debateable land. Wherefore those who claim them 
 usually gather most of the crop unripe, for pickling, 
 not wishing to be irritated, like the rook, by 
 village raiders. 
 
 260 
 
. FULL 
 1 SWING 
 
 September xiii 
 ¥^Each twist of the wind drives a new wave oFmigra- 
 bird-migration upon the east coast and thence in- tion in 
 land. Redstarts, with tails of such bright chestnut J" 
 that each short flight seems to finish in a streak of 
 red, flit before you down hedges where they were 
 not seen in summer. White wagtails — which 
 differ from the common black-chested water-wag- 
 tails in having a clean white margin all round their 
 black bibs — and grey wagtails, which are all 
 tinged with sulphur yellow below, play follow- 
 my-leader about ponds where they were not bred. 
 ¥Along the sea-marshes the tittering cry of the 
 whimbrels is heard again ; and among the new 
 curlews and smaller wading-birds of passage the 
 shore-gunner finds it worth while to patrol the 
 coast and welcome the weary strangers with his 
 shotgun. 
 
 nFBut in autumn the wind that gives always takes 
 away. In the sheltered corner of the pasture to- 
 day no flycatchers loop the air in glancing flight 
 after the passing insects. The few wandering 
 whitethroats which slipped along the hedges are no 
 longer seen. Almost the very last of the linger- 
 ing turtle-doves have moved on. We may catch 
 glimpses later of laggard travellers of these kinds ; 
 but the tide of our bird life has swung strongly to 
 the south. 
 
 261 
 
ACORN 
 
 September xiv 
 
 ¥¥When the oaks bear a large harvest of acorns, 
 they give to the branches at a little distance a 
 yellowish tint prematurely suggestive of fading 
 autumn. Their colour shows that they are now 
 safely passing the time when storms, strewing the 
 ground with the unripe crop, might be dangerous 
 for cattle. Like other trees which protect their 
 immature fruit with sour or bitter flavours, the 
 oak warns browsing animals from its green acorns 
 by astringent juice; but domesticated herds, 
 wearied perhaps of the sameness of wholesome 
 pasture and fodder, seem to lose the fine edge of 
 judgment with which wild things discriminate in 
 choice of food ; and after a heavy fall of unripe 
 acorns many cattle will be ill. 
 ¥Later, when the green juices are withdrawn, the 
 ripe, brown acorns falling among the grass invite 
 the woodmouse and the squirrel to store them 
 underground ; while their hard and slippery shells 
 often cheat the jay and rook, who accidentally 
 drop them under other trees. 
 ¥Thus oak-woods spread, and thus the grace of 
 timbered parks is due to the ancestors of the small 
 things in fur and feathers that will be rustling on 
 pilfering raids among the fallen leaves a few weeks 
 hence. 
 
 262 
 
ON THE 
 HARVEST 
 
 September xv 
 ¥¥Cyclist and motorist in the country now are the 
 scarcely ever out of hearing of the deep, low note inquest 
 of the threshing machine. The whole land hums 
 with it; and it is only in poor knuckle-ends of 
 cultivated England that farm is not answering farm 
 close by in the deep monotone of machinery hold- 
 ing its inquest upon the harvest. 
 ^For, as the grain-stack sinks, a ragged straw- 
 stack rises at its side ; and the difference between 
 them is piled in sacks of threshed corn upon the 
 waiting waggon, with three great, sleek horses and 
 gay wheels of red and blue. 
 
 ^Thence it lurches in the ruts to the big barn, 
 where the hungry, winnowing machine is fed sack 
 by sack, and pours out the clean grain one way 
 and the chaff and field-seeds another. Then, 
 measure by measure, the great pile of cleaned 
 grain is given to another machine, which, with all 
 the care that miners give to gold, sorts out the 
 full-sized golden barley from the lesser grain. 
 And now, at last, the farmer, measuring the two 
 heaps with his eye and running a handful of the 
 better through his fingers, knows what his fields 
 have borne. Thus the low hum of the threshing 
 pronounces the solemn verdict of the year. 
 
 263 
 
SWAL 
 LOWS 
 
 September xvi 
 THE ^^There are not so many swallows and house- 
 GoiNG martins on the red barn roof as yesterday. For 
 weeks the gathering had grown until on sunny 
 mornings the red tiles were packed as closely with 
 basking birds as the benches of the infant school 
 with drowsy toddlers. Perhaps the swallows were 
 day-dreaming of lands where it is always afternoon, 
 with the sun always shining through a haze of 
 insects, as the children dreamed of hedges glisten- 
 ing with blackberries. 
 
 ifAnd yesterday the sun shone bright and warm, 
 ripening more blackberries; but the soft wind 
 came from the north, whispering a message to the 
 swallows. So the mixed gathering on the barn 
 roof is smaller than it was ; and the long telegraph 
 wires, where the swallows assembled alone in 
 twittering lines, are empty. 
 
 ¥Many weeks will pass before we shall see the 
 last belated swallow, and many pairs of house- 
 martins will be detained before their last broods 
 are fledged and fit to fly to Africa. Telegraph 
 wire and roof will fill and empty of their glossy 
 guests, and we shall hardly notice that the birds 
 are going until on some cold, grey morning the 
 anxious twitter of the very last house-martins will 
 remind us that we have not seen a swallow for 
 days. 
 
 264 
 
September xvii 
 ^^Though the Virginian creeper on our porches autumn 
 has been beckoning to autumn with its flushed tints 
 finger -leaves of crimson and carmine, the first real ^^^ 
 keynote of the coming woodland harmonies of'^^™^'' 
 colour is struck by the wild sycamore, whose 
 fading hues of puce and drab contrast sadly with 
 the still healthy green of neighbouring timber- 
 trees. 
 
 ^The rose haws, too, have passed from green to 
 orange ; and the wild clematis which tangles the 
 hillside thicket bears little " Traveller's Joy " of 
 scented, starry trails of bloom, but with the curling 
 feather-hairs of its ripening seeds becomes the 
 " Old Man's Beard " instead. 
 ^In these chilly days of early autumn, one would 
 like to feel sorry for the wasps. After lives of 
 indefatigable energy they have raised the progeny 
 of their mother-queen to the population of a great 
 wasp city, with wondrous paper walls and thousands 
 of nurseries for the tender children of the race. 
 Then comes, after a sunny day when the wasps — 
 a little too ubiquitous, perhaps, and much too fond 
 of grapes and sweets — were busier than usual, a 
 slight chill in the evening air. Then, instead of 
 going home, the numbed insects crawl into any 
 hiding-place ; and when you put on a slipper with 
 a wasp in it, it is hard indeed to feel sorry for the 
 wasp. 
 
 265 
 
LIFE 
 
 September xviti 
 THE ^¥It is now that alarm is apt to be caused in 
 season's houses by the appearance of a large brown fly, 
 which is mistaken for a bee, and keeps up the illu- 
 sion by the quivering motions of its tail. The 
 insect is, however, the harmless drone-fly ; but his 
 presence in numbers always indicates the neighbour- 
 hood of putrid water, perhaps a neglected water- 
 butt, inasmuch as he is the outcome of the " rat- 
 tailed maggot " — as unpleasant in appearance as in 
 name — which lives in festering slime. 
 SFOut in the fields, too, another large fly, the 
 daddy-long-legs, may be seen swarming over the 
 grass. No one needs to be told that this is harm- 
 less as a fly ; but as a grub he has been the very 
 harmful " leather jacket " which ruins the roots of 
 turf. The multitudes of birds, from rooks and 
 pheasants downwards, which you may see to-day 
 " catching things " on the grass, are doing a good 
 work. 
 
 iFThe peewits, which daily gather into larger 
 flocks, because there is safety in numbers, are 
 doing good work too ; but often you will see the 
 alarm of hawk send the whole host whirling to the 
 horizon. For, where the migrant peewits go, the 
 falcons go too. 
 
 266 
 
ERED 
 GEM 
 
 September xix 
 ^FVThe kingfisher now comes as an added glory a 
 to many a waterside where he is not seen in f^ath 
 summer ; and whether viewed as an arrowy streak 
 of turquoise, shooting down the margin of some 
 winding stream, or perched motionless, with the 
 contrasting ruby and sapphire of his plumage 
 mirrored in the water, one can hardly describe his 
 charm, save in terms of jewellery. 
 ^FYet, such is the amazing hardness of human 
 nature, it is this gem of a bird, the loveliest thing 
 in feathers that haunts the British Isles, which 
 most frequently stares at one out of a glass case, 
 and, except where local authorities protect, is netted 
 or shot at sight wherever he appears. 
 ^f'And the kingfisher's habits render him peculiarly 
 easy to exterminate. Like the swallow, he 
 migrates ; but unlike that free vagrant of the air 
 he must, even in migrating, haunt the downward 
 course of his native stream till he reaches the 
 estuary, where he should find a winter refuge free 
 from ice. But with nets at the bridges and 
 gunners at the coast his chance of life is small. 
 
 267 
 
September xx 
 
 THE iF^ While the south-east winds check bird- 
 
 wELcoME migration from the north, even those travellers 
 
 OF THE which usually come to us from the south-east seem 
 
 SHOTGUN j.^ linger on their way. No doubt the long joy of 
 
 summer weather has extended to other lands ; and 
 
 migrants become tardy when the warm sun tempts 
 
 to loitering. 
 
 ¥A11 the worse, however, for those few birds 
 which have pushed on in advance. On marsh and 
 mudflat, when a plaintive wavering note, midway 
 between the slurred whistle of the golden plover 
 and the syllabled call of the peewit, betokens the 
 presence of grey plover, you may see the sun glint 
 upon distant gun-barrels, shifted in ready hands, 
 and dots of human heads cautiously appear above 
 the horizon of the long sea-wall. 
 ¥For preparations made to receive an incoming 
 host are concentrated upon the slender advance- 
 guard ; and, as the small flock wheels from dis- 
 tance to distance, now dull grey against the low 
 sky, now shimmering white over the tidal levels of 
 wet sand and mud, the tell-tale plaintive whistling 
 is answered by unseen guns, in peremptory mono- 
 syllables which call now one, now more of those 
 restless wanderers headlong down to the sea- 
 washed land which they have flown so far to find. 
 
 268 
 
September xxi 
 V^From a distance the deer in the park seem chestnut 
 to be harassed by stinging-flies. Though the har- 
 scattered herd as a whole shows no desire to move '^^^'^'^^^ 
 from the shade of the avenue, its units in groups 
 of three or four appear constantly smitten with 
 feverish activity, and the sunlight slanting between 
 the trees flickers always upon swiftly moving 
 forms. Suddenly, with a rustle in the branches 
 overhead and a " plop " on the ground at your 
 feet, a ripe horse-chestnut falls and bursts, the 
 green shells and brown nuts scattering apart. 
 Then you understand the fitful antics of the deer. 
 They are listening for the nuts ; and, as each falls, 
 those nearest scamper for it. 
 
 iS^One can hardly resist scampering too. The 
 new nuts look so very new and fat and clean, as 
 they bounce from their spiky shells and lie shining 
 on the ground. One envies the deer the juicy 
 crunch of each smooth brown globe ; and the 
 comfortably familiar " feel " of one in your hand 
 recalls memories of autumns long ago. In the 
 very centre of the pale scar on its underside is 
 that soft spot where the small blade of a penknife 
 enters so easily in boring a hole for the string. 
 You turn it over and your forefinger crooks 
 round it naturally in act to throw. Better still 
 to carry it in your trouser pocket for a day, and 
 feel a boy again when you undress at night and 
 find it there. 
 
 269 
 
September xxii 
 LATE nATs ¥^In ordinary years the noctule — ^that big bat 
 AND which swiftly wheels at dusk on a higher plane 
 
 swAL- Qjf- gj^y ^^^^ j.]^g Y\tx\.& pipistrelles that flicker along 
 the hedges and under the shade of trees — dis- 
 appears into winter quarters earlier than this. 
 But when continuous southerly winds permit bees 
 and flies and butterflies to throng daily to the 
 flower-beds, still blazing with summer's colours, 
 they also leave some insect life aloft at sunset ; 
 though the noctule must venture forth earlier and 
 fly lower than his wont, competing with the 
 lingering swallows for his needs. 
 ^These swallows, too, have reassembled ; and 
 stray pairs of flycatchers have reappeared in 
 places which they abandoned weeks ago, when the 
 wind turned to the north. When the wind turns 
 again, even the sheltered corners where they have 
 enjoyed restful days of plenty will hold them no 
 longer ; and on the same day that we are counting 
 the new arrivals of winter birds we shall miss the 
 last of our summer friends. Yet sometimes even 
 in late autumn, amid flocks of rooks and hoodie 
 crows from Norway, we may see a solitary little 
 summer bird hurrying by, looking sadly out of 
 place. 
 
 270 
 
September 
 
 Copyright) 
 
 THE NOCTULE BAT 
 
 E. Kay Robiiir.07i 
 
, RESUMED 
 
 September xxiii 
 ¥iFA SUDDEN turn of the wind to the north — migra- 
 though even the north-easter may have no bite in tion 
 it as yet — re-forms the procession of the migrant^ 
 birds ; and fresh parties of grey and golden plovers, 
 curlews and small waders, as well as flycatchers, 
 redstarts, wheatears and pipits, arrive on the east 
 coast. Robins and hedge-sparrows, peewits, rooks 
 and jackdaws seem to have come too ; but in the 
 case of such ubiquitous birds it is hard to say for 
 certain whether their increased abundance on the 
 coast at any time is the result of migration or 
 merely casual gathering. 
 
 ^Indeed, there might be doubt in the case of the 
 others too — for it is seldom that you actually see 
 birds arriving from over the sea — but that they are 
 accompanied by some undoubted foreigners, which 
 do not breed anywhere within the British Isles. 
 Often among these chance visitors come blue- 
 throats, on their devious way from Northern 
 Europe to North Africa. They are almost always 
 young birds of the year, without the white or 
 scarlet- centred blue patch on the throat from which 
 their parents get their name ; but their ruddy tails, 
 displayed in hovering flight, with broad black band 
 at the end, at once attract attention to them. 
 
 271 
 
SEEMING 
 TO DE- 
 PART 
 
 September xxiv 
 swAL- ^i?When a chilly wet wind blows, we often have 
 LOWS false alarms of the departure of the swallows, be- 
 cause on looking out of window towards the roofs 
 where day after day they have been sunning them- 
 selves by regiments, we see no sign of them. 
 Instead of the wheeling clouds of birds, which at 
 short intervals used to burst upon the sky and fill 
 the air with darting, twittering shapes, only one or 
 two hardworking house-martins, which still have 
 young in the mud nests under the eaves, come and 
 go, bringing food. 
 
 ^But if you watch these solitary martins as they 
 leave their nests, you see that, instead of circling 
 round the house as they do when the air is warm 
 and still, easily catching what they need of the 
 multitude of straying flies, now they go straight out 
 of sight. And if you follow them, you find out at 
 once where all the other martins and swallows are. 
 nFTo leeward of every large tree and along the 
 sheltered side of every hedge they are darting and 
 wheeling in busy company. It is not that they 
 mind the ^wind and rain so much, but they know 
 that in such weather the only insects abroad are 
 those which are blown from trees and hedges, or 
 which dance in the shelter of overhanging boughs. 
 So the swallows resort thither for such breakfast as 
 may be going ; but when the wind drops, and the 
 sun draws the teeming insect life out again, they 
 return to their easy, idle life upon the steaming 
 roofs. And, looking out of window, some one says 
 with pleased surprise, " Why, the swallows have 
 not gone, after ail 1 " 
 
 272 
 
September xxv 
 ¥¥There are many brief false alarms of the de-THE 
 parture of the swallows and martins, when, with THEop 
 simultaneous twitterings, the whole flock suddenly °f '''"^ 
 rises in the air and, wheeling in every direction at g-jy^L- 
 first, seems gradually to melt in the distance, but low " 
 soon returns in instalments, until the roof is as full 
 as before. 
 
 ^Earlier observers, like Edward Jesse, have accu- 
 rately noted that these sudden and simultaneous 
 excursions often take place at the instant that one 
 swallow, flying overhead, has uttered two shrill 
 notes. From this they concluded that there is 
 always " a master or leading swallow, who guides 
 the movements of the rest." I have, however, 
 already given the simpler explanation that these are 
 the call-notes of the parent swallow for his young 
 ones to come and be fed — a performance which is 
 very prettily carried out in mid-air, father and child 
 hovering beak to beak for a moment while the 
 food is being transferred, and then falling away 
 from each other in the gracefullest of curves. 
 When, therefore, a cluster of young swallows in 
 the midst of the gathering on the roof hear their 
 father's welcome summons, they spring up, and, 
 as usually happens with birds in a flock, the 
 sudden flight of a fnw sends all the rest ofi^, too, 
 in a panic. 
 
 VThis explanation is less poetical, perhaps, than 
 the theory that there is some " master swallow " 
 with commanding tones, who drills his army before 
 its long forced march, but I think that it accords 
 with facts. 
 
 273 s 
 
SUMMER 
 
 September xxvt 
 THE ¥^A WEAK, season may slide quietly away, but a 
 END OF strong, full-blooded summer dies with stormy 
 paroxysms. Nature seems to groan in the tempest 
 and weep in the deluge at the death of a season 
 after her own heart. And Nature's small clients, 
 the birds which wait the summons of her winds in 
 autumn, are hurried hither and thither in her 
 stormy moods. 
 
 ^There are days in one week when the swallows 
 migrating along our coasts have to battle round the 
 headlands against cold winds ; and there are days 
 when the halting flycatcher can perch upon a 
 gate in the sunlight, looking as if migration were 
 the last thing in his mind. To-day that flycatcher 
 maybe many miles away, but in his stead the interval 
 between storms may reveal the willow-wren — often 
 the first of our summer warblers to arrive in spring 
 and last to go — threading his way through the 
 shrubbery as composedly as if summer were just 
 coming back again. 
 
 ^But the next north wind must take the willow- 
 wren ; for that hoarse cry, " Kurruk, kurruk, 
 kurruk," from the trees that fringe the coast, is 
 the voice of no rook. When the hoodie crows 
 commence to come, it is time for the warblers to 
 depart. 
 
 274 
 
September xxvii 
 WThe low drone of the dor-beetle is the familiar clumsy 
 music of these early autumn evenings, when the insects 
 sun sinks in a shallow sea of gold and thin white "^^^mn 
 mists line the valleys, while the last few bats flitter 
 hungrily to and fro. 
 
 ^Not that the dor-beetle was unknown in warmer 
 months. Often we have seen his burly blue-black 
 form scrambling in the grass by the trodden field- 
 path, or, unluckily tumbled on a smooth spot, dis- 
 playing the peacock gloss of his underside, as he 
 uselessly waved his spiky legs in the air. But it 
 is in early autumn that his drowsy hum fills the 
 evening landscape ; and it is then, too, that in 
 blundering flight he is most liable to strike you 
 a rather painful blow upon the face. 
 ^Clumsiness seems, indeed, to be the special attri- 
 bute of autumn insects. It is the autumn blue- 
 bottle that buzzes and bumps around your study, 
 the autumn wasp that tumbles into unexpected 
 places and stings by accident, and the daddy-long- 
 legs of autumn that goes blundering along over 
 the herbage till he catches one long leg in a cobweb, 
 and hangs there whizzing like a mechanical toy. 
 Does coming death make them all reckless of 
 life? 
 
 Z75 
 
SPIDERS 
 
 September xxviii 
 MiGRA- iF^When a chill comes from north or east the 
 TioN OF great army of migrant birds receives marching 
 orders; but when the cold wind drops and scarcely 
 a breath disturbs the sunny calm of a perfect 
 autumn morning, the spiders undertake migrations 
 almost more wonderful. As with many kinds of 
 birds, only the young spiders migrate, climbing to 
 the summits of trees and bushes, and there paying 
 out long threads of silk, which float on the softly 
 moving air until at last they drift away upwards 
 with the little spiders lightly clinging to them. 
 ^Thus Nature manages to distribute over new 
 areas the multitudes of infant spiders of many 
 kinds — for it was an old-time error which con- 
 ceived a special " gossamer spider " as the spinner 
 of this aerial silk — but whether they cross lands 
 and seas cannot be said. Far out at sea tangled 
 skeins of gossamer have been seen falling, and 
 when the still air of a valley glitters with sunlit 
 gossamer, you may ride to a hill-top or mount a 
 lofty steeple, and still away up in the sky above 
 you the silken strands will float and gleam. Man, 
 perhaps, invented his balloons millions of years 
 after baby spiders knew how to make theirs as a 
 mere matter of course. 
 
 276 
 
September xxix 
 ^^LiKE grey hairs among the gold, threads and streaks 
 streaks of autumn tints multiply daily in the forest- °^ 
 growth that hangs over the shoulders of each sun- ^^^^^ 
 kissed headland. For even the sun's caresses cannot 
 stay the discolouring touch of time ; and, in the 
 valley's hedgerows, splashes of tawny and yellow 
 mingle here and there with the ruddy haze of berries, 
 till one can hardly see where ripe fruitage ends and 
 worn foliage begins. 
 
 ^But these scattered flecks of autumn colour are 
 only like the small floating clouds which catch pre- 
 mature hints of the glories of the setting sun. As 
 the real splendour of the dying day creeps slowly 
 over the whole width of the western sky, bleaching 
 the blue to amber and amethyst, which gradually 
 glow upward and outwards to gold and crimson, 
 so the great autumn change that passes over wood- 
 land and hedge and timbered landscape comes in an 
 unnoticed blurring of the general green to dubious 
 half-shades, that contrast more clearly day by day. 
 As the sycamore has thus faded to puce, so the oak 
 now hardens to bronze ; and there is a new crisp 
 rustle in its leaves when the yellow acorns come 
 pattering through, falling at last in wholesome 
 ripeness for the cattle out of their dry cups. 
 
 277 
 
September xxx 
 autumn's ^^September dies beautifully to-day among the 
 BEAUTY sandhills, where plants of the wind-swept sea- 
 BY THE marshes carpet the sheltered sand with mingled 
 hues of summer and autumn. Against the silver- 
 grey of the sea-purslane and sea-wormwood the 
 dying glasswort — which men call " samphire," and 
 pickle as such on the east coast — makes sunset 
 glory on the tidal soil, flaming from orange to 
 carmine. 
 
 ^Here and there the sea-thrift sends up new 
 blooms of blushing pink above its tufts of velvet- 
 green ; and among the feathery grey of dry sea- 
 lavender fresh sprays appear, more heavenly blue 
 by contrast even than in summer. Even the 
 scrubby suasda tints its hummocks of dull green 
 with purple and pink and orange. 
 ^With the background of yellow sandhills, half- 
 hidden in grey marram grass, and glimpses between 
 of the dazzling yellow ribbon of sunlit sand edging 
 the deep blue sea, where a line of white gulls flickers 
 to meet the white line of the breakers, with curlews 
 whistling in the distance and the redshank whim- 
 pering in wavy flight on white-barred wings, while 
 flocks of dunlins marvellously flash from black to 
 silver-white as they wheel in ordered ranks — with 
 all this and the coloured carpet under foot, there 
 are worse J places than a nook among the sandhills 
 on a sunny autumn day. 
 
 278 
 
October i 
 ^5r5|THE wren has joined the autumn chorus of the con- 
 birds, a rather absurd little cock-tailed singer, trasts in 
 perhaps, bobbing and bowing to right and left as °'=™ber 
 he hurries through his music ; but from so small a 
 body the trills come strangely loud and clear, and 
 have the rare merit among bird-songs of complete- 
 ness, beginning and ending with the same four 
 quick notes, suggesting laughter that must come 
 out. Yet, having no fixed winter beat like the 
 robin, the wren sings more rarely, and only, it 
 would seem, when chance brings his wanderings 
 near the spot where he nested in the spring. 
 ^On parts of the east coast more striking music of 
 the moment is a well-remembered sound, like the 
 high-pitched baying of a distant hound, which 
 makes you halt to listen, as a thin dark line wavers 
 above the low horizon. Higher and darker it 
 spreads, till in the nearer sky you recognise the 
 angle, ruled as in Euclid's diagrams, in which the 
 wild geese fly. The first of them arrived some 
 days ago, with presage of changing weather ; but 
 every day their ordered ranks extend, and, could 
 we translate into terms of meteorology the clanging 
 message which announces each new squadron's 
 incoming from the Arctic seas, we should know 
 something, perhaps, of the winter which is stealine; 
 down towards us from the north. 
 
 279 
 
COCK 
 
 PHEASANT 
 
 October ii 
 
 THE ^St^There is ati expected visitor in the garden. 
 
 FUGITIVE A fine cock pheasant furtively emerges from one 
 shrubbery and, with tail cocked at an angle of 45 
 degrees, races across the lawn to another. On any 
 day after October i we anticipate this visit ; and, 
 though others may come later, when the din and 
 terror of a battue have scattered straggling survi- 
 vors far and wide, the first arrival is always a 
 magnificent solitary cock. 
 
 =SlFor the pheasant has little of the domestic virtue 
 which makes the partridge's concern for his family 
 so charming. Except during courtship, when he 
 is as gallant as bird may be, the cock pheasant 
 merely tolerates the company of wife and children, 
 and at the first hint of danger he rushes off to save 
 his own precious life. We cannot blame him, 
 because in his conspicuous plumage he pays a 
 heavy price for success in polygamous love ; and 
 often the best service he can render to wife and 
 children is to attract attention to his own rapid 
 exit. But by practice he grows cunning ; and, 
 racing like a hare down the hedgerows, he often 
 reaches the safe ring-fence of a quiet garden 
 while beaters, guns, and dogs are still half a mile 
 away. 
 
 280 
 
October Hi 
 ^JC^Though the great immigration of foreign the 
 rooks has not yet taken place, there are enough noisy 
 already in the fields to make their sudden alarums ^°°^ °^ 
 and excursions the most conspicuous feature of 
 outdoor life. When they are black-dotted over 
 the stubbles, rooks are quiet as thieves, having no 
 desire to tempt any one to look over the hedge ; 
 but once on the wing at this season they all shout 
 all the time. 
 
 ^For the newly arrived rook has many excite- 
 ments. Nothing will convince him that the men 
 who march in line through the turnips, with guns 
 and dogs, are not elaborately stalking him ; so he 
 is always " moving on," with loud expostulations, 
 to the next field but two. Then there are so 
 many strange rooks in the company, with whom 
 he has to exchange remarks which may be compli- 
 ments or may not. Word has to be passed all 
 over the parish, also, when the ploughmen begin 
 a new field ; and where the acorns are ripe the 
 rooks have a new reason for a lot of noise, because 
 picking acorns is such disorderly, flapping work 
 that they must signal safety to each other all the 
 time. 
 
 ^WBut that which makes the rook most eloquent 
 now is the beginning of rivalry in courtship. Yon 
 should hear him sing ! 
 
 281 
 
CHAL- 
 LENGE 
 
 October iv 
 
 THE RED ^&c=S»" Caution. The stags are dangerous," now 
 deer's runs the placard in many an English park, and, 
 viewing a grand red stag at close quarters one 
 wonders that he is not more dangerous. 
 ^When he tosses his noble head aloft, with its 
 wide sweep of ten-speared antlers, throwing into 
 splendid outline the great curve of his shaggy 
 chest ; when he stamps the ground in the grace of 
 his mighty strength ; above all, when he flings into 
 the air his bellowing challenge with its slurred 
 crescendo, one may be pardoned if one glances 
 round for a friendly tree-trunk. 
 ^But seldom is any red stag's statuesque fury 
 intended for the chance spectator. The annual 
 passion of love is hot within him ; and, whether 
 he be a stalwart youngster, with few tines upon 
 his antlers and no sweetheart yet of his very own, 
 or a mighty old warrior with a huddled harem at 
 his heels, there are many hinds still unwon, and 
 many stags fierce on the winning. 
 ^It is the lust of conquest in love that speaks in 
 the wild, weird challenge of the grand beast before 
 you, and that is flung back in the answering bellow 
 of another monarch of the glen through the long 
 aisles of listening trees. 
 ^You may see a royal battle ere the fall of dusk. 
 
 282 
 
October v 
 ^St^ .\s the gathering dusk grows chill on these our 
 autumn evenings it is a curious trick of the robin friend 
 to precede you down the lane by short flights of a "^^^ '^°^"* 
 few yards at a time, often awaiting your near 
 approach until you are not quite certain whether it 
 was a bird or a mouse which evaded your footstep. 
 No doubt the robin has his own reasons of com- 
 missariat for haunting the lane-path so late, when 
 the mists are filling the marsh meadows as with 
 cotton wool. But there always seems to be some- 
 thing more than this — as if some instinct were 
 working in the robin's mind, making it seem 
 desirable that he should accompany man's home- 
 ward journey in the dusk of autumn. Perhaps 
 when men dwelt in caves and huts, the robin shared 
 their shelter. 
 
 ^And, since the evening of the year is the time for 
 retrospect, one is reminded how many landmarks 
 of the country calendar are provided by the robin. 
 His is the jubilant voice which proclaims the 
 birth of a new year amid frost and snow, and his 
 the first nest in the garden in early spring. In 
 summer we have many friends, but he is again the 
 first of the autumn chorus of the birds. And now 
 it is he who comes with us down the lane ; and who 
 will sing the Christmas carol of the shrubbery so 
 well as our friend the robin ? 
 
 283 
 
AND 
 AFTER 
 
 October vt 
 THE ivy's ^k5|As befits the last great feast of the year, the 
 FEAST, ivy's banquet for the insects is plentiful and last- 
 ing. So long as the weather serves for any nectar- 
 loving insects to stir forth, they find fresh golden 
 cups brimming with sweets at their command. 
 And they come in true carnival spirit, observing 
 no distinctions of class ; but with the long winter's 
 fast ahead, bee and butterfly, wasp and bluebottle, 
 gnat and hoverfly, jostle together merrily over the 
 clustered blooms. And some, still in carnival 
 spirit, love the cup too well ; for, when the grey 
 dusk breathes a numbing mist over the landscape 
 many a wasp still clings to its half-emptied cluster 
 of cold flowers. 
 
 =5lAnd there you will find him later, if you visit 
 the ivy's evening scene of revelry. Numbed and 
 huddled up, he scarcely stirs when the light of the 
 lantern falls upon him. Even when the furred 
 moths, with jewelled eyes that flash in the light, 
 brush his crouching form with their plumes as 
 they sweep by, bent on the pleasures of the night, 
 he does not move. There he will crouch still, 
 when the night moths have returned to their 
 homes and the cold dawn rises ; for Nature has 
 no policemen with a peremptory " Move on 
 there ! " for the drink-fuddled wretches who lie 
 abroad on these chill nights. 
 
 284 
 
October vii 
 'ir^lT would be especially unreasonable, perhaps, October 
 after a good summer, to expect an autumn without "orms 
 wrecking storms of wind. Yet one cannot help 
 deploring the wreckage. Trees half bare just 
 when they were crowning the hills with the glory 
 of their autumn hues; hedgesides littered with 
 scattered berries just when the hosts of migrant 
 birds that will want them are on their way to us 
 from north and east ; acorns, ripe and unripe, 
 scattered broadcast on the ground, where the 
 cattle may eat them to injurious excess ; the last 
 of the house- martins, bruised and weary from 
 battling with the gales just when they most need 
 calm days and abundant food for their young on 
 the eve of their great journey ; corn-stacks and 
 straw-ricks tossed and tousled just when the farmer 
 hoped to get on with the threshing — such is the 
 handiwork of October storms. 
 =ic" What use is the wind, anyway .'' " asks the 
 farmer ; and to the man who tries to keep Nature 
 within his ring-fence, the wind seems of little use 
 indeed. But to Nature at large the wind that 
 scatters the seeds, clears away the dead and dying 
 foliage, and carries bird life over lands and seas 
 has many uses, which only Nature knows ; because, 
 after all, it is a part of Nature, 
 
 285 
 
FOREIGN 
 
 BRAM- 
 
 BLING 
 
 October vtii 
 
 THE =5i=SiThe pious naturalist of old would have seen a 
 special dispensation of Providence in the fact that 
 the same gales which strew the ground with ripe 
 beech-nuts bring over the bramblings from Norway 
 to enjoy them. For the brambling or bramble- 
 finch loves the beech-nut, as the jay loves the 
 acorn or the goldfinch the thistle-seed ; and his 
 arrival is always worth noting — though not seen 
 everywhere in Britain — because he is the first 
 winter visitor from abroad, whose identity cannot 
 be doubted, to reach our fields in autumn. 
 ^Foreign travellers, like the bluethroats, may have 
 put in to our coasts under stress of weather ; 
 foreign waders and waterfowl may haunt our 
 shores and meres, providing evening sport for the 
 gunner ; but these are only casual wayfarers, and, 
 though hooded crows, thrushes, larks and star- 
 lings may also have arrived from abroad, who shall 
 distinguish them from birds of the same kind bred 
 in Britain ? 
 
 ^So, before the redwings and fieldfares crowd 
 over to join our thrushes in the pastures, the 
 brambling, flitting from hedge to tree with the 
 chaffinches which were his companions oversea, 
 has an interest all his own. And, where he occurs, 
 he is easily identified ; for while the chaffinch can 
 be recognised at any distance by his white-flecked 
 wings, the brambling adds to these a snowy patch 
 above the tail which is most conspicuous in flight. 
 
 286 
 
October ix 
 'JiFSiThough the ceaseless hum of threshing clipped 
 machines strikes a cheery note for the cyclist, hedges 
 whirling on his silent way between country hedges, ^"^^ 
 not all the agricultural operations of the season „,,; 3,^1,3 
 please him. For although smooth-clipped hedges 
 may indicate careful farming, the thorned twigs 
 which the flourished bill-hook scatters into the 
 road are the very mischief for pneumatic tyres. 
 For other reasons, too, one cannot help regretting 
 that the farmer should begin so early to employ 
 his idle hands from harvest on hedge-clipping; for 
 now is the hedge harvest, and every stroke sends 
 sprays of fruited beauty, clustered blackberries, 
 scarlet hips, or waxy-tinted bunches from the way- 
 faring tree, scattering to the ground. The birds 
 have reason to dislike neat hedging even more 
 than cyclists or village children do. 
 ^And to-day, the brambling having come, you 
 may look for other new birds, especially for the 
 first arrival of the siskins, the males like little 
 green-and-yellow canaries, fluttering among the 
 alder-trees, whose ripened catkins will supply 
 some food for them through the longest frosts. 
 Now, too, you may see the corn-buntings, usually 
 in solitary pairs, collected in flocks where wild 
 weed-seeds are most plentiful. There, too, are 
 flocks of yellow-hammers and greenfinches, twitter- 
 ing congregations of linnets, and often a welcome 
 family party of goldfinches, glittering like feathered 
 butterflies. 
 
 287 
 
MASK 
 
 October x 
 SPRING ^5»5|As a face grows old, those who pass in the 
 BEHIND street may see the sadness of its drawn lines and 
 f"™**** ^ the hardness of its wrinkles ; but to those who 
 know and love it well are revealed still the smiles 
 and dimples that outlive the years. So to the 
 passing stranger even the timeless face of Nature 
 grows sad and cold in autumn ; but if you are with 
 her daily you can see where each drawn line ends 
 in its sunny curve of promised spring. 
 =5lEvery leaf that falls is almost pushed off by the 
 swelled bud which holds next summer's foliage; 
 and the spiky gorse that was so glorious with 
 golden bloom in June and August is thickly em- 
 broidered now with pale green points between the 
 spines, which almost give hope of summer's wealth 
 of gold at Christmas. 
 
 ^And the birds tell the same message of promise. 
 The thrush — who sings in the thicket so softly 
 now that, but for the unmistakable timbre of his 
 voice, we should hardly suspect him to be the 
 loud, bold tenor of our spring concerts — does not 
 hush his notes in awe of coming winter. He is 
 only a young bird, who feels stirring within him a 
 new power — the power to compel love and to be 
 master in his home — which finds expression as yet 
 only in half-phrases and halting tones. Yet it is 
 the true thrush music of a coming summer that 
 he sings. 
 
 288 
 
October xi 
 ^St^cNow the British farmer, having sown new the 
 wheat-fields, begins to take an interest in his ^a'^^*^'" 
 " friend " the rook : for that useful and intelligent ■'^''° "" 
 
 ^ FRIEND 
 
 bird has a way of walking up the rows and putting ^he rook 
 the prospective crop out of the reach of wireworms 
 for ever, by digging up the grain and eating it. 
 So, during the hours of morning and afternoon, 
 when the rooks usually prospect for their break- 
 fast and supper, some boy or very old man wanders 
 aimlessly about the margin of the bare brown field, 
 raising a weird and crazy shout whenever one of 
 the black marauders drifts inquisitively across the 
 sky. 
 
 ^For the rooks seem to know something of 
 human nature — :that boys have a weakness for 
 picking blackberries and old men for going to 
 sleep — -so every now and then a solitary rook, 
 passing to or from the sable congregation as- 
 sembled in a distant pasture, will diverge from his 
 aerial path to reconnoitre that bare brown field. 
 "Caw," says the rook aloft. " Hi, hi, hi, gerrow " 
 — or words to similar effect — shouts the boy below ; 
 and with this exchange of compliments the " far- 
 mer's friend" and the farmer's representative part 
 company, many times a day. 
 
 289 
 
AHEAD 
 
 October xii 
 THE ^5f5|To see signs of next spring one need go no 
 MALLARD further than the pond where the pinioned wild 
 ^°?''! ducks live. 
 
 "Uln the long days of early summer you would 
 have seen only the gorgeous mallards together 
 there, playing at being gilded bachelors in their 
 club, while their dowdy wives sat on the eggs at 
 home. Then, as their children grew big, the gay 
 and brilliant mallards began to grow shabby — there 
 is human parallel for this too 1 — while their glossy 
 headgear and contrasting waistcoats dulled, with 
 the rest of their plumage, to a rusty brown. 
 Later, the children being launched in the world, 
 the mallards, still following examples familiar in 
 Pall Mall, hastened to resume their old smartness ; 
 and last month, with bowing heads and glossy 
 headgear, they were again laying siege to the 
 affections of the ducks. 
 
 ^And the ducks have capitulated unconditionally, 
 so that now, wherever a gorgeous mallard conde- 
 scends to float and allow the water to mirror his 
 beauty, at least one devoted duck floats close 
 behind, proclaiming with the sidelong nodding of 
 her silly head the pride and devotion of her heart. 
 Though winter is still some way ahead, this is the 
 beginning of next spring. 
 
 290 
 
October xiii 
 ^StScOnce again most of our lingering house-martins, the last 
 the very last of our summer birds, have been car- martins 
 ried away by the north wind ; though we may ^° 
 usually expect to see or hear of a few loitering tra- 
 vellers for weeks to come. As so often happens on 
 the morrow of the departure of summer birds, 
 warm and sunny weather followed the martins' 
 going, until one almost thought them foolish for 
 leaving when they might have stayed so comfort- 
 ably. 
 
 ^But there is no foolishness in Nature, whose safe 
 rules are based upon long laws of average ; and, 
 though autumn's " little summers " often give us 
 bright days, when the sunlight flickers with insect 
 life and even the rooks and pheasants turn fly- 
 catchers, still two days of north winds bring a chill, 
 which there is no mistaking, into the air. So, 
 though yesterday's sunshine may have seemed in- 
 complete without the swallow birds, they have gone 
 nearer to the sun ; and with to-day's nip in the air, 
 incoming rooks and hoodie crows from Norway, 
 with flocks of migrant larks and starlings — and 
 larger battalions of wild geese, yelping aloft as they 
 drift across the sky between sand-flat and marsh- 
 pasture — form a more timely setting of wild life for 
 mid-October. 
 
 291 
 
HOODIE S 
 HARVEST 
 
 October xiv 
 THE =5r5eTHE little harvests of wild life are many ; and, 
 noting how the hawthorn-berries are ruddy-ripe in 
 readiness for the redwings and fieldfares that will 
 need to eat them in the winter, one sees the appa- 
 rent adaptation of means to benevolent design 
 which made the contemplation of Nature a pious 
 exercise for our ancestors. As the fallen beech- 
 mast provides a ready banquet for the foreign 
 finches and fills the wood-mouse's store, so the slow- 
 ripening holly-berries will be ready for the missel- 
 thrush's time of need, the yew-berries await the haw- 
 finch, and even the wandering waxwing will find a 
 harvest of wild rose-hips left for him. But what 
 is the harvest on which the hoodie crow from Nor- 
 way is battening now in our English fields .'' 
 ^A few days ago a solitary man went slowly along 
 the farm hedges, poking and prying everywhere. 
 In one hand he carried a stick with a spoon tied to 
 the end of it ; and over his shoulder a bag of meal. 
 Wherever he found a rat's hole he thrust a spoonful 
 of the bait far in. And now along the hedgerows 
 are dead rats and dying rats, and rats that can still 
 run, but slowly, in the first pangs of illness. Thus 
 the hoodies, drifting over from Norway in com- 
 panies whenever the wind suits, find England strewn 
 with an abundant harvest exactly to their taste. 
 ^For the " poison " used is one which, having done 
 its work upon the rat, becomes innocuous there- 
 after — since it would never do to leave poisonous 
 meat, even of dead rats, lying about the farm. So 
 the hoodies rejoice and grow sleek. 
 
 292 
 
October xv 
 'k^THE garden robins have settled most of their robins 
 diiFerences. Others will arise later, when the " bird- -^^^d 
 table" becomes the storm-centre of conflicting ^°'^^'°'* 
 
 ROOKS 
 
 interests in winter; but just now the robins might 
 strike the optimistic attitude of the Government of 
 India after each of its little wars, declaring that 
 " only a few frontier questions of minor importance 
 remain to be decided." 
 
 ^There is that lilac-bush at the corner of the lawn, 
 for instance. Now it is leafy, and the front-lawn 
 robin has patched up a sort of modus vivendi with 
 the north-shrubbery robin, each using his side of 
 the bush and pretending not to see the other. But 
 how will this work when the lilac is bare, and 
 neither can so much as wink without making the 
 other jump .? We shall see, 
 
 ^Seasonal changes are taking place in the fields 
 too, and little rest has the old crowscarer now. 
 From the east coast inwards the stream of foreign 
 rooks, jackdaws and hoodie crows, which com- 
 menced to flow from Norway with last week's 
 north-east winds, has flooded the land with cawing 
 insolence. So the crack of the harmless cap upon 
 the crowscarer's old muzzle-loader punctuates 
 their ceaseless conversation. 
 
 =Sl" There be a mighty deal o' crows t' year," says 
 the old crowscarer, as he stands scratching his 
 head, a brown human atom on the margin of a 
 brown forty-acre field. 
 
 ^But there is a mighty deal more of " crows " to 
 come yet. Wait till the wind turns to north-east 
 again. 
 
 293 
 
October xvi 
 MORE ^5r5|To-DAY the elm and the hazel in grove and 
 AUTUMN woodland add their notes of yellow to autumn's 
 TINTS harmony of colour ; but the horse-chestnut is 
 TRAVEL- quickly taking oiF its tawny robes, and the walnut 
 LERs stands brown and almost bare. 
 
 ^SlAfter each whifF of wind from north and east, 
 you may see the redwings, dainty little thrushes, 
 multiplying daily in the east coast hedges, where 
 they will gobble the slender store of hawthorn 
 berries, until the cold wind sends them drifting 
 inland and southwards. 
 
 ^With the same winds now arrive more hosts of 
 foreign larks, and with them, more by design per- 
 haps than accident, come the merlins, miniature 
 falcons, which in brilliant matches of skill against 
 the twisting peewit, or in "ringing" flights aloft 
 behind the soaring lark, give us sometimes unre- 
 hearsed performances as fine as the best of trained 
 falconry. 
 
 ^If house-martins again congregate where for days 
 there may have been only a pair or two left, you 
 can see that the newcomers are strangers, from the 
 haphazard way in which they fly up to the nests 
 under the eaves, rousing the sparrows which have 
 annexed most of the nests to a state of chirruping 
 fury. The martins only want a night's lodging, 
 however, and by dusk they have all packed them- 
 selves in somehow, somewhere. To-morrow, if 
 the cold wind blows again, they will move on. 
 
 294 
 
October xvii 
 =5r5lWARNED by the first frosts of autumn, the wasps the 
 are hard at work undoing all their labours of pre- tragedy 
 vious warm weeks. Unlike the honey-bees, which °^ '^"f 
 can retire at the first chill in the waning year to a ^^.^^ 
 home well stocked with provender for all, the 
 wasps have always lived, as it were, from hand to 
 mouth — though their labour has not been to feed 
 themselves so much as the multiplying host of 
 helpless grubs ranged in row upon row and tier 
 upon tier of tiny paper cradles. They have, how- 
 ever, multiplied their burdens so recklessly — judged 
 by human standards — that the whole energy of the 
 adult population of the nest has barely kept pace 
 with the demand for food. 
 
 ■JcSo, unlike the honey-bee, the wasp in autumn 
 works long hours in risky weather, often losing her 
 numbed life in the chilly dusk. And then there 
 comes a time when the dwindling force of workers 
 and the hours of work cut short by early frost 
 cause a fatal shortage in the supply of food for the 
 populous nursery. 
 
 ^Did such things happen on the human scale of 
 suffering, and on our plane of reasoned despair, 
 we should hide our eyes from the dim tragedy 
 which ensues. But in the casting forth by the 
 wasps of all the helpless grubs which they have 
 laboured to feed, we see only Nature's means of 
 saving such life as she may by sacrificing such life 
 as she must. 
 
 295 
 
A FALL 
 
 October xviti 
 PRIDE ^5r5lA NEW noise begins from time to timetodomi- 
 BEFORE nate the mixed babel of the farmyard chorus. 
 More than half of the young turkey-poults have 
 made the notable discovery that they are turkey- 
 cocks ; and, in pride of sex, each constitutes him- 
 self the sentinel of the yard. So each fresh incident 
 of the farm day is heralded by the tumultuous 
 burbling of many voices raised in loud and liquid 
 protest, which almost scares the passing dog and 
 makes the wayfarer think of Christmas, when these 
 gobblers will — not to put too fine a point upon it 
 — be gobbled. 
 
 ^Exalted by a similar discovery, and equally fortu- 
 nate in ignorance of the function of their lives, the 
 young cock pheasants by the covert-side are strut- 
 ting in their privilege of budding spurs, crowing 
 challenges to swashbuckling combat at every turn. 
 ^Quickly these ruffled passions sink to humble 
 sleekness, however, as they hurriedly part to make 
 way for the old cock pheasant with stiletto spurs, 
 who stalks into the open. Magnificent he stands, 
 like a jewelled bird of bronze and ruddy copper, 
 with head erect, listening. 
 
 ^It is only the muffled monosyllable of a gun in 
 the distant turnips ; but the old cock pheasant has 
 heard that noise before. You thought the young 
 ones ran fast — just look at him ! 
 
 296 
 
WAYS AND 
 
 October xix 
 ^5r5lSEEiNG the sparrows again collecting fluffy spar- 
 feathers, one might suppose that they have mis- ^°ws' 
 taken the warm days, which have followed the first ^^"^^ ^ 
 frosty hints of cold at night, for the return of jj^jjj,j^g 
 spring after winter. But the sparrow seems to 
 have learned from our civilisation enough to know 
 that a house may have other uses than as a nursery ; 
 and he scrambles for the feathers which drift from 
 the poultry-yard with a view to upholstering a cosy 
 winter sleeping-place. 
 
 ^Whether the frost which lately cut down the 
 dahlias suggested to the sparrows the need of warm 
 shelter at night, or the young birds of the year 
 have put on with their adult plumage the ambition 
 to settle down as householders betimes, would be 
 hard to say ; for the proceedings of sparrows are 
 too disorderly and tumultuous to be observed with 
 certainty. 
 
 ^Each scene in their life-dramas always seems to 
 end in a general rally, in which the performers get 
 hopelessly mixed up. But that important issues of 
 their domestic politics are being settled now you 
 may easily gather from the noisy parliaments, all 
 present speaking at once, which assemble in the 
 shrubberies, and from the hot chases which ensue 
 of half a dozen bachelor hooligans after one brazen- 
 voiced hen sparrow, who seems to peck each suitor 
 in the eye in turn. 
 
 297 
 
October xx 
 BIRD '^i^" Alarums and excursions " seem to be the 
 STRIFE IN standing stage directions for bird life in autumn. 
 AUTUMN 'pjjjg jg Qf necessity the case where man prowls 
 abroad with a gun ; but even if you go afield un- 
 armed and quiet, you shall still see disturbances on 
 every side. Scarcely a bird flies anywhere, but 
 another takes ofi'ence and chases him, till the hedges 
 are looped with strife. 
 
 ^For the resident birds are justly irritated at the 
 presence of foreign interlopers who came with the 
 cold winds from the north some days ago and have 
 since been loitering from field to field, causing 
 annoyance everywhere. You can hardly see a sky- 
 lark which is not either chasing another or being 
 chased, until the hot pursuit transgresses other 
 frontiers and embroils new larks. So, too, each 
 wandering missel-thrush seems to be chased by 
 some smaller, indignant bird ; and the boundaries 
 of the garden are the constant theatre of guerilla 
 warfare between its feathered garrison and the un- 
 disciplined hordes of migrants who try to gain a 
 footing there. There may be food in plenty now ; 
 but the hungry winter is coming, and the fewer 
 guests the merrier says the instinct of the birds. 
 
 298 
 
October xxi 
 'kkTHE rooks, disturbed from one sown field, soar swagger- 
 aloft to scan the landscape for another, often chasing ing 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 one another or descending with half-closed wings 
 
 1 ° , . , . . ° OF ROOK 
 
 in arrowy sweeps and curves which seem surprising ^^^ ^j^ll 
 feats for birds ordinarily so solemn and steady as 
 the rooks. They accompany the performance, too, 
 with queer falsetto croaks and gurgles suggestive of 
 practical joking with their vocal chords. For even 
 rooks are born young and must have their heyday 
 of swaggering youth and courtship. They know 
 nothing as yet of winter ; but they feel their 
 strength, and each would be a ringleader in sexual 
 rivalry. 
 
 ^So, too, the gulls, which circle wide over the 
 fields where the ploughs are idle during the plough- 
 men's dinner hour, sport marvellously in the air, 
 flashing from grey to silver as with shrill cries they 
 stoop and soar, now zigzagging downwards through 
 successive tiers of air as though some drunken 
 ecstasy had seized them, and again sailing aloft with 
 consummate ease on wide wings deftly trimmed 
 to the slanting air. 
 
 ^To us, plodding on the earth below, it seems 
 wonderful and beautiful. Yet how seldom we ad- 
 mire our own youths when they swagger and " show 
 off" likewise. 
 
 299 
 
AND LESS 
 
 October xxii 
 MORE =5i?S|You can always tell now when the wind has 
 been blowing from the east oversea, no matter 
 what its direction on land may be, by the fresh 
 reinforcements which take place of our feathered 
 armies of invasion for the winter. For hours then 
 the sky over the east coast is dusted with flock 
 after flock of rooks and jackdaws, starlings, peewits, 
 skylarks and finches. Without transport or com- 
 missariat, or even orders, they have crossed the 
 sea, never losing touch of their companies, nor 
 falling out by the way. And after they have 
 passed there is no sign of the wreckage which trails 
 behind a marching human host. There may seem 
 to be a few more birds in the fields perhaps, but 
 otherwise the same quiet autumn landscape every- 
 where. 
 
 ^SlAlthough, even yet, the greatest inrush of migrant 
 birds may not have commenced, it is sad to see 
 how rapidly the hawthorn-berries have been dis- 
 appearing. Even when the crop has been unusually 
 bountiful, and for the most part spared by summer 
 tempests, the same causes — kindly spring and 
 genial summer — will have multiplied the birds ; 
 and when our home-bred blackbirds and missel- 
 thrushes are unusually numerous, the store of 
 berries dwindles so early that one wonders what 
 the later redwings and fieldfares will do, should the 
 winter prove severe. 
 
 300 
 
o 
 
October xxiii 
 !5t5lEvERY day, almost every hour, sees changes of autumn's 
 the passing season in the country now. From the daily 
 Virginian creeper over the porch, dropping the last changes 
 flakes of its crimson glory, to the grove where the 
 ripe beech-mast crunches more thickly underfoot 
 than it did yesterday, to the coppice where the 
 carpet of pine-needles now lies thick, the shrubbery 
 where dead shrewmice * lie upon the path, and the 
 woodland margins where fungi of many colours — 
 scarlet, buff, brown, and tawny — have sprung up 
 in thicker clusters and clearer rings — everywhere 
 you see how quickly the changes of the year take 
 place when autumn slides downhill, to winter. 
 ^Looking from the same window day after day at 
 the same wide landscape seems almost like looking 
 from the window of a railway carriage upon chang- 
 ing scenery. And no change strikes one more 
 directly than the winter gathering of the birds. 
 The companies of wood-pigeons in the coppices 
 grow to regiments, and the regiments of rooks and 
 jackdaws in the fields to army-corps, almost as you 
 watch ; and in coastwise districts the half-ploughed 
 stubbles are veiled in a daily-thickening snowstorm 
 of white-pinioned gulls, while the hosts of starlings 
 on the marshes almost defy arithmetic. 
 
 * The shrewmouse in the illustration was accidentally 
 killed, while in the act of killing a large moth. The photo- 
 graph was taken after death. 
 
 301 
 
BL\CK- 
 
 bird's 
 
 RETURN 
 
 October xxiv 
 THE 'k^A NEW stage has been reached in garden 
 politics ; for the cock blackbirds, with yellow bills 
 and fanwise flirting tails, begin to dispute possession 
 of lawns and shrubberies. 
 
 ^Since strawberry time the garden has had small 
 attraction for the blackbird ; because the fields and 
 hedges have been crammed with slugs and insects. 
 Then the wild berries began to ripen and he 
 feasted every day. But now, whether it is that 
 the berries are disappearing and hints of frost at 
 night have driven the slugs into hiding, or that 
 the fields are disreputably full of alien blackbirds 
 from oversea, or — most probably — that he has 
 finished his holiday, after getting rid of his 
 grown-up children, and feels that the time has 
 come to think of home and wife for next year — 
 anyway he has come back to the garden in a self- 
 assertive mood. 
 
 ^So each lawn becomes the scene of a good deal 
 of inconclusive strife ; for the blackbird quarrels, 
 as he sings, by snatches. Later, when each sooty 
 owner of a golden bill has established his right to 
 chatter from a certain shrubbery at dusk, to hop 
 about the adjoining section of lawn and flirt his 
 tail at large, there will be more business-like brawls 
 between eligible females competing for his favour, 
 while he looks on. 
 
 302 
 
October xxv 
 WSiThe autumn glory of the trees is quickly fading the dis- 
 now. In woodland ways the gold and crimson robing 
 has been steadily dripping with the pattering rain. '^^^^^ 
 The avenue poplars, that caught each whispering 
 breeze of summer in their wide spread of foliage, 
 are almost ready to ride out the coming winter's 
 gales under bare poles, and their few remaining 
 leaves are restless to be gone. The hasty limes, 
 which began to drop their finery almost at mid- 
 summer, are completely stript, contrasting, in 
 statuesque nakedness, with the ragged sycamores, 
 which still hold up some handfuls of curled brown 
 rags. More graciously the slender birch lets fall veil 
 after veil of leafy spangles, revealing more and 
 more of the ruddy beauty of her drooping branches 
 and the smooth satin-white upon her tapering 
 stem. 
 
 ^The green ash is nearly bare, and the maple's 
 gold grows thin, while the hawthorn's dwindling 
 store of berries shows more plainly daily as the 
 bronze foliage falls. But the elm is still gloriously 
 yellow ; the beech still blazes from orange to car- 
 mine, and the willow wears her shimmering silver 
 veil with golden lining. Weeks may pass, too, 
 before the larches light up the woodland with 
 their clustered spires of gold. 
 
 303 
 
October xxvi 
 FOR NEXT =5r5llT seems only a few weeks ago that the golden 
 year's corn was falling in long swathes behind the rattling 
 HARVEST cutters. Then, as the golden stubble turned to 
 green, we wondered that even weeds could cover 
 the ground in so few days ; but on the morrow, as 
 it were, long widening stripes of brown variegated 
 the fields, as the patient plough-horses came and 
 went from horizon to horizon, from dawn to 
 dusk. And scarcely had we noticed how many of 
 the squares which had been yellow and green upon 
 our chessboard landscape wore the rich brown hue 
 of new-turned ploughland, before the weird shouts 
 of the crowscarer, or the fitful explosions of his 
 harmless gun, told us that the wheat was already 
 sown — almost before the sportsman had had time 
 to thin the coveys which the cutting of the previous 
 crops revealed. 
 
 ^And now the crowscarer is silent and, armed with 
 fork instead of gun, potters about odd jobs round 
 the farmyard. For, lo ! the field that was all 
 brown is filmed green with springing wheat — the 
 wheat of next year's harvest. Looking down the 
 straight rows of thin green blades, already several 
 inches high, one can hardly take the coming winter 
 seriously. When those straight rows are a few 
 inches higher, the nesting partridge will steal 
 crouching down their alleys as she leaves her 
 eggs. 
 
 304 
 
HOTEL 
 
 October xxvii 
 WSiThe "Crows' Hotel" is full to overflowing "the 
 now. Of the multitudes of incoming rooks, jack- crows' 
 daws, and hoodie crows, which came streaming ' 
 from the east last week, large companies turned 
 aside as evening drew on to find lodgings with 
 their kind. For in winter, when most of the trees 
 are bare, the crow birds, like the starlings, believe 
 that there is safety in numbers at roosting-time, 
 and the foreign immigrants are wise enough not to 
 attempt to find sleeping-places for themselves in a 
 land whose perils are unknown. 
 =5lSo they gather to roost with the birds that know 
 the neighbourhood ; and thus it happens that the 
 well-placed wood, which a fortnight ago sheltered 
 barely a hundred rooks, now serves its annual 
 purpose as the '* Crows' Hotel," where many 
 thousands of black-winged visitors raise a foreign 
 babel of rook, crow, and jackdaw dialects as the 
 dusk draws on. 
 
 ^Very strategic are they in their bed-going. 
 Wheeling squadrons reconnoitre the wood's four 
 sides many times, and whole regiments are halted, 
 like mounted infantry, upon overlooking slopes. 
 One voice of alarm raised amid the din suffices to 
 put thousands on the wing — looking as if the top 
 of the wood had come off ; and for another hour 
 perhaps the wheeling and drifting clouds of birds 
 will darken the darkling sky above the wood, 
 until you may strain your eyes in vain to see 
 whether all the host is safely abed at last. 
 
 305 
 
MUSIC 
 
 October xxviii 
 AUTUMN =5t&|lN autumn's gracious intervals of sunshine the 
 close-strewn daisies star the lawn almost as brightly 
 as in May. The lark is singing in the sky and the 
 linnet in the hedge, while the starling fizzles and 
 whistles from tree-top and chimney-pot. In the 
 shrubberies, wren, hedge-sparrow and robin seem to 
 divide the day into short snatches of separate song, 
 so that no hour goes by without its music. Even 
 the fussy noise of the sparrows adds to the spring- 
 like exhilaration that pervades the country when 
 autumn smiles. 
 
 ^Daily, too, the young song-thrushes sing more 
 worthily, and, listening, you may catch now and 
 then some of the true thrush phrases that wiJl ring 
 so loud and clear on everyhand in spring. But 
 the art of perfect song needs practice, and most of 
 the notes are still slurred and variant, no two 
 phrases differing much and none being identical. 
 When, however, the mated birds will sing their 
 full song in spring, you will notice at once the 
 peculiar characteristic of the thrush's music, in its 
 endless variety of distinct phrases, each of which 
 is several times repeated, as if with studied precision, 
 before the singer proceeds to the next. 
 
 306 
 
TO 
 
 FUNGUS 
 
 October xxix 
 ^kkTHE common wild clematis is indeed the " old from 
 man's beard" now, for over the wind-swept and rain- flower 
 lashed hedges its draggled strands are trailing with "" 
 the feathery awns tangled amid the battered foliage, 
 unkempt, and grey, and matted — like the last neg- 
 lected stubble-growth on the chin of a dying year. 
 ^But even the wettest autumn has its compensa- 
 tions in Nature. The brown tinge which is creep- 
 ing over so many of the furze's spiky branches is 
 not decay. When the flower-buds of the furze 
 begin to swell they turn from green to brown ; and 
 those multitudes of brown buds mean perhaps a 
 blaze of golden glory at Christmas. For the furze 
 will bloom in any month of the year, and with a 
 fair start, such as it has had this year, cares neither 
 for frost nor snow. 
 
 ^The rain of autumn has given us something too, 
 in the long-drawn-out abundance of mushrooms ; 
 while the raouldiness of the earth is taking 
 fantastic shapes in myriads of later fungi which 
 experts collect with zeal and devour with rapture. 
 Not often does science stoop so far towards the 
 kitchen as in the title "deliciosus" given to a 
 reddish orange fungus which is plentiful now in 
 many fir-plantations ; and at least one scientific 
 authority has been known to deplore that he has 
 made known its excellent flavour to his friends — 
 because now he can never get enough for himself. 
 ^Though this may be an argument for those who 
 like good things to become experts in fungus-lore, 
 it is none for those who are not experts to eat 
 strange toadstools. 
 
 307 
 
WATER- 
 SIDE 
 HARi 
 OF DEATH 
 
 October xxx 
 
 THE ^StSiThe margins of the flooded marshes and the 
 tidal wastes by the sea are crowded now with 
 
 HARVEST ^^'li'^g bi^ds and starlings — which, with their 
 lengthened bills and shortened tails, seem well on 
 their way to change in form, as in habits, to the 
 likeness of the snipe. Long-billed and alert the 
 bird must be who makes his living on the marshes, 
 with no long tail to draggle in the mud. Yet it 
 is there that, for those who can find it, food is 
 most plentiful. Water which rises and recedes, 
 whether it is the rare flood now covering our 
 meadows or the daily tide of the sea, marks its 
 coming and its going with an infinite destruction 
 of small life and deliverance of myriads of tiny 
 creatures to their watchful enemies in the water 
 and on the land. Even the last lingering swallows, 
 migrating now down the coast, know that the cold- 
 rippling tide, blown higher by the wind, brings 
 with it flies from the sandhills. 
 ^Nothing could seem more dreary and hopeless 
 than the low, skimming flight of the swallow over 
 the salt water on a chill, grey day in mid-October. 
 But go and sit in a sheltered nook of the sandhills 
 even in mid-October and you will find yourself 
 immediately the centre of attraction for many flies, 
 who regard you doubtless as some unusually fresh 
 carcass from the sea. The flies can live, so long 
 as there is death : and on the death of flies the 
 starving swallows save their lives. 
 
 308 
 
October xxxi 
 ^StUAfter the touch of north in the wind yesterday birds' 
 fresh flocks of golden plover have arrived ; and sentinels 
 their monotonously plaintive whistles sound from 
 many an upland field. When they are by them- 
 selves it is easy to draw them, by mimicking their 
 whistle, in arrowy flight overhead ; but when they 
 chance to congregate with peewits your whistling 
 is usually labour wasted. The peewit is the 
 warier bird ; and the golden plover seems to have 
 learnt that it is wiser not to move until some pee- 
 wit utters that long-drawn " pee-ee " — so different 
 from the rollicking " pee-a-wit pee-weet " of nest- 
 ing-time — which always serves as danger-signal for 
 the mixed flock. 
 
 ^The wildfowl on the marshes similarly obey the 
 quavering warning of the redshank, which, to the 
 gunner's vexation, springs suddenly with shrill 
 piping from some unexpected dyke and skims its 
 zigzag course on white-barred wings into the 
 distance, spreading alarm as it flies. 
 ^So, too, the blackbird's chatter serves always to 
 put the whole covert-side on the qui vive ; and 
 out in the open you may see how the rooks and 
 jackdaws obey the shouted warning of the hooded 
 crow and fly into trees near him, when he persis- 
 tently vociferates that an enemy is in sight. 
 
 309 
 
November i 
 ^^NovEMBER always seems a dreary month in novem- 
 prospect. It is the month of fogs, though we do be^'s two 
 not see much of them beyond the range of town '^^^^'^'^s 
 smoke ; but the country has its November griev- 
 ances too. 
 
 ¥Only ten kinds * of butterflies are alive in Britain 
 now, and all of these are " hibernating." Not 
 three dozen kinds of moths are on the wing, and 
 of these only two, the Winter moth and the De- 
 cember moth, will be new arrivals. 
 it^There is not a single wildflower peculiar to the 
 month. But in a kindly year, even November has 
 its pleasant novelties, with spring flowers blooming 
 before their time and October insects appearing 
 after their time. 
 
 ^Besides, where the ivy continues in bloom and the 
 north wind holds oflF, there is no lack of small life. 
 Though the gorgeous Red Admiral and peacock 
 butterflies may no longer be seen parading over 
 the ivy-bloom with the glories of their expanded 
 wings, yet it only needs a gleam of sunlight to 
 show that the pulse of Nature's life still beats 
 strongly in small things. 
 
 iPHoney-bees, wasps, drone-flies, and bluebottles 
 still swarm upon the ivy-blossom, and even the 
 wasps are welcome there as evidence of life in the 
 dead season ; but indoors the half-numbed wasp, 
 which tumbles on the floor and crawls up one's leg 
 presently, is one of the objects of the country more 
 common in ordinary years than desirable. 
 
 * Some of these are doubtful. 
 
ALIENS 
 
 November ii 
 uNDEsiR- ¥¥Great crowds of sparrows growing daily round 
 ABLE the corn-stacks seem to indicate already autumn's 
 shortage of supplies. To what extent alien spar- 
 rows immigrate in autumn cannot be known ; but 
 sometimes they arrive on the east coast with 
 foreign finches and buntings, and their multitudes 
 in our winter fields, without at all diminishing the 
 gangs which haunt our gardens, suggest free re- 
 cruitment from outside. At harvest the extra 
 sparrows in the field were manifestly, from their 
 sooty appearance, mere holiday-trippers from the 
 cities ; but, apart from the fact that the town 
 sparrow seems always " at home " during the 
 winter season, our stackyard sparrows now are too 
 clean and grey to have come thence. 
 ^Indeed the excessive greyness of the sparrows 
 that sit along the autumn hedges contrasts even with 
 their ordinary appearance in the country, where, 
 with his variegated plumage of black, white, grey, 
 and bright brown, the cock sparrow is rather a 
 handsome bird. The reason is that at the autumn 
 moult, every feather in the new black bib which 
 the sparrow puts on for next spring's display, has 
 a grey edge which completely hides the black and 
 thus makes him less conspicuous in the dangerous 
 time of winter. By degrees the grey will wear off 
 and show the cock sparrow in all his breeding 
 finery. 
 
 312 
 
November in 
 ^^WiTH mist and drizzle and rain, a touch of autumn's 
 cold comes into the air, and tells us that autumn ^^'^^ °^ 
 is passing. Insect life quickly takes the hint. ^'^^^^^^ 
 The wasps, whose traffic in and out of the nest 
 was busy through the past dull days, are shel- 
 tering inside to-day, and only the yellow-spotted 
 face of the sentinel peers out. As your stooping 
 shadow falls upon the entrance, his wings buzz 
 ominously. There is life in the wasps' nest yet. 
 SFThe dor-beetles, that the hoodie crows have 
 hunted every evening as dusk fell, have burrowed 
 their perpendicular shafts into the ground beyond 
 reach of the crows' bills ; but it will only need a 
 spell of St. Martin's summer presently to bring 
 many of them out again, droning, at sunset. Then 
 the , November moths and the Winter moths will 
 be flickering down the thin-leaved hedges ; the 
 bats that were flying yester evening will again 
 be on the wing ; and the giddy gnats will dance to 
 leeward of the failing herbage. 
 ¥It all depends on the weather. Damp and de- 
 pressing it may be to plod down the dripping 
 avenue, with growing disks of sodden leaves and 
 earth cast up by worms clinging to one's boot-heels ; 
 but autumn must have its days of dismal dulness. 
 
 2>^2, 
 
CHOIR 
 
 November w 
 THE ^¥NovEMBER dulncss does not silence the autumn 
 NovEM- music of the birds. Far more important to them 
 than the weather is the overcrowding threatened 
 by the continuous inrush of migrants from over- 
 sea. One after another our skylarks rise aloft to 
 protest in shrill silvery tones against the throngs 
 of undesirable aliens in the fields, usually breaking 
 off the song with a swoop to earth that sends at 
 least one scared alien into the next parish. How 
 can our starlings, who know quite well that there 
 are no breeding-holes to spare, keep silent, when 
 flock after flock of homeless foreigners goes whirl- 
 ing by ? So, although you can see by their dark 
 bills and duU-hued feet that this is not their 
 season of love-singing, each starling raises his head 
 aloft and fizzles and smacks his bill, as if in 
 ecstasy of art. 
 
 ^If, too, the robin did not carol at intervals, who 
 knows what interloper might annex his beat? 
 At the same time the young song-thrushes and, 
 less often, the blackbirds feel the autumn impulse 
 to assert themselves, regardless of the weather, 
 with the best music which they have yet learned 
 to make ; while the wren sings for the robin's 
 reason, and the hedge-sparrow is fussiest of all. 
 
 314 
 
November v 
 ^VSuGGESTivE of coming winter, perhaps, but a piracy 
 pleasant sight to see, are the great flocks of pee- ashore 
 wits on our coastwise fields, dotting some wide 
 expanse that is just filmed green with the springing 
 wheat, with here and there a seagull, gleaming 
 white among their silent ranks of sober hue. 
 There is none of the unseemly jostling — the gob- 
 bling and gabbling — which characterise a mob of 
 sparrows or starlings. Though a thousand pee- 
 wits may alight together, each one has elbow-room 
 and space for those dainty little runs of a yard or 
 two, which it will make to this side or that, 
 listening for the moving worm. 
 ^And the seagulls which join the peewits seem to 
 fall under the spell of order and system ; for you 
 will notice that each gull is isolated among, per- 
 haps, a dozen peewits. It all looks so peaceful 
 and quiet. 
 
 ^But wild Nature is never really peaceful. " The 
 good old rule, the simple plan, That he shaU take 
 who has the power and he shall keep who can," 
 governs all her moods. If the peewit needs 
 elbow-room to take the worm, by a power of 
 hearing denied to the gull, it is the gull who, 
 darting with an angry scream upon the lucky, 
 luckless captor, keeps it. 
 
 315 
 
November vi 
 TWO ^¥A NEW voice greets us in the fields. " Chak, 
 WELCOME chak," says the fieldfare in his Norse dialect as he 
 FOREIGN- sees us coming; and "Chak, chak," says each of 
 his companions, as they trail off after him into the 
 next field but one. For the fieldfare, handsomest 
 of thrushes, with his auburn mantle and tastefully 
 contrasted shades of grey and buff, black and 
 white, is a shy bird on arrival. Later, when hard 
 times will have tamed his spirit and he starves, 
 perhaps, amid a waste of snow, you may pick 
 him up and admire his beauty as he dies quietly 
 in your hand. But better to see him only flitting 
 from field to field and hear his warning " Chak, 
 chak " at your approach. 
 
 ^FWith the fieldfare has come the redwing, also a 
 handsome thrush from Norway, with ruddy patch 
 on flank and bright line above the eye. What he 
 says you can hardly hear, for it is only a mono- 
 syllable so faintly uttered as to be almost a sigh. 
 At first he is almost more shy than the fieldfare 
 and in severe weather dies almost sooner. 
 ^FSo, for the sake of the birds, the omens of a 
 " good old-fashioned winter " and its dwindling 
 store of berries always seem sad and menacing. 
 
 316 
 
November vli 
 ^F^MosT beautiful and shortest-lived of the hues autumn 
 of autumn is the glory of the larch. colours 
 
 ^Suddenly in some clear November noon, you ^^^^^'^ 
 realise that the larches are at their best, each a 
 landmark in the woodland like a gilded pinnacle. 
 In the afternoon, on your homeward way, you 
 may tread upon a thickening carpet of soft dull 
 yellow, where the larches' splendour is shedding 
 itself, lightly as snow, upon the ground. So 
 autumn passes as you pass. 
 
 i?Under the naked wych-elm your steps crackle 
 on the crisp-curled leaves of purple-brown ; under 
 the oak they whisper softly on strewn flat leaves of 
 buff with upcurved finger-tips ; under the sycamore 
 there is a louder rustle of dead foliage, lying un- 
 tidy, loose and grey ; under the beech you almost 
 slip upon the shiny coppery blades that cover the 
 brown earth with an autumn glow, though they 
 have lost the blaze of orange and carmine that 
 flung back the sunset scarcely a week ago. So 
 from tree to tree you pass, reading in sound and 
 sight the story of a summer gone, out into the 
 open where the bare brown hedges thinly drape 
 their feet with brambles and their brows with 
 berries — for the winter birds. 
 
 317 
 
November viii 
 A NovEM- ^^Grumbling and moaning in the wide chimneys, 
 BSR alternately whispering and shrieking in the trees 
 
 "°'^'^ without, the wind at night seems a Presence in the 
 country. Awesome, too, when the late leaves of 
 autumn are flung, pattering like ghostly fingers, on 
 the window-pane. Now and again some small 
 bird, usually a sparrow, tossed by the gale from its 
 roosting-place and dazzled by the shaft of light 
 which your midnight lamp throws across the writh- 
 ing shrubberies, will bang against the lighted glass 
 and scrabble upon the panes, till you go out into 
 the night and capture him from pity. 
 Sf'After such a night one finds with sorrow that the 
 largest limb of the old poplar lies, a wreck, across 
 the drive ; while the stripped state of the elms 
 seems to have brought the landscape a full fortnight 
 nearer winter. To leeward of each straw-stack the 
 land is yellow with the fallen snowstorm of flying 
 straw ; and, amid the jumble of piled litter, it is 
 not easy to distinguish the remnant of the stack 
 from the straw-smothered hedge beside it. But, 
 away in the open pasture, the mushrooms must 
 have been growing quietly all through the gale ; 
 for there is a rare crop this morning ! 
 
 3i« 
 
November 
 
 ( Ufyrighl) 
 
 i:. Kay Rolunsm 
 
 SCARLET HIPS ON THE WILD ROSE BRIER 
 
November ix 
 V^Weeks ago the village children ceased to take emer- 
 interest in the tasteless blackberries of autumn ; gency 
 and for days even the starlings and blackbirds ^^''''°'" 
 have failed to find a fruit to eat among the fuzzy 
 brown relics of the blackberry crop. The green- 
 finches, however, hovering like yellow-streaked 
 moths over the brambles, still discover dry and 
 shrivelled fragments of berries, worth breaking for 
 the seeds which they contain ; but even these are 
 nearly exhausted, and on the wild rose-briers daily 
 more and more of the scarlet hips hang torn 
 and empty, showing where the hungry green- 
 finches have stolen their seeds too, in spite of their 
 protecting bristles. 
 
 iPPresently the greenfinch, stout-beaked to deal 
 with food too tough for other small birds, will be 
 flitting along the marsh-dykes dissecting the seeds 
 of the withered bur-reeds. 
 
 ^Thither the wren has already gone, but not for 
 the same purpose. Hard seeds are ill-suited for 
 his slender probing bill ; but, as you see him, 
 buzzing almost like a beetle, in low straight flight 
 under the hanging bank of soft mud, you under- 
 stand why, thin-billed and short-tailed like a snipe, 
 the wren should seek his winter fare in snipy 
 places. 
 
 319 
 
November x 
 summer's ^ifWiTH quick alternations from cold winds to 
 AFTER- warm, the waning autumn still feels returns of 
 '^*^" summer's strength, and Nature in small life holds 
 on her way almost regardless of the nip which 
 comes into the air when the wind shifts to the 
 north. Though the honey-bees wander no longer 
 from their well-stocked homes, the wasps, heavy- 
 winged and fewer day by day, still keep up the 
 fight for life ; and the sugar-blight upon the 
 fading willows still gives them food. 
 nf'On the stubbles the wild weed-flowers that were 
 cut down at harvest still labour to produce an 
 aftermath of seed — scarlet poppy and yellow toad- 
 flax, daisy-starred mayweed and blue field-speed- 
 well. In separate shades of purple the scabious, 
 the knapweed and the musk-thistle's nodding 
 heads still catch the eye with rich spots of summer 
 colour. Even the little red pimpernel, sensitive 
 registrar of summer's changing light, still peeps 
 up, wide-eyed, at a glimpse of sun between the 
 autumn's drifting clouds. 
 
 ^And vigorous still is the insect life which steals 
 abroad on mild nights ; until many a caterpillar 
 which would ordinarily be scarce half-sized in 
 winter, may, in its fat and full-fed bulk, give 
 promise of very early moths next year. 
 
 320 
 
November xt 
 ^¥In the sheltered grove, where the soft turf, the 
 beneath its tawny film of rustling leaves, is alP'^""^'^^^ 
 pimply with fallen acorns, beech- nuts and sweet y^g^j.^ 
 chestnuts, the squirrel is a crazy, breathless har- 
 vester, always hurrying and, as it seems, achieving 
 little. Stand back to the smooth grey bole of a 
 great beech, and watch. A little patience — because 
 many squirrels, flattened out like ruddy streaks 
 upon the branches of near trees, are watching you 
 — and you will see an unsuspecting harvester, in 
 his new suit of rich dark brown, bustling towards 
 you. Here he comes, bouncing over the rustling 
 leaves— a small, bright-eyed animal in front of a 
 big tail — and stops with a jerk in full view. 
 5?With another jerk — squirrels Hve in jerks — he 
 has seized a nut. Off he goes suddenly about 
 thirty yards, stops as suddenly, hurriedly scratches 
 a hole, pops the nut in, covers it up with a jerk, 
 and comes bounding back again. Another nut, 
 another, and another are similarly disposed, each 
 in a different place. Thus Nature teaches the 
 squirrel not to risk his winter store in one hoard 
 which others would surely find ; but to scatter it 
 broadcast just below the surface of the ground, 
 where his keen nose will be able to scent out a 
 meal in winter when he badly needs one. 
 
 321 
 
November xii 
 iRREPREs- JF¥To the young— perhaps also to the old who 
 sIgn^s of . ^°^" ^^^^^ without communion with Nature— 
 SPRING wjnter seems a long period of lifelessness sand- 
 wiched between the decay of autumn and the 
 revival of spring. But this is a mistake. Even 
 hard frost scarcely calls a halt in the onward march 
 of Nature, for a glimpse of December sunlight will 
 always suffice to set gay companies of flimsy gnats 
 dancing above the furze, amid whose prickly fast- 
 nesses they find safe winter shelter, while the 
 furze itself will boldly flaunt its golden bloom at 
 Christmas. 
 
 ^Take your glasses and steal down to the mere, 
 where the waterfowl — mallard and widgeon and 
 pochard, moorhen and coot and dabchick — have 
 forgathered for the winter. 
 
 ^Through your glasses view the absurd antics of 
 those three dabchicks. Two of them will be hus- 
 band and wife for next year, and the odd bird will 
 be driven out. They have not decided which is 
 the odd bird yet. 
 
 *Turn your glasses on the mallards, and observe 
 the ridiculous bobbing of heads that is exchanged 
 between drake and duck. See the fury with which 
 the handsomest of the drakes charges his younger 
 rivals. Note their dives and splashes, and the 
 quacking chorus of excitement which greets the 
 new arrival. For this is the mallards' marriage 
 market, and the new arrival may bid high in 
 plumage and courage. 
 
 ^Thus the pulse of spring beats strongly or ever 
 winter is begun. 
 
 322 
 
BER FROST 
 
 November xiii 
 ^^Slight frosts at night are very timely now, as timely 
 a gentle reminder to the plants that this should be novem- 
 their season of rest, not of unseemly hurrying to 
 meet a spring which will not come for many weary 
 months. 
 
 i?In scales for the tight leaf-buds Nature has 
 provided each point of tender life on tree and bush 
 with a cuirass impenetrable to the ordinary severi- 
 ties of the climate. Yet when the keen lance-edge 
 of the frost is driven home by fierce winds even 
 this armour may not avail, and severe winters of 
 the past have left scars still visible in the stunted 
 growth and deformed branches of our hardiest 
 trees that grow in exposed places. 
 ¥But the damage would be widespread and 
 universal if a cruel winter descended suddenly 
 upon a country which had been seduced into 
 danger by the unseasonable wiles of autumn, 
 aping in her old age the virgin tenderness of 
 spring. With the infinitesimal swelling of each 
 leaf-bud its armour is stretched and weakened, and 
 wherever the soft green points of the growing 
 leaves actually peep out helpless hostages are 
 given to winter, to be tortured, maimed, and 
 deformed before spring can come to claim them 
 for her own. 
 
 ¥For this reason, after a mild October, the 
 November chills, which bring fogs to London, are 
 welcome in the country, as timely whispers to 
 over-hasty Nature of the truth that winter is 
 coming. 
 
 323 
 
November xv 
 ^iFAfter a touch of frost at night, the white fog fog in 
 of the morning comes as promise of a glorious country 
 November noon. In the valley, where the low- ^° 
 
 J ' TOWN 
 
 circling winter sun has fewer hours of dominance, 
 the mist lingers long, perhaps, and the lush dew- 
 drenched grass tries even the stoutest boots ; but 
 on the rabbit-nibbled upland slopes, where the 
 mist melts into blue sky and the sunlight streams 
 among the gorse, with here and there a patch of 
 golden bloom and everywhere dew-laden spiders' 
 webs of silver filigree, you walk with a conscious 
 spring on the springy turf, because it is good to 
 be alive. 
 
 i?And if, away on the horizon, the pale blue sky 
 shades into the low dull line of lingering fog and 
 smoke above the distant city, the view adds zest, 
 perhaps, to your own full lung-draughts of crisp 
 country air ; but it touches your heart with pity 
 for the millions spending their days under that 
 dark veil which man's labour draws against God's 
 sunlight. 
 
 ^The city has a thousand charms unknown to the 
 slow round of rural life, and it is only right that 
 they who barter their birthright of free air and 
 space to breathe it, should receive much in return. 
 
 325 
 
November xvi 
 
 A NEW ^i?It is not a large voice that the corn-bunting 
 
 VOICE IN now adds to the autumn concert of the birds, but 
 
 THE every little helps when the chorus is so thin and 
 
 patchy. So when the corn-bunting, looking like 
 
 an overgrown sparrow with a high-bridged beak, 
 
 takes his station upon the topmost twig of the 
 
 hedge and opens his bill, you listen with interest 
 
 for the absurd little titter which follows and dies 
 
 away, as though the bird felt that its voice was a 
 
 failure. 
 
 nFYet like the faded tortoise-shell butterfly, which 
 still springs up before one's steps in the sheltered 
 sunlight of a sandy lane, the bunting's autumn song 
 is pleasantly reminiscent of summers past, and 
 suggestive of others to come ; and aU the more 
 -Welcome because the blackbird and the chaffinch 
 sing so very seldom now, and even the sotto voce 
 thrush in the shrubbery seems depressed by the 
 night frosts. With shortening days and dwindling 
 food, too, robin, wren and hedge-sparrow can only 
 spare time for music at intervals ; while the star- 
 lings, fizzling all together in some tree, the sky- 
 lark shrilling aloft, and the linnets' snatches of 
 song complete the tale. In so small a musical 
 circle, even the trivial solo of the corn-bunting is 
 an event. 
 
 326 
 
Novemher xvii 
 5?^CoMMON objects of the country by hedge-gaps thb 
 and corners now are patches of feathers — of green- trail of 
 finch thrush, or sparrow usually — and if you turn ™^ ,„ 
 
 ., ' ^ . , •' .,t ,- 1 / SPARROW- 
 
 them over with your stick you will find that some H^^i'K 
 are bloodstained, and among them lie perhaps a 
 beak and half a skull or a foot of the luckless small 
 bird. Sometimes, as you approached the spot, you 
 may have caught a glimpse of a dark bird hurrying 
 straight and low, with quick beats of clean-cut 
 wings, away from the scene, but more often the 
 sparrow-hawk, who strikes unawares, departs 
 unseen. 
 
 ^The lordly peregrine smites his bold way across 
 the open sky, spreading panic as he passes from 
 parish to parish. The gallant little merlin's track, 
 too, is ringed wide with drifting flocks of scared 
 peewits, and mobs of skylarks shrill with fear. 
 Even the harmless mouse-hunting kestrel is a plain 
 and honest mark against the sky for any scolding 
 rook or daw to stoop at. But the sparrow-hawk, 
 skimming swift under cover of a hedge and darting 
 through some gap to surprise a thrush, it may be, 
 with a half-eaten snail, is the assassin who passes in 
 silence, scarcely seen, and marks his passage with 
 those sad little heaps of bloodstained feathers. 
 
 327 
 
WINTER 
 
 November xviii 
 FORGET- iF^Only five weeks to Christmas ! It seems ab- 
 TiNG THE surd after such a gracious week of " St. Martin's 
 summer " as — outside the radius of city fogs — we 
 often enjoy in mid-November. At noon the dor- 
 beetle was droning as he blundered along the sun- 
 lit way ; the robin, alertly perched upon a swinging 
 bramble, played at being a flycatcher — and played 
 well, too ; while the floating gossamer of little 
 spiders and the clouds of dancing gnats became 
 almost a nuisance, as you passed between the hedge- 
 banks, where here and there a large mauve scabious 
 tempted the lingering tortoise-shell butterfly to 
 alight once more and dream of summer. 
 ¥Amid such scenes, with the yellow-hammer tink- 
 ling again the old refrain, which seemed almost 
 wearisome when the summer waned to harvest and 
 the hedges reeked of highway dust, it seems indeed 
 absurd that five short weeks hence we shall be 
 wishing each other " Merry Christmas ! " Easier 
 far — so illogically impressionist is weather senti- 
 ment — to realise that in less than three months we 
 shall rejoice again to hear the yellow-hammer, after 
 his brief winter silence, ringing in the spring. 
 
 328 
 
November xix 
 iPiFAs the days draw near when the black poplar's the 
 last reserve of leaves will sprinkle the dank grass, winter 
 where they will gleam pale to the sky in the early """^^ 
 evening twilight — when the leaves of the hedge- 
 row hawthorns drop, pattering, to the ground, 
 weighted with dewdrops of evening mist — you 
 become aware of a change in the small life of the 
 night. Nearly all of the belated bats are snug in 
 winter quarters ; the dor-beetle's droning hum is 
 hushed ; and though the ample-winged November 
 moth still flits conspicuous in the shade now and 
 then, the flickering forms that dance along the 
 hedges and flutter from twig to twig are the 
 smaller new-born Winter moths. 
 ^In no detail of British wild life is the passage 
 from autumn to winter more aptly typified than in 
 this succession of the Winter to the November 
 moth. Both are dull of hue and flimsy of wing, 
 so far as the males are concerned, but with surpris- 
 ing contrast in the females; for, while the November 
 moth wears wide wings in both sexes, the female 
 Winter moth has no wings at all, unless tiny ap- 
 pendages like shoulder-knots can be accounted 
 such. It is as though Nature had said : " In late 
 autumn the females may still take their chance of 
 the weather, but winter Is no fit time for them to 
 wander." So the female November moth has 
 wings, but the female Winter moth, for which 
 you may search to-night, has none. 
 
 329 
 
FLOWERS 
 
 November xx 
 autumn's iFiFEven when St. Martin's summer has been 
 LAST genial, there comes now a nip into the wind which 
 tells that the time for wild flowers is passing. So 
 we take a farewell interest in the starry blooms 
 which still spangle the banks of sheltered lanes and 
 cluster in woodland nooks. The larch-trees have 
 gone down three shades in colour in as many days, 
 and the wind, whistling overhead, sends down 
 their tiny, tawny needles in drifting showers ; but 
 where the buttressed undergrowth stands thick 
 before the tangled trees the arched ferns spread 
 almost as green as at midsummer, and the openings 
 of the glades are flecked with flowers. 
 ^The rose-campion — whose patches of vivid pink 
 contrasted so brightly in spring with the blue haze 
 of wild hyacinth, the snowy constellations of white 
 stitchwort, and the golden glory of the archangel's 
 spikes — still strikes its warm note of colour here 
 and there, though the blue which backs it is the 
 harebell's autumn bloom, the contrasting yellow is 
 only the path-side " cat's-ear," and the white is 
 deadnettle. The wild strawberry may still flower 
 as bravely as though it hoped to ripen fruit for 
 Christmas, and the periwinkle spread wide its discs 
 of azure. 
 
 SFWith mauve scabious and white lychnis from the 
 hedgerow banks, poppies from the stubble, and all 
 the rabble of cornfield weeds as late autumn 
 flowers, many years may pass before you shall 
 gather after mid-November such a posy of wild 
 blossoms. 
 
 330 
 
:^ 
 
November xxi 
 ^iFSmall life gives way slowly before advancing the ivy's 
 winter. Where the ivy, facing east, still spreads latest 
 its clustered honey-cups of golden green to the ^^^^'^^ 
 morning sun, neither driving clouds nor the nipping 
 north-wester suffice to keep the sturdy bluebottles 
 and a host of lesser flies from the intoxicating feast. 
 Perhaps it is a matter of life or death to them, 
 this last strong drink of nectar before the long, 
 sleepy winter, from which even the stout bluer- 
 bottles will emerge weak-kneed and staggery, to 
 bask upon sunlit walls in April. 
 ^It is a matter of life or death to them also in 
 other ways. Stand and watch the clustered ivy 
 and its insect guests for a minute, and you may see 
 by the shaking of one spray of blossom after another 
 that something is moving inside the shelter of the 
 ivy's evergreen. Presently you catch a glimpse of a 
 small russet body, and a wren pops up its head and 
 takes a hasty peep at the surrounding flowers to 
 see if any flies which are good for breakfast happen 
 to be there. Sometimes it is the eager hedge- 
 sparrow which glides quickly with flicking wings 
 down the stretch of ivy-blossom ; sometimes the 
 robin which plays at being a flycatcher, darting up 
 from the ground and hovering for an instant over 
 the flowers. 
 
 ¥When one sees thus the constant perils to which 
 the lingering flies of autumn are subjected even at 
 their last meal of the year, one understands how it 
 is that insects which lay hundreds of eggs and have 
 several generations in the year do not increase in 
 numbers from year to year. 
 
 331 
 
November xxii 
 
 LIFE AND iF^Though a cold wind blows along the beach, 
 
 DEATH rolling before it the dry bundles of empty whelks' 
 
 th°'*° ^Sg^ — ^^^^ papery bunches of little yellow grapes — 
 
 SHORE y^t frequently before your steps on the smooth 
 
 sand you can see small black flies arising and 
 
 alighting as if it were midsummer and not late 
 
 November with that nip in the breeze that brings 
 
 wildfowl from the freezing north. As with the 
 
 filmy gnats that will dance over the furze-bushes in 
 
 a December frost, the tenacity of life in these small 
 
 flies amazes. 
 
 ¥One might wonder, too, what sustenance they 
 can suck from the bare yellow sand ; but in the 
 daily advance and retreat of the great sea so much 
 of life is squandered and ground to atoms on the 
 beach that every inch of sand, drying in the wind, 
 contains some juicy tissues of small things that were 
 living yesterday. 
 
 5FH0W great is the daily toll of life which the land 
 takes from the sea you may see, too, from the 
 throngs of land birds that crowd to share it with 
 the proper denizens of the shore. See that mob of 
 starlings, for instance, gobbling and gabbling hur- 
 riedly along the line of driftage at high-water mark 
 and note how, behind them, every inch of it is 
 probed with beak-holes. 
 
 *These greedy flocks do not assemble daily for 
 nothing. 
 
 332 
 
IN THE 
 STORM 
 
 November xxiii 
 ¥^The fields are full of flying straws, whirled by a con 
 the wind from th'e half-threshed stacks. The russet trast 
 leaves of the tattered oak fly fifty yards before they 
 fall. The bare poplars roar in the gale, and even 
 the hedges creak and swish to and fro as the lashes 
 of the wind flick off the last lingering leaves of the 
 stripped hawthorns. 
 
 ^What a contrast, as we pass into the deep 
 cathedral-stillness of the wood 1 The wind still 
 roars aloft, and you can hear it crashing on the 
 margin of the coverts like the breakers on the shore 
 a mile away ; but in the silence of the dim, pillared 
 glades your soft footfall on the moss surprises 
 mouse and squirrel at their busy meals, or their 
 still busier burials of acorns and beech-mast for 
 winter fare. 
 
 ^For here the oak is still half-clad, and the beech 
 still strikes the keynote of autumn's vivid hues, 
 though it has dropped several shades of orange ; 
 and here in the glades the elder-bushes are still 
 partly green, and you can note the economy of 
 Nature which allows the leaflets of these large 
 compound leaves to drop one by one, the green 
 leaf-stalk remaining, to drop later by itself, thus 
 reserving some breathing green surface to the last. 
 ¥As you stop to look, a woodcock rises under your 
 feet. To the sportsman, at least, the shipwrecking 
 gales blow some good. 
 
 333 
 
November xxiv 
 winter's nF^Is winter coming ? Yesterday, in spite of the 
 THREATS falling glass and the menace of a few small snow- 
 flakes, in spite of the new chill in the wind and the 
 thick-piled clouds on the far horizon, the sun still 
 shone and the bluebottles basked in its warmth on 
 sheltered tree-trunks ; while the wasps, in twos 
 and threes, still slowly came and went about their 
 nest in the old willow-trunk. At night the winter 
 moth still fluttered on the lighted window-pane, 
 where the gnats sat in dazzled companies, staring at 
 the lamp within. In the dark shrubbery and 
 orchard there was ceaseless rustling on every side, 
 of the worms dragging dead leaves into their bur- 
 rows for winter store. 
 
 ^But to-day the cold grey sky tempts no insect 
 life abroad, and the shifting winds whisper of rain, 
 and snow may be, to follow. 
 ^Yet still the larch holds half of its feathery foliage, 
 now dulled from gold to copper, and still the shel- 
 tered elm-boughs are patched with green and 
 yellow, while the jessamine on the porch and the 
 lilac in the shrubbery have scarcely cast a leaf. In 
 spite of winter's threats we may have weeks of 
 autumn yet. 
 
 334 
 
PEN- 
 SIONERS 
 
 November xxv 
 iF¥One touch of winter tames the birds ; and a feath 
 procession of feathered pensioners gladly attends ered 
 to receive your charity. It is a procession, too, in 
 which precedence soon comes to be observed as 
 strictly as at a Royal pageant. While the bustling 
 starling plays autocrat of the breakfast-table, even 
 the blackbird must stand aside ; while, from fear 
 of the yellow bill, the song-thrush waits until the 
 blackbird has finished. 
 
 ^AU the tits — great tits, blue tits, marsh tits, and 
 coal tits — have precedence amongst themselves as 
 rigid as against each other ; and one often wonders 
 what sign of superior strength one blue tit detects 
 in another when he bolts at sight of the new 
 arrival. But there is no blue tit so small that the 
 robin, in spite of his gallantry and self-confidence, 
 can seriously defy ; though the robin has his turn 
 of dignity when the demure hedge-sparrow humbly 
 waits upon his pleasure. 
 
 ^Best of all the pleasant surprises, however, on 
 a frosty morning is the covey of partridges march- 
 ing in procession up to the front door, exchanging 
 murmurous ejaculations as they march. What 
 they expect to find at the front door is never quite 
 clear ; but seemingly the last thing which they 
 expect is that the front door should be opened, 
 because when that does happen the whole covey 
 explodes like a firework and goes ofF, apparently, 
 into the next parish. 
 
 335 
 
November xxvii 
 ^^FThe jarring of the missel-thrush is always the the 
 chief bird-note of the fields when a sudden burst storm- 
 of wintry weather has enhanced the value of the ^^'^^ 
 dwindling store of ruddy berries which he guards -vyAR.pATH 
 so jealously against the hungry redwings- and 
 fieldfares, blackbirds and thrushes. Everywhere 
 else the hawthorns have been stripped brown ; 
 and, looking round a field, you can count, by the 
 number of berry-tinted patches on the hedges, 
 how many missel-thrushes it contains. 
 i?One's sympathies are, perhaps, on the side of the 
 weak redwings, whose plaintive note is so gently 
 uttered, when they hurriedly leave the untasted 
 meal on the noisy approach of the swashbuckling 
 missel-thrush. But he also must live ; and when 
 you pick up starved redwings, you know that after 
 one more day of frost you will find dead missel- 
 thrushes too. 
 
 n?And we can spare the missel-thrush the less, 
 because his are the loud sweet notes that often call 
 up memories of spring on drear November days, 
 and his, again, is the bold reiterated tune which 
 tells that spring is surely coming through 
 February's storms. In spite of the jarring 
 jealousy with which he guards his berried hoard, 
 to many country-lovers the " stormcock " is best- 
 loved of birds. 
 
 337 
 
DWIND- 
 LING 
 COVER 
 
 November xxviii 
 THE ^¥The mangolds are safely covered in the beet- 
 TURNips' hiUs^ and the white turnips have been carted for 
 feeding the stock ; only the purple-rooted, grey- 
 leaved swedes remain in the ground, contrasting 
 richly with the bare brown ploughland and the 
 emerald of the springing wheat. As the area of 
 the root-crops dwindles the partridges gather 
 closer, and before long the young cock birds 
 will be finding their voices, and the corners of all 
 the fields will be filled with the creaky challenge 
 and counter-challenge of their wooing. 
 ¥The disappearance of the root-crops aiFects the 
 blackbirds almost equally with the partridges. 
 Driven from those store-grounds of worms and 
 slugs, blackbirds in increased numbers now 
 frequent the garden, and the politics of shrubbery 
 and lawn become more interesting. Whereas in 
 spring the alarums and excursions of the black- 
 birds mostly occur between sooty, yellow-billed 
 males, who chase each other violently among the 
 bushes, now the burning question dways seems 
 to be which of several brown-tinged females shall 
 occupy the lawn as the legitimate spouse of the 
 fine cock bird to whom it admittedly belongs. 
 ¥The lady blackbirds do not exactly come to 
 blows. One always pursues and the other retreats, 
 but in such an aggravating and circuitous way that 
 she is never many yards distant from the male. 
 He, too, if the truth must be told, seems rather to 
 conspire with the hussy in this. 
 ¥There is a good deal of human nature in black- 
 birds. 
 
 338 
 
November xxix 
 ^iFBecause we wander so much less in winter small 
 through dank shrubbery or sodden coppice we are mammals 
 apt to think, that all small four-footed life spends ^^ '^^^' 
 the cold months in secret sleep. Not so. Even 
 in the snow you may trace the starred track of the 
 squirrel, and the highways of the rats are trodden 
 plain. Even in midwinter you may find fresh dead 
 shrews on the coppice-paths ; and where the drifted 
 snow melts slowly down the hedgerows you can 
 see how busily the field-mice had tunnelled it. 
 ¥But what can the field-mice eat in winter .'' What 
 can they not ? See the brown oak-galls, each with 
 a ragged little shaft sunk to the very core, whence 
 a mouse's sharp teeth have drawn the sleeping 
 chrysalis. Under the hedge lie scarlet rose-hips 
 torn open and rifled. Pick up the scattered seeds, 
 and at the base of each is a tiny hole where a mouse 
 took out the kernel. Why, here and there, in 
 woodland or hedge-path do the green mats of 
 plantain or thistle lie so flat and limp } Because 
 sharp teeth have nibbled out the root-crowns from 
 below. Small quadrupeds do not starve, even 
 when they do not sleep, in winter. 
 
 339 
 
PASSES 
 
 November xxx 
 AS NO- *¥NovEMBER will slide into December before to- 
 VEMBER morrow's dawn ; and another old year will have 
 passed the last landmark on its journey home. In 
 spite of late storms and fogs, and frost and snow, 
 even in wind-swept districts there are many shel- 
 tered slopes where oak, elm and larch make some 
 show still of bronze and golden leafage against the 
 blue-black pines. 
 
 *Nor is it that the trees, as often happens in sun- 
 less years, cling to their leaves from sheer unreadi- 
 ness to let the unripe tissues go, but rather that 
 they have retained full vigour to hold them to the 
 last. Some trees, indeed, obey the frost's summons 
 to surrender with dramatic suddenness. One shel- 
 tered maple, gloriously robed in gold from head to 
 foot, flung all her splendour to the ground in a single 
 morning ; and in the garden the lilacs, that over- 
 night made a solid bank of green, stood like a bare 
 brown hedge next day with all their foliage lying, as 
 a green sheet, at their feet. But a glance at the naked 
 bushes shows that it was no weakness which im- 
 pelled the prompt disrobement. In firm strong 
 twig and full round bud you read their readiness 
 to the tussle with winter and, in good time, to 
 welcome spring. 
 
 34° 
 
December i 
 ^5e^A SUDDEN twist of the wind to the north-east; winter's 
 black thunderous heaps of clouds rolling up from sharp 
 the North Sea ; flocks of peewits flying in close ^"^^^ 
 ranks before it, straight and high, with no sugges- 
 tion of that leisurely flap-winged stroke which 
 usually makes the peewit's other name of " lap- 
 wing " so appropriate ; then blinding sheets of hail 
 that tattoo on the windows and rattle in the chim- 
 neys — thus the Arctic Regions often send their 
 peremptory message to greet the dawn of December 
 in England, with a coverlid of white on all its 
 eastern slopes. And straightway the army of the 
 birds takes up its winter formation to meet the 
 invader. 
 
 'ScFlocks of chaffinches, all male or all female, 
 according to locality — for chaffinch society dis- 
 approves of " mixed migration " — draw near to 
 horse-yard and cattle-byre, where the steaming 
 litter melts the hail and snow almost faster than 
 they fall. Large companies of thrushes, redwings 
 and fieldfares take strategic positions on slopes 
 where the white crust is thinnest, and probe the 
 soaked earth beneath for worms. By myriads 
 the starlings jostle, gabbling, over the marsh pas- 
 ture, where hail and snow are ledged on the rank 
 grass-tufts, leaving space for the birds to forage 
 below. With the jet blackbirds tossing brown 
 leaves and scattering snow to right and left with 
 eager, delving bills, the hedgerows look "like 
 Christmas." So great a change can a sharp twist 
 of the wind effect when November is passing to 
 December, 
 
 341 
 
Missing Page 
 
Missing Page 
 
December iv 
 winter's ^5i=S|Although it is still possible to gather a meagre 
 QUICK bunch of December wildflowers, it is cold, un- 
 seasonable work. When spring proves unkind, 
 the buttercup, holding its bright, new face above 
 the unwelcome film of new-fallen snow, seems a 
 sure symbol of the coming triumph of summer, in 
 spite of such reverses at the start ; but such butter- 
 cups as remain to brave December's driving hail 
 and snow seem forlorn and out of place. For, 
 when even a tardy winter arrives, it is better that 
 Nature shall have cleared her deck for the long 
 engagement to follow with the powers of frost 
 and ice ; and buttercups are hostages to unkind 
 fortune. 
 
 =5llt is, indeed, a weakness of Nature that her plant- 
 forces cannot retreat. The flower-stalk, once set 
 up, must remain up until winter cuts it down ; 
 and no blossom once expanded can seek the shelter 
 of its bud again, when the cold winds blow. 
 ^Nature's hosts in fur and feathers are more 
 mobile ; and with a wintry change of weather many 
 simultaneous movements are effected to meet the 
 new disposition of the enemy. On the last day 
 before the cold comes, for instance, there are few 
 winter flocks of larks in the fields ; and in the 
 evening you might see hardy little pipistrelle bats 
 hawking down the lanes where the winter moths 
 flicker by the hedgerows. The same cold winds, 
 however, that fill the fields with flocks of foreign 
 skylarks drive the last bats into shelter for their 
 winter's sleep, and send the moths to hiding until 
 milder times. 
 
 344 
 
November xxvi 
 WINTER'S *^Less than a week ago it seemed absurd that 
 CHANGE Christmas should be only five weeks ahead. 1 hen 
 the sunlit air was full of gossamer, the blundering 
 dor-beetle droned in daylight flight, and the robm 
 played at catching flies down the hedge. Of these, 
 to-day only the robin remains, with pufFed-out 
 plumage and feet sinking in the snow, a sohtary 
 speck of coloured life in a waste of white. 
 ¥But the robin seldom starves. For him there is 
 generally a warm corner in some human neigh- 
 bour's heart ; and, failing that, he can with his 
 alert and confident ways, find a corner for himselt 
 in cow-byre or cartshed, sheepfold or pigsty, 
 where there is snow-clear hunting-space for his 
 
 small appetite. j t> •,.■ u 
 
 ^And each in their several ways, our hardy british 
 birds— routing in dark hedge-bot£oms or weather- 
 proof shrubberies, under sheltering turnips or the 
 hanging banks of streams, in tree-trunk crevices or 
 on trodden high roads— can fend ofl^ for many days 
 the hunger of the snow. It is for the fieldfare and 
 the redwing, weak foreigners of the berried hedge 
 and the open field, that we fear the worst, if more 
 snow comes. 
 
 336 
 
December v 
 ^JtiSeFARM life wears almost its worst aspect now. the 
 One by one the hedges are being shorn of the country 
 year's wayward growth of brier and bramble. '"'^ "^ 
 The scarlet rose-hips of winter and the blackberry 
 sprays which might have carried their green leaves 
 till spring are carted off in untidy bundles for the 
 bonfire's waste, leaving only small scattered thorns 
 to vex the byway cyclist for many weeks. 
 ^And as the hedges put on their trim uniformity 
 of winter ugliness, so the deep-rutted roads grow 
 miry with cart traffic and the cattle trample the 
 pond's margin into evil slush, while the folded 
 sheep make quagmires of their hurdled sections of 
 the turnip-fields. Over some fields the plough- 
 man stumbles with clodded feet behind his labour- 
 ing team, while others are unsightly spread with 
 farmyard manure. Assuredly the country now is 
 no place for those who do not know it to try short 
 cuts from anywhere to anywhere. 
 ^But, if you know your country, there are still 
 untrodden paths and upland winding ways, sweet, 
 stony wood-tracks amid moss and sheltered fern, 
 and wild, clean wastes where peewits gather and 
 the curlews cry. There you can walk free — not 
 pick your steps between a crossing's puddles — and 
 view the patchwork landscape of the farms below, 
 alive with work to speed the coming year. 
 
 345 
 
THE 
 COUNTRY 
 
 December vi 
 FOG IN =5ti5|WHEN the earth is soaked like a sponge in 
 winter, fogs come alike with rising or falling 
 temperature in the open country — not the pea-soup 
 fogs of London streets, but more like thin arrow- 
 root, bluey-white and semi-transparent. Whereas, 
 too, the London fog shuts down upon you and 
 hems you closely in, the country fog, even in a 
 small field, gives a sense of immensity. Land- 
 marks are withdrawn into space, and the dim out- 
 line of each tree that you pass seems towering to 
 indefinite height. 
 
 ^With so much hid from sight, sounds take a 
 new importance. The creaking challenge of the 
 partridge by the hedge, which makes a dim, dark 
 horizon to your view, sounds loud and louder, as 
 though the bird were advancing upon you. The 
 unseen rooks in invisible trees seem to be playing 
 practical jokes, uttering all the weirdest grunts 
 and croaks known to rook language. A loud and 
 shrill "Wireeyou" from a cock moorhen by the 
 pond at the corner almost startles you; so does 
 the sudden figure of a cow, looming large as a 
 cart-horse, within three yards. Overhead in the 
 dim cloud which you know to be the big poplar, 
 scores of starlings are whistling and cluttering 
 consumedly. Perhaps they can see the sun that is 
 lifting the fog. It will be welcome, for your 
 moustache drips and your eyelashes are clogged 
 with gathered moisture. 
 
 346 
 
December vtt 
 =5t5|THOUGH the shooting season has still many the 
 weeks to run, the altered behaviour of the par- ^^^' , 
 tridges is significant of a coming change which will ^g^°^ 
 induce most sportsmen to lay aside the gun before manners 
 the law compels. For the coveys are reverting to 
 their formation of last July, and manifestly consist 
 of a pair of mated birds and a small mob of young 
 ones. Time has brought great differences of 
 course. In size and plumage there is nothing to 
 choose now between young and old ; and when 
 you suddenly alarm the party the mother bird 
 exhibits none of that anxiety which used to drive 
 her frantic for the safety of her downy little 
 children last summer. Instead, she seems anxious 
 only for herself, and the gallant old cock, her 
 husband, seems anxious only for her. 
 =5lThus, by changing rule of conduct, does Nature 
 beautifully work out her end, which is the preser- 
 vation of the species. Last summer the main hope 
 rested upon the safety of the little chicks, prospec- 
 tive parents of the future race. Now the young 
 have safely passed the dangerous period of 
 immaturity, and Nature once more concentrates 
 her efforts to secure the safety of each wedded 
 female, that she may bring another brood into the 
 world. 
 
 347 
 
December viii 
 
 winter's =5r5|lN spite of recent blizzards, there are sheltered 
 
 SMALL shrubbery nooks where already a pale primrose or 
 
 ^'^^ two peeps to see if spring may not be coming 
 
 round the corner. But for the sweet wild primrose 
 
 of the woods, tufting the mossy slopes with the 
 
 soft glory-light of spring, we must wait awhile in 
 
 patience. 
 
 ^A weary while, perhaps, it seems in prospect, 
 when the lane-paths grow more winter-sodden day 
 by day, and the hedgebanks rot with the decay of 
 frost-caught nettles and coarse tangles of drenched 
 grass. But we can leave the lanes behind us and 
 mount the rabbit-nibbled slopes above the valley's 
 mist, where the furze still carries some blossoms 
 of bright gold and gleams, cobwebbed with jewels, 
 in the winter sun. 
 
 =5lHere the sweetbrier's orange hips attract the 
 busy greenfinch, and on many of its leafless, prickly 
 shoots fuzzy brown lumps remain to show where 
 the tiny fly which produced these quaint, mossy 
 gall-growths was active in the spring. In winter, 
 when these dry brown " bedeguars " have lost the 
 rosy tints which made them beautiful, they furnish 
 tit-bits for the cunning field-mice, who nibble down 
 to the little fly-chrysalids within. 
 =5jThere is no life so small or so secure but has its 
 enemies in winter. 
 
 348 
 
December ix 
 =StiS|FoR many days now the silence of the dusk peace in 
 has been unbroken by the challenge and counter- '^"^ ^^rk 
 challenge of the red stags, reverberating up the aisles 
 of ancient trees ; and, feeding in the open together 
 by day, the park deer straggle by, all the males 
 — their rivalries laid aside — consorting together 
 and the females similarly seeking the company of 
 their sex. Only by a broken antler here, and there 
 a limping warrior, are you reminded of the strife 
 that filled the autumn glades. 
 ^ScThus Nature works on the wise rule that when 
 the male, by sexual evolution, has become con- 
 spicuous, upon his head shall be the danger. To 
 the prowling beast of prey the antlered herd of 
 males appears plain against the skyline from afar ; 
 while the inconspicuous company of fertile females 
 slips unnoticed into distant safety. The male has 
 fulfilled his function and with his grandeur he often 
 carries, for the good of the species, the privilege of 
 death. 
 
 =SlTo the deer of Britain, may be, winter brings 
 no risk of beast of prey ; but wolves and tigers 
 roamed our acres once, and the same habit still 
 holds with our stags, which makes the winged 
 husband of the wingless Winter Moth take all the 
 risks of life, while she stays safe and secret. 
 
 349 
 
Missing Page 
 
Missing Page 
 
AFTER 
 RAIN 
 
 December xii 
 
 FOG ^5t5|lN the fog which follows falling temperature 
 after winter rain, wild life enjoys unusual peace, 
 tempered with sudden surprises. As you enter a 
 field, the hedges and trees at a few yards' distance 
 fade into the background of cotton wool and you 
 seem almost alone in a world of invisible silence. 
 Sometimes by the sentinel caw of an uneasy rook 
 you can locate a familiar clump of trees, and the 
 multitudinous gossip of sparrows tells you that 
 that faint blur in the sky is the cornstack in the 
 field corner. The whistling of unseen starlings 
 overhead a few minutes later marks your arrival at 
 the willows by the bridge. Fog or frost, rain or 
 snow, the starling must have his morning bath, and, 
 having bathed, he must fizzle and splutter in the 
 ecstatic attitudes which at a little distance afford 
 the only evidence that he is " singing " until he 
 throws in one of those long-drawn whistles, so 
 human in tone that they sometimes make you turn 
 with the unspoken query, "Who was that ?" 
 =5cBut so long as you keep to the beaten path in a 
 fog, here your cognisance of Nature ends, unless a 
 robin or a hedge-sparrow pops in and out of the 
 hedge before you. The multitudes of birds which 
 your presence ordinarily disturbs on every side are 
 safe behind the curtain of the fog. Thus they 
 have peace ; but the surprises come when, wander- 
 ing from the beaten track, you suddenly loom in 
 their midst. Surprises come for you too, some- 
 times among the dykes. 
 
 352 
 
WIND 
 BLOWS 
 
 December xiii 
 ^k^ONE should be a bird, perhaps, fully to realise when 
 the effect of a cold wind in shutting off supplies, the cold 
 The insect-collector sees something of this, even in 
 summer, when a turn of the wind to a chilly- 
 quarter seems to wipe all insect life, as with a wet 
 sponge, ofF the face of Nature. Indirectly the 
 angler may see it too, when at a breath from north 
 or east the fish cease altogether to take interest in 
 his effigies of flies, because they know that real flies 
 are not abroad. 
 
 "5|But the heightened effect of the same change in 
 winter passes unnoticed, because we are accustomed 
 to a world which for several months seems — 
 except when gnats appear dancing in the thin sun- 
 light — absolutely insectless. We are, however, 
 creatures of the day, and winter is too hungry a 
 season for insect folk to venture abroad in the 
 bold daylight. But the birds, though daylight 
 creatures like ourselves, forage at dawn close upon 
 the heels of retreating night and discover on mild 
 mornings plenty of the small life of darkness that 
 has failed to make its hiding-place secure. When, 
 however, the night has been cold and small life 
 has remained in the retreats where it was safe 
 yesterday, the birds go hungry, as you may see in 
 the morning boldness of the robin and the thrush, 
 and in the turf riddled with holes where rooks 
 and starlings have been probing the earth in search 
 of food. 
 
 353 
 
AND THE 
 
 December xh 
 
 'SfilAs the shooting season slackens before the new 
 KEEPER outburst which will come with the Christmas holi- 
 day, the gamekeeper gets his quiet days with the 
 rabbits, and on our coast districts the hooded crow 
 has his turn of the benefits of sport. For the 
 hoodie is quick to learn the signs of whatever work 
 is forward, and best of all winter days for him is 
 that which sees the keeper and his dog and his lad 
 and his ferret all busy on the margin of the 
 warren. 
 
 ^For the lad seldom puts the ferret to an empty 
 burrow, the ferret seldom fails to bolt the rabbit, 
 the keeper seldom misses, and the dog always re- 
 trieves. So the row of dead bunnies on the turf 
 grows longer and longer as the morning passes, and 
 by early afternoon the keeper and his lad, viewing 
 the load which has to be carried home across 
 country, set to work to lighten it by " cleaning " 
 the rabbits on the spot. What they leave is the 
 hoodie's perquisite. 
 
 ^It is for this reason that the crows have been 
 sitting in ones and twos on various trees around, 
 exchanging croaky remarks upon the progress 
 of the sport ; and it will be dusk before they fly 
 heavily from that corner by the warren to their 
 roosting wood. 
 
 354 
 
December xv 
 ^tfyBv this time all our winter visitors have shaken sky- 
 down into their places, and the flocks of foreign larks' 
 skylarks know where they can feed together in ^'nter 
 peace, without assault and battery — or the musical 
 menace thereof — by our resident larks. 
 ^But every day new causes of strife are being intro- 
 duced in patches ; for the ploughs are breaking up 
 the old grass-fields — " oUand," for " old land," as 
 they call them in East Anglia, from innate ten- 
 dency to clip each word of as many consonants as 
 possible. But as, yard by yard, the slow-pacing 
 plough-horses rule the broad fields into contrasting 
 stripes of ever-broadening brown and ever-narrow- 
 ing green, more and more pairs of resident skylarks 
 are dispossessed of their homesteads and compelled 
 to establish themselves upon the newer grass-land, 
 where hitherto the foreign skylarks have been per- 
 mitted to crowd together, like aliens in the East of 
 London. Hence more alarums and excursions, 
 when the evicted British skylarks peg out new 
 claims, and on shivering wings aloft proclaim the 
 British doctrine that every lark's home is his castle ; 
 and the foijeigners, having no nesting-rights to 
 maintain on this side of the sea, give the robust 
 aggressors elbow-room. 
 
 ^JlThus all through ploughing-time the ebb and 
 flow of lark-life will continue, until the foreigners 
 shall hear the voice of spring calling them to lands 
 where they can have castles of their own. 
 
 355 
 
FLOWERS 
 
 December xvi 
 MiD-DE- =5r5|lN mid-December an aftermath of summer often 
 CEMBER seems still determined to shake hands with next 
 spring over the head of winter, when the cottage 
 garden still holds wallflowers, pansiesj and roses, 
 doing their best to furnish midwinter nosegays. The 
 frost may have been too much for the leafy lilacs, 
 and all their foliage lies like a green carpet round their 
 feet; but in sheltered places the laburnum and the 
 flowering currant may still keep respectable rags of 
 greenery on their strongest shoots. At the same 
 time the primrose and violets of spring are tiptoeing 
 out in the shrubberies to peep at the green winter 
 over their green leaves ; while the snowdrops are 
 thrusting visible buds to light between the green 
 bayonet-leaves that have pierced their covering of 
 earth. 
 
 ^The sturdy hellebore is rapidly expanding its 
 candelabra of pale flowers, and the winter aconites 
 are beginning to open the folded packets which 
 will presently reveal their golden cups, standing in 
 broad green saucers. The Christmas rose, blooming 
 in waxen beauty now by right of the season, seldom 
 has so much gay company on the cold, damp earth, 
 when the wind whistles o' nights in December. 
 For, at this time, of British plants, four only — 
 groundsel, shepherd's purse, chickweed, and red 
 deadnettle — should be seen in bloom, with blossoms, 
 too, more appropriate for bird-food than button- 
 holes, and poor company for Christmas roses. 
 
 356 
 
Q 
 
 X 
 < 
 
 <; 
 s 
 
 H 
 
 X 
 
OF MID- 
 WINTER 
 
 December xvii 
 ^5t5lTHE country wears its full winter aspect now, the 
 for each cold turn of the wind has brought more interest 
 feathered travellers southwards, and wherever you 
 stray from the beaten path you become the centre 
 of disturbed bird life. This is always the feature 
 which gives interest to mid-winter rambles, when 
 the tide of autumn life has ebbed and the tide of 
 spring has not begun to flow. Save for the winter 
 birds in their multitudes, there would be a dull 
 fortnight in late December, between the blooming 
 of the Christmas rose, the last fair flower of the old 
 year, and the winter aconite's cheery, golden promise 
 of the new. 
 
 ^Now, however, each hedge greets you with a 
 dropping fire of blackbirds and thrushes, hedge- 
 sparrows and finches, and fires out a final mixed 
 volley when you reach the corner. By the stream 
 side the late reinforcements of snipe, rising singly 
 or in couples, draw your attention with their vibrant 
 " scaich " to their zigzag course, and more king- 
 fishers than were there a week ago make streaks of 
 turquoise in their arrowy flight down stream. 
 ^SlOn the clover stubbles close packs of skylarks 
 and still closer mobs of sparrows wheel and alight 
 again before your steps, while the horizon is dusted 
 with peewits and swift squadrons of golden plover 
 rustle, plaintively whistling, across the sky. And 
 over all drift the slow white gulls to the murmur- 
 ous music of the distant cawing rooks. 
 
 357 
 
HARVEST 
 
 December xviii 
 THE ^5t5|THE last harvest of the closing year is being 
 year's gathered. The mangolds have long been banked 
 from frost. Next went most of the white turnips. 
 And now the stout, purple-rooted swedes are being 
 carted for the winter store ; and in long widening 
 strips the brown earth shows from end to end of 
 the wide fields hitherto filled with a sea of blue- 
 green foliage. 
 
 ^Down the lines of roots go stooping figures which, 
 with a deft, double-turned swing of the hook, divest 
 each turnip of its leaves and fibres, leaving the 
 roots in ordered lines, which are presently gathered 
 to great heaps, and thence loaded into the carts 
 that pass slowly to and fro, between turnip-field 
 and barn, during all the hours of daylight. 
 ^AU round the hedges of the great field the 
 partridges creak to each other with indignation, 
 and the hares lope anxiously about, because the safe 
 cover in which they have spent their lives is being 
 taken from them. 
 
 ^High and wide circle the worried wood-pigeons, 
 that have daily tinged the field with a haze of blue 
 when they settled in their hundreds to feed on 
 turnip-tops ; and the rooks caw dolorously from 
 distant tree-tops to see the passing of the rich store 
 of roots in which they have so often drilled deep 
 holes for breakfast. When man harvests any crop, 
 he sows a wide area with grief. 
 
 358 
 
December xix 
 'SrkTHERE is no mud so muddy as that which thaw a soakbd 
 makes after frost in country lanes. Where a few countrt- 
 days ago you could lightly step from pinnacle to *'°* 
 pinnacle of the crested cart-ruts, with scarcely a 
 crisp suggestion of " give " in the slenderest of 
 them as it took your weight, to-day the cattle may 
 plosh through the liquid sea of mud, but you must 
 make a detour by the pasture or scramble like a 
 lizard along the hedge. And each alternative is 
 unpleasant. There is no wet so wetting as the 
 heavy moisture on rough grass after a thaw, unless 
 it is the douche which the tangled hedge scatters 
 on your head and neck when your foot catches a 
 bramble that loops the branches. 
 ^And the birds never look so miserable as in a 
 winter thaw. Draggle-tailed and with damp wings, 
 which whirr heavily as they fly, a protesting cloud 
 of sparrows pass, as you advance, from one wet 
 tree to another. The blackbird, waggling his tail 
 as he starts to shake the moisture off, flies low and 
 far along the hedge before he finds another place 
 fit to settle in. Out on the grass the starlings sit 
 bunchily together, making no pretence to hunt for 
 worms. As they fly you see how uncomfortably 
 glued with wet their hinder feathers are ; and you 
 sympathise, because you feel the chill of the soaked 
 grass even through your stout boots. There is no 
 cold so penetrating as that which comes with thaw 
 after frost. 
 
 359 
 
BRIGHT 
 DAYS 
 
 December xx 
 
 BIRD LIFE =S|=5|Still, Oil a bright morning, the birds sing as 
 °'^ though spring were just round the corner. In- 
 
 deed, more thrush voices have come in to lead the 
 feathered choir, with fine clear music, to which the 
 ceaseless rippling and whistling notes of many 
 starlings make an obbligato accompaniment. 
 Away over the fields the skylark reels out his 
 silver song, and the robin carols and the hedge- 
 sparrow "tweedles" from the shrubbery, while 
 the bunting absurdly tinkles from his seat on 
 hedge-top or telegraph-wire. 
 =5|Yet one is reminded that we have scarcely passed 
 mid-December by the growing flocks of finches in 
 the fields. Not particularly gregarious by inclina- 
 tion, even the greenfinch finds himself, as Christ- 
 mas draws near, driven into the company of 
 hundreds of his kind. With the plough breaking 
 up one green field, a party of sportsmen shooting 
 in the next, the last swedes being harvested in a 
 third, and the shepherd driving his carefully tended 
 ewes into a fourth, the greenfinch finds his area for 
 seeking field-seeds growing daily more restricted, 
 and his life more worried and disturbed. So he 
 collects in flocks, which sometimes almost mimic the 
 regiments of starlings in aerial manoeuvres, but 
 more frequently resemble sparrows as they dust a 
 hedgerow in their hundreds, or descend like a 
 scattered shower of stones upon a clover-stubble. 
 ^Not until the flocks of common finches melt 
 away from the cultivated fields may we begin to 
 look for spring ; and that will not be for months 
 yet, however the thrushes may sing. 
 
 360 
 
Q 
 
December xxi 
 ^5t5lLAST midsummer, when rows of empty pea- the 
 pods hung where fat green peas should have been, haw- 
 one naturally, but vainly, thirsted for the blood of ^^'^^^ ^'^ 
 the hawfinches who had made a comfortable family p^^^jj 
 breakfast, soon after dawn, of the early luxuries 
 which were intended for one's own table at dinner. 
 ^For the hawfinch is what natural history books 
 call a " shy " bird during the summer months. 
 That is to say, you never see him or any of his 
 family until they have descended upon your peas; 
 and you do not discover his nest in one of the old 
 apple-trees until the leaves have fallen and it looms- 
 against the sky as conspicuous as a football or a 
 hat. 
 
 ^o the raid of his hungry family upon your peas 
 had all the aggravation of the unforeseen, and then 
 it was that the gardener heard you say hard 
 things of hawfinches in general. 
 ^ScBut it is quite another thing to be expected to 
 applaud the gardener's vigilance in winter, when 
 you are invited to inspect a dead hawfinch on the 
 lawn, the victim of his ancient muzzle-loader. 
 ^At this season there is nothing in the whole 
 garden which a hawfinch can eat that he is not 
 freely welcome to; and, far from being shy, he 
 will openly gorge himself upon your berries until 
 you can almost catch him with your hands. 
 ^This probably accounts for the success of the 
 " gardener's ancient firearm ; but, lying on the grass, 
 the beautiful hawfinch looks so peaceful that you 
 can hardly realise that his end was violent. 
 
 361 
 
HOODIE 
 
 December xxii 
 ROOKS ^StJiThe rooks fare well without the turnips while 
 AND the frost holds off, and the ground is soft enough 
 for their strong bills to reach the grubs and worms, 
 which in mild weather always rise to meet their 
 fate in the surface of the soil. Besides, the plough 
 is never idle in winter, unless frost binds the land 
 to iron ; and the wise rook marches day after day 
 in procession down the glistening furrows behind 
 the ploughman, and finds a generous breakfast 
 spread of wretched worms, whose position towards 
 earth and sky the deep-driving ploughshare has 
 suddenly reversed. The more they thrust them- 
 selves in terror down their burrows, the more they 
 emerge to the light of day ! 
 
 ^At such times the rook is really " the farmer's 
 friend," and has no need to eke out a hard living 
 by stealing grain. 
 
 JJlIn coastwise districts you may, however, have 
 sudden suspicion of the rooks when you see a sable 
 mob of birds rise from round the cornstacks as 
 you approach ; but a glance shows that they are not 
 rooks. The half-grey plumage betrays the hoodie 
 crow, and if you go to see what "mischief" they 
 were after, you will find the eviscerated corpses of 
 many rats, which had crawled out to die after eating 
 the vermin-killer's tasty but treacherous bait. 
 
 36a 
 
OF DEATH 
 
 December xxm 
 =5r5lBY the waterside runs always a margin of alter- thb 
 nate death and life — death of the creatures of one margin 
 element to feed the life of the other. As by the 
 sea you may note the flickering lines of gulls and 
 the dotted groups of waders, with here and there 
 the black figures of hooded crows, following the 
 retreating tide, so the margin of each inland mere 
 is populous now with feathered folk. Even the 
 narrow trout-stream, meandering between wood- 
 land and pasture, traces its silver streak of bird life 
 through the landscape. For its waters seldom 
 freeze, and thither in mid-winter resort many 
 migrant waterfowl. 
 
 ^In every score of yards you hear the " Scaich, 
 scaich " of a rising snipe, who zigzags in ob- 
 liquely rising flight till well beyond gun-range, and 
 then curves far back behind you, to drop like a 
 falling arrow to the stream again. Grey as an old 
 weather-beaten stump the far heron views your 
 approach, and, lurching forward, launches himself 
 aloft on ample pinions. The mallards, already 
 more often in pairs than solitary, permit a nearer 
 view of their white-barred wings ; and families of 
 moorhens, the children with bills still uncoloured, 
 scatter into hiding. The starlings, jostle with 
 probing beaks along the margin of the stream, and 
 the wren, almost a snipe in miniature, flits with 
 jarring alarm-note down the bank before you. At 
 every turn and winding some new bird catches the 
 eye ; for in winter, as in summer, the thread-like 
 stream draws life together to feed upon the life 
 that it contains. 
 
 363 
 
Missing Page 
 
Missing Page 
 
REALLY 
 ARRIVES 
 
 December xxvi 
 WINTER =5i=5|Though, in December, we may welcome frost 
 as a timely set-back for the plants, it is never op- 
 portune for the birds. You have only to look out 
 of your dressing-room window at the blackbirds on 
 the frozen lawn to see how miserable they feel. 
 The early bird has got no worms, but hops disconso- 
 lately about in a suit of feathers which seem already 
 much too loose for him ; and though he alternately 
 chases and is chased by another blackbird on the 
 other side of the flower-bed, their hostilities are 
 listless and perfunctory. Their spirits are broken, 
 and there is no disguising the fact that they have 
 come down to beggary, waiting round the house 
 until you shall have finished your breakfast and 
 may bring them theirs. The robin is there too, of 
 course ; but no longer the dapper, sprightly bird 
 of two days ago. Perched on a strand of honey- 
 suckle under the verandah he is a mere ball of fluff, 
 with two absurdly thin legs sticking out of it. 
 ^When you open the door the wintry hush and 
 stillness of the frosted scene strikes you with a new 
 sense of desolation, that is only emphasised by the 
 clearness with which you hear the thin piping note 
 of a hedge-sparrow, or the crystal " Twink " of a 
 distant chaffinch. These two birds seem able to 
 stand the sudden advent of severe cold with greater 
 equanimity than others. Two days before, when 
 skylarks, starlings, robins, and at least one song- 
 thrush were all singing at the same time and place, 
 you hardly noticed the single notes of hedge- 
 sparrow and chaffinch. But now they seem to 
 strike the keynote of the winter scene. 
 
 366 
 
TIMES 
 
 December xxvii 
 ^SrkALMOST the first sign of hard times with the the star- 
 birds is the congregation of starlings along the "ng in 
 water, probing the mud for food. And as you; 
 come near to the busy, scuttling creatures, jostling 
 each other along the edge of the dyke where the 
 crisp edge of the thin ice leaves an inch or so of 
 unfrozen mud, they show none of that prompt and 
 wary discipline which usually sends the whole host 
 wheeling and sweeping a field away from the in- 
 truder. Instead, the nearest birds merely fly a 
 few yards ahead as you advance, with that loose, 
 shuffling flight characteristic of birds that are sick 
 for want of food. And the narrow strip of mud 
 which they were feverishly exploring was so 
 riddled and honeycombed with the holes made 
 by their bills that no single worm lurking near the 
 surface could possibly have escaped. What a dif- 
 ference a fraction of an inch in length of bill must 
 make to a bird at such a time ! For the worms, 
 of course, retire below the level of the frost, and the 
 starling may just be able to reach them where the 
 blackbird would fail, while the snipe might find 
 plenty where the starling starved. 
 ^Thus, no doubt, Nature is gradually causing the 
 starling, now fairly started in its career as a marsh 
 bird in hard weather — instead of a digger among 
 hedge- roots, like the stouter-billed thrushes — to 
 become more and more like a snipe. On a frosty 
 morning the merest trifle of advantage in the length 
 of bill may make all the diflPerence between a good 
 breakfast and none at all. 
 
 367 
 
ING 
 PLUMAGE 
 
 December xxviu 
 birds' ^iStSiIn spite of spells of cold, when on the tops of 
 CHANG- omnibuses Londoners' noses turn blue and coat 
 collars are turned up to the ears, Nature in wild life 
 seems determined to take no check in its premature 
 march towards spring. Already the yellow- 
 hammers are collecting in the small flocks which 
 indicate the approaching final settlement of the 
 competitions of the young males of last year for 
 wives. 
 
 !5lAlready, too, if you can approach a flock of 
 black- headed gulls near the coast, you see that here 
 and there one of the older birds has already donned 
 the complete dark hood of breeding plumage ; and 
 the wary heads which feeding peewits raise as you 
 peep over the gate are already losing their winter 
 complexions of dull fawn or cinnamon, and wear 
 instead a brightness suggestive of the contrast that 
 will come later, between the snow-white cheeks and 
 black, up-curling crests of their honeymoon finery. 
 =SlSo, too, the hoodie crows now show mantles of 
 more silvery grey than they wore on first arrival ; 
 and even on your water-pipe you may see a note 
 of coming change in the deepening blackness of 
 the cock-sparrow's bib. 
 
 368 
 
AND HIS 
 FRIENDS 
 
 December xxix 
 ^5t5|lN November large flocks ot blue tits arrived the 
 upon the east coast, and, while the south winds blue tit 
 prevailed during early December, still larger 
 flocks gathered on the south coast, for though the 
 blue tit is a hardy migrant and crossed lightly from 
 Norway with a favouring wind, how could he 
 adventure even the crossing of the Channel with 
 the wind dead against him ? Presently, however, 
 came the north winds, and the blue tits passed 
 safely, let us hope, to the sunny south. 
 ^Those that have remained with us are numerous 
 enough, however ; for — besides the resident blue 
 tits which every house, where food is provided for 
 the birds, may boast as daily acrobats before its 
 windows — the coppices and woods resound all day 
 to the piping calls of regiments of tits, wandering 
 in foUow-my-leader fashion from tree to tree and 
 grove to grove. 
 
 ^With the blue tits, easily distinguished by their 
 azure hues, are many marsh tits, black-crowned 
 and olive-bodied, and coal tits, similarly hued, 
 but with the black crown boldly patched with 
 white behind Great tits, too, trim and dapper, 
 with black-and-white heads and bodies shaded 
 from bottle-green above to sulphur below ; and, 
 piping in needle notes, tiny greenish goldcrests, 
 with foreheads touched with flame; nuthatches, 
 tawny and grey ; and tree-creepers, brown above 
 and silvery white below — a thin-voiced company 
 all, but a merry sight to see as they pass in any 
 order or disorder from pine to pine. 
 
 369 2 A 
 
IN 
 E^RNEST 
 
 December xxx 
 WINTER ^^St^When, with the closing year, winter, seemingly 
 in earnest, speaks with the menacing voice of the 
 north wind blowing straight from frozen seas, 
 British wild life in plant and animal, which was 
 marching so gaily towards next spring before even 
 the old year was closed, halts in its stride. 
 ^But, unless the new year shall bring worse to 
 follow, it will only be marking time, all the same. 
 The primrose's hidden buds still stand bravely 
 expectant in the half-shade of their green rosette 
 of velvety leaves, and it needs more than a night 
 or two of wind -frost to make the partridges forget 
 their courtships and bury their sexual rivalries 
 again in the covey's communal interests. 
 ^But the drooping flower-leaves of the hellebore 
 tell their tale of sap retreating from the frost's 
 congealing touch, and the pasture is bruised black 
 where the feet of cattle have crushed the frozen 
 grass-blades. The robin hops puffily upon the 
 trodden highway before the steps of man, and the 
 starling, though he whistles bravely aloft in the 
 poplar, seems to have more feathers to less body 
 than he had a week ago, when the ground was 
 still soft and worms were plenty. 
 
 37° 
 
OF THE 
 YEAR 
 
 December xxxi 
 ■iS^So comes the last day of a country year ; and the 
 that which always amazes the chronicler from year record 
 to year is Nature's punctuality in her dates and 
 her courage in facing always the v/orst of seasons 
 with a buoyant readiness for the best to follow. 
 ^A year may be as good as 1904, when each 
 season was almost perfect in its way ; or it may be 
 as bad as 1903 when, if you wished to speak of 
 pleasant things you dared not mention farming to 
 the farmer, fruit to the fruit-grower, sport to the 
 sportsman, or entomology to the entomologist. 
 Blizzard and tempest, hailstorm and deluge, 
 wrecked hope after hope all through that dreary 
 twelvemonth. 
 
 ^Every cloud has its silver lining, of course. A 
 year of deluge puts an end to the fears of drought 
 caused by the dwindling ponds and shrinking wells 
 of previous years. The bad season for the sports- 
 man causes such restriction of the shooting that 
 the land carries a larger head of game than usual 
 for the next breeding season. The idle fruit-trees 
 are so little exhausted that they bear bumper crops 
 next year. And, year in, year out. Nature marches 
 with such equal tread that between the worst and 
 the best of years there will only be the shuffling of 
 some few pages in the record of " The Country 
 Day by Day." 
 
 Printed by Ballantvne, Hanson 6^ Co 
 London ^^ Edinburgh 
 
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