Cornell Auiversity Library

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME
FROM THE

SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND

THE GIFT OF
Henry W. Sage

1891

AMY S00 | a _ _ yqis9e |

The date shows when this volume was taken.
To renew this book copy the call No. and give to.
the librarian.

HOME USE RULES.

All Books subject to Recall.

Books not used for
instruction or research
are returnable within
4 weeks.

Volumes of periodi-
cals and of pamphlets
are held in the library
as much as possible.
For special purposes '
they are given out for
«a limited time.

-Borrowers should
not use their library
privileges for the bene-
fit of other persons.

Books not needed
during recess periods
should be returned to

he library, or arrange-
s made for their
return during borrow-
er’sabsence, if wanted.

Books needed by
more than one person
are held on the reserve
list.

Books of special
value and gift books,
when the giver wishes
it, are not allowed to
circulate.

Readers are asked
to report all cases of
books marked or muti-
lated.

Do not deface books by marks and writing.

QH
g
SH TWE

S97

Cornell meer” Library
QH 81 J47W6 1897

gg

WILD LIFE

IN

A SOUTHERN COUNTY

°A series of books of really incomparable freshness and interest.”
ATHENEUM.

‘Books unsurpassed in power of observation and sympathy with
natural objects by anything that has appeared since the days of
Gilbert White.’—DaiLy News.

WORKS BY THE LATE RICHARD JEFFERIES.

en

THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME; or, Sketches of Natural
History and Rural Life. New Edition, with all the Ilus-
trations of the former Edition. Crown 8vo. 55.

WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. New
Edition, Crown vo. 6s,

THE AMATEUR POACHER. New Edition. Crown 8vo.5s,

HODGE AND HIS MASTERS. New Edition. Crown
8vo. 75. 6d.

ROUND ABOUT A GREAT ESTATE. New Edition.
Crown 8vo. 55.

London: SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 Waterloo Place.

WILD LIFE

IN

A SOUTHERN COUNTY

BY

RICHARD JEFFERIES

AUTHOR OF
‘THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME’ ‘THE AMATEUR POACHER?
‘GREENE FERNE FARM’ ‘HODGE AND HIS MASTERS?

NEW EDITION

LONDON
SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1897

[AW rights reserved]
R

k. \2L4 Sogo

INSCRIBED

TO

FREDERICK GREENWOOD

Cornell University

Library

The original of this book is in
the Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.

http://archive.org/details/cu31924024735908

PREFACE

1

THERE is a frontier line to civilisation in this country yet,
and not far outside its great centres we come quickly
even now on the borderland of nature. Modern progress,
except where it has exterminated them, has scarcely
touched the habits of bird or animal; so almost up to the
very houses of the metropolis the nightingale yearly
returns to her former haunts. If we go a few hours’
journey only, and then step just beyond the highway—
where the steam ploughing engine has left the mark of
its wide wheels on the dust—and glance into the hedge-
row, the copse, or stream, there are nature’s children as
unrestrained in their wild, free life as they were in the
veritable backwoods of primitive England. So, too, in
some degree with the tillers of the soil: old manners and
customs linger, and there seems an echo of the past in the
breadth of their pronunciation.

But a difficulty confronts the explorer who would
carry away a note of what he has seen, because nature
is not cut and dried to hand, nor easily classified, each
subject shading gradually into another. In studying the

Vili Wild Life in a Southern County

ways, for instance, of so common a bird as the starling, it
cannot be separated from the farmhouse in the thatch of
which it often breeds, the rooks with whom it associates,
or the friendly sheep upon whose backs it sometimes rides.
Since the subjects are so closely connected, it is best,
perhaps, to take the places they prefer for the convenience
of division, and group them as far as possible in the
districts they usually frequent.

The following chapters have, therefore, been so arranged
as to correspond in some degree with the contour of the
country. Commencing at the highest spot, an ancient
entrenchment on the Downs has been chosen as the start-
ing-place from whence to explore the uplands. Beneath
the hill a spring breaks forth, and, tracing its course
downwards, there next come the village and the hamlet..
Still farther the streamlet becomes a broad brook, flowing
through meadows in the midst of which stands a solitary
farmhouse. The house itself, the garden and orchard, are
visited by various birds and animals. In the fields imme-
diately around—in the great hedges and the copse—are
numerous others, and an expedition is made to the forest.
Returning to the farm again as a centre, the rookery
remains to be examined, and the ways and habits of the
inhabitants of the hedges. Finally come the fish and wild-
fowl of the brook and lake ;—finishing in the Vale.

R. J.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.
THE Downs. An Entrenchment: Ways of Larks: Hares—A
Combat: Happiness of Animals: Ants—A long Journey . .
CHAPTER II.
ADnovent. Ancient Garrison of the Entrenchment: Traditions
of Forest: Curious Ponds: A Mirage : . . .
CIIAPTER III.
THe HILLSIDE HEDGE: its Birds and Flowers: A Green Track:
The Springhead . . . ‘ 3 . . . . .
CHAPTER IV.
Tue VILLAGE. The Washpool: Village Industries: The Lelfry:
Jackdaws: Village Chronicles . . . . . . .
CITAPTER V.

VILLAGE ARCHITECTURE. The Cottage Preacher: Cottage
Society: The Shepherd: Events of the Village Year, . .

CHAPTER VI.

THE HAMLET. Cottage Astrology: Ghost-Lore: Herbs.—TIIB
WAGGON AND ITS CREW. Stiles: The Trysting-place: Tue
Thatcher: Smugglers; Ague . . e . . ° .

PAGE

1

1t

37

87

x Wild Life in a Southern County

CHAPTER VII.

PAGE
THE FARMHOUSE. Traditions: Hunting Pictures: The Farmer’s
Year: Sport: The Auction Festival: A Summer’s Day: Beauty

of Wheat , . . . . . . e e e . 102

CHAPTER VIII.

BIRDS OF THE FARMHOUSE. Speech of a Starling: Population of
a Gable: The King of the Hedge: The Thrush’s Anvil , . 120

CHAPTER Ix.

THE ORCHARD. Emigrant Martins: The Missel-Thrush: Caravan
Route of Birds and Animals: A Fox in Ambush: A Snake ina
Clock . ° ° ° . . . ° e ° ° ° 137

CHAPTER X.

THE WooppPiLe. Lizards: Sheds and Rickyard: The Witches’
Briar: Insects: Plants, Flowers, and Fruit . ° e » 154

CHAPTER XI.

THE HoME-FIELD. Hazel Corner: The Divining Rod: Rabbits’
Holes: The Corncrake: Ventriloquism of Birds: Hedge-Fruit . 170

CHAPTER XII.

THE Asit CopsE. The Nightingale : Cloud of Starlings: Hedge-
hogs. HeEgon’s MEAD: Moorhens. Among the Reeds , . 185

CHAPTER XIII.

THE WARREN. Rabbit Burrows: Ferrets: The Quarry.—THE
ForEsT: Squirrels: Deer: Dying Rabbit: A Hawk ° . 199

Contents xi

CHAPTER XIV.
PAGE
THE RooKery. Building Nests: Young Birds: Rook-Shooting:
Stealing Rooks: Antics in the Air: Mode of Flight: White
Rooks . ‘ : oe & 4 ee ee 218

CHAPTER XV.

Rooxs RETURNING TO Roost. Vast Flocks: Rook Parliament
The two Rook Armies and their Routes: Rook Laws, Tradi-
tions, and Ancient History: ‘Throw’ of Timber: Thieving
Jackdaws . o % ‘ 7 : k i . 228

CHAPTER XVL

NotTEs on Birps. Nightingales: Chaffinches: Migration: Pack-
ing: Intermarriage : Peewits : Crows: Cuckoo's Flight : Golden-
crested Wren. . . . . . . : : . 240

CHAPTER XVII.

NotTEs ON THE YEAR. The Two Natural Eras: Spiders: The
Seasons represented together: A Murderous Wasp: Feng-shui.
The Birds’ White Elephant: Hedge-Memoranda . e » 255

CHAPTER XVIII.

Snakun-LoRe. Snakes swallowing Frogs: Swimming: Fond of
Milk: Trapping Snakes: Frogs climbing: Toads in Trees.—
Tug Brook. The Hatch: Kingfishers’ Haunts and Nests - 271

CILAPTER XIX.

CoursE OF THE Brook. The Birds’ Bathing-place: Roach:
Jacks on their Journeys: Stickleback’s Nest : Woodcock.—THE
Laxg. Herons: Mussels: Reign of Terror in the Lake . . 287

Xi Wild Life tu a Southern County

CHAPTER XX.
PAGE
WILDFOWL OF THE LAKE. Sea Birds: Driftwood: Forces of
Nature at Work: Waves: Evaporation: An Eagle. FROST AND
Snow. Effect on Birds and Animals: Water- Meadows: Shoot-
ing Stars: Phosphorescence : Waterspout: Noises ‘in the Air’ , 302

WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY.

CHAPTER I.

THE DOWNS—THE ENTRENCHMENT—WAYS OF LARKS. HARES—A
COMBAT—HAPPINESS OF ANIMALS, ANTS—A LONG JOURNEY.

THE most commanding down is crowned with the grassy
mound and trenches of an ancient earthwork, from whence
there is a noble view of hill and plain. The inner slope of
the green fosse is inclined at an angle pleasant to recline
on, with the head just below the edge, in the summer sun-
shine. A faint sound as of a sea heard in a dream—a
sibilant ‘sish, sish,—passes along outside, dying away and
coming again as a fresh wave of the wind rushes through
the bennets and the dry grass. There is the happy bum
of bees—who love the hills—as they speed by laden with
their golden harvest, a drowsy warmth, and the delicious
odour of wild thyme. Behind the fosse sinks, and the
rampart rises high and steep—two butterflies are wheeling
in uncertain flight over the summit. It is only necessary
to raise the head a little way, and the cool breeze refreshes
the cheek—cool at this height while the plains beneath
glow under the heat.

Presently a small swift shadow passes across—it is that
of a hawk flying low over the hill. He skirts it for some

B

5 Wild Life in a Southern County

distance, and then shoots out into the air, comes back half-
way, and hangs over the fallow below, where there is a
small rick. His wings vibrate, striking the air downwards,
and only slightly backwards, the tail depressed counteract-
ing the inclination to glide forwards for awhile. In a few
moments he slips, as it were, from his balance, but brings
himself up again in a few yards, turning a curve so as to
still hover above the rick. If he espies a tempting morsel
he drops like a stone, and alights on a spot almost exactly
below him—a power which few birds seem to possess.
Most of them approach the ground gradually, the plane of
their flight sloping slowly to the earth, and the angle
decreasing every moment till it becomes parallel, when
they have only to drop their legs, shut their wings, and,
as it were, stand upright in the air to find themselves safe
on the sward. By that time their original impetus has
diminished, and they feel no shock from the cessation of
motion. The hawk, on the contrary, seems to descend
nearly in a perpendicular line.

The lark does the same, and often from a still greater
height, descending so swiftly that by comparison with
other birds it looks as if she must be dashed to pieces ;
but when within a few yards of the ground, the wings are
outstretched, and she glides along some distance before
alighting. This latter motion makes it difficult to tell
where a lark actually does alight. So, too, with snipe:
they appear to drop in a corner of the brook, and you feel
positive that a certain bunch of rushes is the precise place ;
but before you get there the snipe is up again under your
feet, ten or fifteen yards closer than you supposed, having
shot along hidden by the banks, just above the water, out
of sight.

Sometimes, after soaring to an unusual elevation, the

Motions of Larks cs

lark comes down, as it were, in one or two stages: after
dropping say fifty feet, the wings are employed, and she
shoots forward horizontally some way, which checks the
velocity. Repeating this twice or more, she reaches the
ground safely. In rising up to sing she often traces a
sweeping spiral in the air at first, going round once or
twice; after which, seeming to settle on the line she means
to ascend, she goes up almost perpendicularly in a series
of leaps, as it were—pausing a moment to gather impetus,
and then shooting upwards till a mere speck in the sky.
When ten or twelve larks are singing at once, all within a
narrow radius—a thing that may be often witnessed from
these downs in the spring—the charm of their vivacious
notes is greater than when one solitary bird alone dis-
courses sweet music which is lost in the blue dome over-
head.

At that time they seem to feed only a few minutes
consecutively, and then, as if seized with an uncontrollable
impulse, rush up into the air to deliver a brief song,
descend, and repeat the process for hours. They have a
way, too, of rising but six or eight yards above the earth,
spreading the wings out and keeping them nearly still,
floating slowly forward, all the while uttering one sweet
note softly. The sward by the roadside appears to have
a special attraction for them; they constantly come over
from the arable fields, alight there, and presently return.
In the early spring, when love-making is in full progress, the
cornfields where the young green blades are just showing,
become the scene of the most amusing rivalry. Far as the
eye can see across the ground it seems alive with larks—
chasing each other to and fro, round and round, with
excited calls, flying close to the surface, continually
alighting, and springing up again. A gleam of sunshine

B2

4 Wild Life in a Southern County

and a warm south wind bring forth these merry antics.
So like in general hue is the lark to the lumps of brown
earth that even at a few paces it is difficult to distinguish
her. Some seem always to remain in the meadows; but
the majority frequent the arable land, and especially the
cornfields on the slopes of the downs, where they may be
found in such numbers as rival or perhaps exceed those of
any other bird.

At first sight starlings seem more numerous; but this
arises from their habit of gathering together in such vast
flocks, blackening the earth where they alight. But you
may walk a whole day across the downs and still find larks
everywhere ; so that though scattered abroad they probably
equal or exceed the starlings, who show so much more.
They are by no means timid, being but little disturbed
here: you can get near enough to watch every motion,
and if they rise it is only to sing. They never seem to
know precisely where they are going to alight—as if,
indeed, they were nervously particular and must find a
clod that pleases them, picking and choosing with the
greatest nicety.

Many other birds exhibit a similar trait: instead of
perching on the first branch, they hesitate, and daintily
decline the bough not quite to their fancy. Blackbirds
will cruise along the whole length of a hedge before find-
ing a bush to their liking; they look in several times
ere finally deciding. Woodpigeons will make straight for
a tree, and slacken speed and show every sign of choosing
it, and suddenly, without the slightest cause apparently,
go half a mile farther. The partridge which you could
vow had dropped just over the hedge has done no such
thing ; just before touching the ground she has turned at
right angles and gone fifty yards down it.

Character of Bird Life 5

The impression left after watching the motions of birds
is that of extreme mobility—a life of perpetual impulse
checked only by fear. With one or two exceptions, they
do not appear to have the least idea of saving labour by
clearing one spot of ground of food before flying farther :
they just hastily snatch a morsel and off again; or, in a
tree, peer anxiously into every crack and crevice on one
bough, and away to another tree a hundred yards distant,
leaving fifty boughs behind without examination. Star-
lings literally race over the earth where they are feeding
—jealous of each other lest one should be first, and so
they leave a tract all around not so much as looked at.
Then, having run a little way, they rise and fly to another
part of the field. Each starling seems full of envy and
emulation—eager to outstrip his fellow in the race for
titbits; and so they all miss much of what they might
otherwise find. Their life is so gregarious that it resembles
that of men in cities: watching one another with feverish
anxiety—pushing and bustling. Larks are much calmer,
and always appear placid even in their restlessness, and
do not jostle their neighbours.

See—the hawk, after going nearly out of sight, has
swept round, and passes again at no great distance; this
is a common habit of his kind, to beat round in wide
circles. As the breeze strikes him aslant his course he
seems to fly for a short time partly on one side, like a
skater sliding on the outer edge.

There is a rough grass growing within the enclosure
of the earthwork and here and there upon the hills, which
the sheep will not eat, so that it remains in matted masses.
In this the hares make their forms; and they must, some-
how, have a trick of creeping into their places, since many
of the grass-blades often arch over, and if they sprang into

6 Wild Life in a Southern County

the form heedlessly this could not be the case, as their
size and weight would crush it down. When startled by
a, passer-by the hare—unless there is a dog—goes off in a
leisurely fashion, doubtless feeling quite safe in the length
of his legs, and after getting a hundred yards or so sits
upon his haunches and watches the intruder. Their
‘runs’ or paths are rather broader than a rabbit’s, and
straighter—the rabbit does not ramble so far from home;
he has his paths across the meadow to the hedge on the
other side, but no farther. The hare’s track may be traced
for a great distance crossing the hills ; but while the roads
are longer they are much fewer in number. The rabbit
makes a perfect network of ‘runs,’ and seems always to
feed from a regular path; the hare apparently feeds any-
where, without much reference to the ‘runs,’ which he
uses simply to get from one place to another in the most
direct line, and also, it may be suspected, as a promenade
on which to meet the ladies of his acquaintance by moon-
light.

It is amusing to see two of these animals drumming
each other ; they stand on their hind legs (which are very
long) like a dog taught to beg, and strike with the fore-
pads as if boxing, only the blow is delivered downwards
instead of from the shoulder. The clatter of their pads
may be heard much farther than would be supposed.
Round and round they go like a couple waltzing; now
one giving ground and then the other, the fore-legs striking
all the while with marvellous rapidity. Presently they
pause—it is to recover breath only ; and ‘ time’ being up,
to work they go again with renewed energy, dancing
round and round, till the observer cannot choose but
smile. This trick they will continue till you are weary
of watching.

flares in the Cornfield 7

There are holes on the hills, not above a yard deep,
and entering the slope horizontally, which are said to be
used by the hares more in a playful mood than from any
real desire of shelter. Yet they dislike wet; most wild
animals do. Birds, on the contrary, find it answer their
purpose, grubs and worms abounding at such times.
Though the hare is of a wandering disposition he usually
returns to the same form, and, if undisturbed, will use it
every day for a length of time, at night perhaps being
miles away. If hard pressed by the dogs he will leap a
broad brook in fine style, but he usually prefers to cross
by a bridge. In the evening, as it grows dusk, if you
watch from the elevation of the entrenchment, you may
see these creatures steal out into the level cornfield below,
first one, then two, presently five or six—looming much
larger than they really are in the dusk, and seeming to
appear upon the scene suddenly. They have a trick of
stealing along close to the low mounds which divide arable
fields, so that they are unobserved till they turn out into
the open ground.

It is not easy to distinguish a hare when crouching in
a ploughed field, his colour harmonises so well with the
clods; so that an unpractised eye generally fails to note
him. An old hand with the gun cannot pass a field with-
out involuntarily glancing along the furrows made by the
plough to see if their regular grooves are broken by any-
thing hiding therein. The ploughmen usually take
special care with their work near public roads, so that the
furrows end on to the base of the highway shall be
mathematically straight. They often succeed so well that
the furrows look as if traced with a ruler, and exhibit
curious effects of vanishing perspective. Along the furrow,
just as it is turned, there runs a shimmering light as the

8 Wild Life tn a Southern County

eye traces it up. The plonghshare, heavy and drawn with
great force, smooths the earth as it cleaves it, giving it for
a time a ‘ face’ as it were, the moisture on which reflects
the light. If you watch the farmers driving to market,
you will see that they glance up the furrows to note the
workmanship and look for game; you may tell from a
distance if they espy a hare by the check of the rein and
the extended hand pointing. :

The partridges, too, cower as they hear the noise of
wheels or footsteps, but their brown backs, rounded as
they stoop, do not deceive the eye that knows full well the
irregular shape taken by lumps of earth. Both hares and
rabbits may be watched with ease from an elevation, and
if you remain quiet will rarely discover your presence while
you are above them. They keep a sharp look-out all
round, but never think of glancing upwards, unless, of
course, some unusual noise attracts attention.

Looking away from the brow of the hill here over the
rampart, see, yonder in the narrow hollow a flock is feed-
ing: you can tell even so far off that it is feeding, because
the sheep are scattered about, dotted hither and thither
over the surface. It is their habit the moment they are
driven to run together. Farther away, slowly travelling
up a distant down, another flock, packed close, rises towards
the ridye, like a thick white mist stealthily ascending the
slope.

Just outside the trench, almost within reach, there lies
a small white something, half hidden by the grass. It is
the skull of a hare, bleached by the winds and the dew
and the heat of the summer sun. The skeleton has disap-
peared, nothing but the bony casing of the head remains,
with its dim suggestiveness of life, polished and smooth
from the friction of the elements. Holding it in the hand

Life an exquisite Pleasure 9

the shadow falls into and darkens the cavities once filled
by the wistful eyes which whilom glanced down from
the summit here upon the sweet clover fields beneath.
Beasts of prey and wandering dogs have carried away the
oones of the skeleton, dropping them far apart; the crows
and the ants doubtless had their share of the carcass.
Perhaps a wound caused by shot that did not immediately
check his speed, or wasting disease depriving him of
strength to obtain food, brought him low; mayhap an in-
sidious enemy crept on him in his form.

The joy in life of these animals—indeed, of almost all
animals and birds in freedom—is very great. You may
see it in every motion: in the lissom bound of the hare,
the playful leap of the rabbit, the song that the lark and
the finch must sing; the soft, loving coo of the dove in the
hawthorn; the blackbird ruffling out his feathers on a
rail. The sense of living—the consciousness of seeing
and feeling—is manifestly intense in them all, and is in
itself an exquisite pleasure. Their appetites seem ever
fresh: they rush to the banquet spread by Mother Earth
with a gusto that Lucullus never knew in the midst of his
artistic gluttony ; they drink from the stream with dainty
sips as though it were richest wine. Watch the birds in
the spring; the pairs dance from bough to bough, and
know not how to express their wild happiness. The hare
rejoices in the swiftness of his limbs: his nostrils sniff the
air, his strong sinews spurn the earth ; like an arrow from
a bow he shoots up the steep hill that we must clamber
slowly, halting half-way to breathe. On outspread wings
the swallow floats above, then slants downwards with a
rapid swoop, and with the impetus of the motion rises
easily. Therefore it is that this skull here, lying so
light in the palm of the hand, with the bright sunshine

10 Wild Life in a Southern County

falling on it, and a shadowy darkness in the vacant orbits
of the eyes, fills us with sadness. ‘As leaves on leaves, so
men on men decay ;’ how much more so with these crea-
tures whose generations are so short!

If we look closely into the grass here on the slope of
the fosse it is animated by a busy throng of insects rushing
in hot haste to and fro. They must find it a labour and a
toil to make progress through the green forest of grass-
blade and moss and heaths and thick thyme bunches, over-
topping them as cedars, but cedars all strewn in confusion,
crossing and interlacing, with no path through the jungle.
Watch this ant travelling patiently onward, and mark the
distance traversed by the milestone of a tall bennet.

First up on a dry white stalk of grass lingering from
jast autumn; then down on to a thistle leaf, round it, and
along a bent blade leading beneath into the intricacy and
darkness at the roots. Presently, after a prolonged absence,
up again on a dead fibre of grass, brown and withered,
torn up by the sheep but not eaten: this lies like a bridge
across a yawning chasm—the mark or indentation left by
the hoof of a horse scrambling up when the turf was wet
and soft. Half-way across the weight of the ant over-
balances it, slight as that weight is, and down it goes into
the cavity : undaunted, after getting clear, the insect begins
to climb up the precipitous edge and again plunges into
the wood. Coming to a broader leaf, which promises an
open space, it is found to be hairy, and therefore impass-
able except with infinite trouble; so the wayfarer endea-
vours to pass underneath, but has in the end to work
round it. Then a breadth of moss intervenes, which is
worse than the vast prickly hedges with which savage
kings fence their cities to the explorer, who can get no
certain footing on it, but falls through and climbs up again

The Ant’s Highway IT

twenty times, and burrows a way somehow in the shady
depths below.

Next. a bunch of thyme crosses the path: and here
for a lengthened period the ant goes utterly out of sight,
lost in the interior. slowly groping round about within,
and finally emerging in a glade where your walking-stick,
carelessly thrown on the ground, bends back the grass and
so throws open a lane to the traveller. In a straight line
the distance thus painfully traversed may be ten or twelve
inches: certainly in getting over it the insect has covered
not less than three times as much, probably more—now
up, now down, backwards and sideways, searching out a
passage.

As this process goes on from morn till night through
the long summer's day, some faint idea may be obtained
of the journeys thus performed, against difficulties and
obstacles before which the task of crossing Africa from sea
to sea isa trifle. How. for instance, does the ant manage
to keep a tolerably correct course, steering straight despite
the turns and labyrinthine involutions of the path? It is
never possible to see far in front—half the time not twice its
own length: often and often it is necessary to retrace the
trail and strike out a fresh one—a step that would confuse
most persons even in an English wood with which they
were unacquainted.

Yet by some power of observation, perhaps superior in
this respect to the abilities of greater creatures, the tiny
thing guides its footsteps without faltering down yonder
to the nest in the hollow on the bank of the ploughed field.
I say by observation, and the exercise of faculties resembling
those of the mind, because I have many times tried the
supposed unerring instinct of the ant, and found it fail:
therefore it must possess a power of correcting error which

12 Wild Life in a Southern County

is the prerogative of reason. Ants cannot, under certain
conditions, distinguish their own special haunts. Across
a garden path I frequented there was the track of in-
numerable ants; their ceaseless journeyings had worn a
visible path leading from the border on one side to the
border on the other, where was a tiny hole, into which
they each disappeared in turn. Happily, the garden was
neglected, otherwise the besom of the gardener would have
swept away all traces of the highway they had made.
Watching the stream of life pouring swiftly along the
track, it seemed to me that, like men walking hurriedly in
well-known streets, they took no note of marks or bear-
ings, but followed each other unhesitatingly in the groove.

When street-pavements are torn up, the human stream
disperses and flows out on either side till it discovers by
experience the most convenient makeshift passage. What
would be the result if this Watling-street of the ants were
interrupted? With a fragment of wood I rubbed out
three inches of the path worn in the shallow film of soil
deposited over the old gravel, smoothing that much down
level. Instantly the crowd came to a stop. The foremost
ant halted at the edge where the groove now terminated,
turned round and had an excited conversation with the
next by means of their antenne; athird came up, a fourth
and fifth—a crowd collected, in fact. Now, there was no
real obstruction—nothing to prevent them from rushing
across to the spot where the path recommenced. Why,
then, did they pause? Why, presently, begin to explore,
right and left, darting to one side and then to the other
examining? Was it not because an old and acquired
habit was suddenly uprooted? Surely infallible instinct
could have carried them across the space of three inches
without any trouble of investigation ?

Losing the Track 3

In a few seconds one of the exploring parties, making
a curve, hit the other end of the path, and the news was
quickly spread, for the rest followed almost immediately.
Placing asmall pebble across the track on another occasion
caused almost the same amount of interference with the
traffic. Near the hole into which the ants plunged under
the border, and on the edge of the bank, so to say, the path
they had worn was not visible—the ground was hard and
did not take impression: and there, losing the guidance
of the groove, they often made mistakes. Instead of hitting
the right hole, many of them missed it and entered other
holes left by boring worms, and after a short time reap-
peared to search again, till, finding the cavern, they hastily
plunged into it. This was particularly the case when a
solitary insect came along. Therefore it would seem that
the ant works its way tentatively, and, observing where it
fails, tries another place and succeeds.

14 Wild Life in a Southern County

CHAPTER II.

A DROUGHT—ANCIENT GARRISON OF THE ENTRENCHMENT—TRA»
DITIONS OF FOREST—CURIOUS PONDS—A MIRAGE,

ONcE now and then in the cycle of the years there comes
a summer which to the hills is almost like a fever to the
blood, wasting and drying up with its heat the green
things upon which animal life depends, so that drought
and famine go hand in hand. The days go by and grow
to weeks, the weeks lengthen to months, and still no rain.
The sun pours down his burning rays, which become
hotter as the season advances; the sky is blue and beau-
tiful over the hills—beautiful, but pitiless to the bleating
flocks beneath. The breeze comes up from the south,
bringing with it white clouds sailing at an immense height,
with openings between like azure lakes or aerial Mediter-
raneans landlocked by banks of vapour.

These, if you watch them from the rampart, slowly
dissolve; fragments break away from the mass as the
edges of the polar glaciers slip off the ice-cliff into the sea,
only these are noiseless. The fragment detached grows
visibly thinner and more translucent, its margin stretching
out in an uneven fringe: the process is almost exactly like
the unravelling of a spotless garment, the threads wavering
and twisting as they are carried along by the current,
diminishing till they fade and are lost in the ocean of blue.
This breaking of the clouds is commonly seen in weather

Like the Sunoom of the Desert 15

that promises to be fine. From the brow here, you may
note a solitary cloud just risen above the horizon ; it floats
slowly toward us; presently it divides into several parts;
these, again, fall away in jagged, irregular pieces like
flecks of foam. By the time it has reached the zenith
these flecks have lengthened out, and shortly afterwards
the cloud has entirely melted and is gone. The delicate
hue, the contrast of the fleecy white with the deepest
azure, the ever-changing form, the light shining through
the gauzy texture, the gentle dreamy motion, lend these
clouds an exquisite beauty.

After a while the faint breeze increases, but changes in
character; it blows steadily, and the ‘sish sish’ of the
bennets as it rushes through them becomes incessant. A
sense of oppression weighs on the chest—in the midst of
the wind, on the verge of the hill, you sigh for a breath of
air. This is not air: it is simply heat in motion. It is
like the simoom of the desert—producing a feeling of
intense weariness. Previously the distant ridges of the
downs were shaded by a dim haze hovering over them,
toning the rolling curves and softening the bolder bluffs.
Now they become distinct; each line is drawn clearly and
stands out; the definition is like that which occurs before
rain, only without the illusion of nearness.

But the hot wind blows and the rain does not come:
the sky is open and free from clouds, less blue perhaps,
but harder in tint. The nights are bright and clear and
warm ; you may sit here on the turf till midnight and find
no dew, and still feel the languid, enervating influence of
the hot blast. This goes in time, and is succeeded by
heavy morning mists hanging like a cloak over the hills
and filling up the hollows. They roll away as the day
advances, and there is the sun bright as ever in the midst

16 Wild Life in a Southern County

of the cloudless sky. The shepherds say the mists carry
away the rain; certainly it does not come.

Every now and then promising signs exhibit them-
selves. A black bank of vapour receives the setting sun,
and in the east huge mountainous clouds with beetling
precipices and caverns, in which surely the thunder lurks,
swell and roll upwards in the hush of the evening. The
farmer unrolls his canvas over the new-made hayrick,
which is not yet thatched, thinking that a torrent will
descend in the night; but no, the morrow is the same. It
is a peculiarity of our usually changeable climate that
when once the weather has become thoroughly settled
either to dry or wet, no signs of alteration are of any value,
true as they may be at other times.

So the heat continues and the drought increases. The
‘land-springs’ breaking out by the sides of the fields have
lorg since disappeared ; the true springs run feebly as the
stores of water in the interior of the earth gradually grow
less. Great cracks open in the clay of the meadows down
below in the vale—rifts, wide and deep, into which you
may thrust your walking-stick to the handle. Up here
on the hills the turf grows hard and inelastic; it loses
that ‘springy’ feel under the foot which makes it so
pleasant to walk upon. The grass becomes dull in tint
and touches like wire—all the sap dried from it, and
nothing but fibre left. Beneath the chalk is moistureless,
and ncthing can grow on it. The by-roads and paths
made with the chalk or ‘rubble’ glare in the sunlight, and
the flints scattered so thickly about the ploughed fields
seem to radiate heat. All things that should look green
are brown and dusty; even the leaves on the elms seem
dusty. The wheat only flourishes, tall and strong—deep
tinted yeilow here, a ruddy, golden bronze yonder, with

Starving Sheep 17

ears full and heavy, rich and glorious to gaze upon.
Insects multiply and replenish the earth after their fashion
exceedingly ; the spiders are busy as may be, not only
those that watch from their webs lying in wait, but those
that chase their prey through the grass as dogs do game.

But under the beautiful sky and the glorious sun there
rises up a pitiful cry the livelong day: it is the quavering
bleat of the sheep as their strength slowly ebbs out of them
for the lack of food. Green crops and roots fail, the after-
math in the meadows beneath will not grow, week after
week ‘keep’ becomes scarcer and more expensive, and
there is, in fact, a famine. Of all animals a starved sheep
is the most wretched to contemplate, not only because of
the angularity of outline, and the cavernous depressions
where fat and flesh should be, but because the associations
of many generations have given the sheep a peculiar claim
upon humanity. They hang entirely on human help.
They watch for the shepherd as though he were their
father; and when he comes he can do no good, so that
there is no more painful spectacle than a fold during a
drought upon the hills.

Once upon a time, passing on foot for a distance of
some twenty-five miles across these hills and grassy
uplands, I could not help comparing the scene to what
travellers tell us of desert lands and foreign famines. The
whole of that long summer's day, as I hastened south-
wards, eager for the beach and the scent of the sea, I passed
flocks of dying sheep: in the hollows by the way their
skeletons were here and there to be seen, the gaunt ribs
protruding upwards in the horrible manner that the ribs of
dead creatures do. Crowds of flies buzzed in the air.
Upon the hurdles perched the crow, bold with over-feast-
ing, and hardly turning to look at me, waiting there till

Cc

13 Wild Life in a Southern County

the next lamb should fall and the ‘ spirit of the beast go
downwards.’ Happy England, that experiences these things
so seldom, and even then so locally that barely one in ten
hears of or sees them !

The cattle of course suffer too; all day long files of
water-carts go down into the hollows where the springs
burst forth, and at such times half the work of the farm
consists in fetching the precious liquid perhaps a mile or
more. Even in ordinary summers there is often a difficulty
of this kind; and there are some farmhouses whose water
for household uses has to be brought fully halfa mile. Of
recent years more wells have been sunk, but there are still
too few for the purpose. The effect of water in determining
the settlements of human beings is clearly shown here.
You may walk mile after mile on the ridges and pass
nothing but a shed; the houses are in the hollows, the
‘coombes’ or ‘ bottoms,’ as they are called, where the
springs trun. The villages on the downs are generally on
a ‘bourne,’ or winter watercourse.

In summer it is a broad winding trench with low green
banks, along whose bed you may stroll dry-shod, with the
vellow corn on either hand reaching above your head. A
few sedges here and there, and that peculiar whitened
appearance left when water has passed over vegetation,
betoken that once there was a stream. It is like the
watercourses and rivers of the East, which are the roads
of the traveller till the storm comes, and, lo! in the
morning is a rushing flood. Near the village some water
is to be seen in the pond which has been deepened out to
hold it, and which is, too, kept up here by a spring.

In winter the bourne often has the appearance of a
broad brook: you may observe where the current has
arranged the small flints washed in from the fields by the

Ancient Coins brought to Light 19

rain, As the villages are on the lesser ‘ bournes,’ so the
towns are placed on the banks of the rivers these fall into.
There may generally be found a row of villages and hamlets
on the last slope of the downs, where the hills sink finally
away into the plain and vale, so that if any one went along
the edge of the hills he would naturally think the district
well populated. But if instead of following the edge he
penetrated into the interior he would find the precise con-
trary to be the case. Just at the edge there is water, the
‘heads’ of the innumerable streams that make the vale so
verdant. In the days when wealth consisted chiefly in
flocks and herds, men would naturally settle where there
were ‘ water-brooks.’

When at last the drought ceases, and the rain does
come, it often pours with tropical vehemence ; so that the
soil of the fields upon the slopes is carried away into the
brooks, and the furrows are filled up level with the sand
washed out from the clods, the lighter particles of earth
floating suspended in the stream, the heavier sand remain-
ing behind. Then, sometimes, as the slow labourer lingers
over the ground, with eyes ever bent downwards, he spies
a faint glitter, and picks up an antique coin in his horny
fingers: coins are generally found after a shower, on the
same principle that the gold-seekers wash away the auri-~
ferous soil in the ‘cradle,’ and lay bare the yellow atoms.
Such coins, too, are sometimes of the same precious metal,
ancient and rude. Sometimes the edge of the hoe clinks
against a coin, thus at last discovered after so many cen-
turies ; yet which for years must have lain so near the
surface as to have been turned over and over again by the
plonghshare, though unnoticed.

The magnitude of the space enclosed by the earthwork,
the height of the rampart and depth of the fosse, show

c2

20 Wild Life in a Southern County

that it was originally intended to be occupied by a large
force. With modern artillery, the mitrailleuse, and above
all the breech-loading rifle, a comparatively small number
of men could hold a commanding position like this: a
steep ascent on three sides, and on the fourth a narrow
level ridge, easily swept by their fire. But when this
entrenchment was thrown up—the chalky earth and flints
probably carried up in osier-baskets, for they do not seem
to have had wheelbarrows in those times—every single
yard of rampart required its spear or threatening arrow,
so as to present an unbroken rank along the summit. If
not, the enemy approaching to close quarters and attacking
several places at once would find gaps through which they
might pour into the camp. It seems, therefore, evident
that these works once sheltered an army ; and, looking at
their massive character, it is difficult to resist the conclu-
sion that they were not temporary trenches merely, but
were permanently garrisoned.

There is another alternative; they may have been a
place of refuge for the surrounding population in the
nameless wars waged between rival kings. In that case
they would, when resorted to, contain a still larger number
of persons; women and children and aged men would be
included, and to these must be added cattle and sheep.
Now, reflecting upon these considerations, and recollecting
the remarks previously made upon the lack of water on
these hills, the very curious question arises, How did such
an army, or such a refugee population with cattle and
horses, supply themselves with sufficient water for drinking
purposes? The closest examination of the camp itself fails
to yield even a suggestion for an answer.

There is not the slightest trace of a well, and it may
fairly be questioned whether a well would have been prac-

Water Difficulties in Early Warfare 21

ticable at that date. For this bold brow itself stands high
enough; but then, in addition, it is piled on an elevated
plateau or table-land, beneath which again is the level at
which springs break out. The wells of the district all
commence on this table-land or plain. A depression, too,
is chosen for the purpose, and their depth is about ninety
feet on the average: many are much deeper. But when
to this depth the task of digging right down through the
hill piled up above the plain is added, the difficulty be-
comes extreme.

On walking round the entrenchment at the bottom of
the fosse, and keeping an eye upon the herbage—the best
of all guides—one spot may be noticed where there grows a
little of that ‘rowetty’ grass seen in the damp furrows of
the meadows. But there is no sign whatever of a basin or
excavation to catch and contain this slight moisture—
slight indeed, for the earth is as hard and impenetrable
here as elsewhere, and this faint moisture is evidently
caused by the rainfall draining down the slope of the ram-
part. Looking next outside the works for the source of
such a supply, a spring will be found in a deep coombe, or
bottom, about 800 yards—say, half a mile—from the
nearest part of the fosse, reckoning in a straight line.
Then, in bringing up water from this spring, which may
be supposed to have been done in skins, a double ascent
had to be made: first up on to the level plateau, here very
narrow, next up the steep down itself. Those only who
have had experience of the immense labour of watering
cattle on the hills can estimate the work this must have
been. An idea is obtained of the value of an elevated
position in early warfare, when men for the sake of its
advantage were found willing to submit to such toil.

That, however, is not all—foraging parties fetching

22 Wild Life te a Southern County

water must have been liable to be cut off from the main
body ; there were no cannon then to cover a sortie, and if
the enemy were in sufficient force and took possession of
the spring, they could compel an engagement, or drive the
besieged to surrender rather than endure the tortures of
thirst. So that a study of these English hills—widely
different as are the conditions of time and place—may
throw a strong light upon many an incident of ancient
history. There are no traces remaining of any covered
way or hollow dyke leading down the slope in the direc-
tion of the spring ; but some such traces do seem to exhibit
themselves in two places—at the rear of the earthwork
along the ridge of the hill, and down the steepest and
shortest ascent. The first does not come up to the entrench-
ment, being separated by a wide interval; the latter does,
and may possibly have been used as a covered way, though
now much obliterated and too shallow for the purpose.
The rampart itself is in almost perfect preservation; in
one spot the soil has slightly slipped, but form and outline
are everywhere distinct.

In endeavouring, however, for a moment to glance back
into the unwritten past, and to reconstruct the conditions
of some fourteen or fifteen centuries since, it must not be
forgotten that the downs may then have presented a diffe-
rent appearance. There is a tradition lingering still that
they were in the olden times almost covered with wood. I
have tried to fix this tradition—to focus it and give it
definite shape; but like a mist visible from a distance yet
unseen when you are actually in it, it refuses to be grasped.
Still, there it is. The old people say that the king—they
have no idea which king—could follow the chase for some
forty miles across these hills, through a succession of copses,
woods, and straggling covers, forming a great forest. To

Wind-harassed Trees 24

look now from the top of the rampart over the rolling hills,
the idea is difficult to admit at first. They are apparently
bare, huge billowy swells of green, with wide hollows
cultivated on the lower levels, but open and unenclosed for
mile after mile, almost without hedges, and seemingly tree-
tess save for the gnarled and stunted hawthorns—appa-
rently a bare expanse ; but more minute acquai:tance leads
to different conclusions.

Here, to begin with, on the same ridge as the earth-
work and not a quarter of a mile distant, is a small clump
of wind-harassed trees, growing on the very edge. They
are firs and beech, and, though so thoroughly exposed to
furious gales, have attained a fair height even in that thin
soil. Beech and fir, then, can grow here. Away yonder
on another ridge is another such a clump, indistinct from
the distance: though there is a pleasant breeze blowing
and their boughs must sway to it, they appear motionless.
With the exception of the poplar, whose tall top as it slowly
bends to the blast describes such an arc as to make its
motion visible afar, the most violent wind fails to enable
the eye to separate the lines of light coming so nearly
parallel from the branches of an elm or an oak, even at a
comparatively short distance. The tree looks perfectly still,
though you know it must be vibrating to the trunk and
loosening the earth with the wrench at its anchoring
roots.

In more than one of the deep coombes there is a row
of elms—out of sight from this post of vantage—whose
tops are about level with the plain, where you may stand
on the edge and throw a stone into the rook’s nest facing
you. On a lower spur, which juts out into the valley, is a
broad ash wood. Little more than a mile from hence, on
the most barren and wildest part of the down, there yet

a4 Wild Life in a Southern County

linger some stunted oaks interspersed among the ash copses
which to this day are called ‘ the Chace’ and are proved by
documentary evidence to stand on the site of an ancient
deer forest. A deer forest, too, there is (though seven or
eight miles distant, yet on the same range of hills), to this
very day tenanted by the antlered stag. Such evidence
could be multiplied; but this is enough to establish the
fact that for the whole breadth of the hills to have been
covered with wood is well within possibility.

I may even go further, and say that, if left to itself, it
would in a few generations revert to that condition ; for
this reason: that when a clump of trees is planted here,
experience has shown that it is not so much the wind or
the soil which hinders their growth as the attacks of
animals wild and tame. Rabbits in cold, frosty weather
have a remarkable taste for the bark of the young ash-
saplings: they nibble it off as clean as if stripped with a
knife, of course frequently killing the plant. Cattle—of
which a few wander on the hills—are equally destructive
to the young green shoots or ‘tops’ of many trees. Young
horses especially will bark almost any smooth-barked tree,
not to eat, but as if to relieve their teeth by tearing it off.
In the meadows all the young oaks that spring up from
dropped acorns out in the grass are invariably torn up by
cattle and the still closer-cropping sheep. If the sheep and
cattle were removed, and the plough stood still for a cen-
tury, ash and beech and oak and hawthorn would reassert
themselves, and these wide, open downs become again a
vast forest, as doubtless they were when the beaver and
the marten, the wild boar and the wolf, roamed over the
country.

This great earthwork, crowning a ridge from whence a
view for many miles could have been obtained over the tops

Ponds on the Down's Summit a5

of the primeval trees, must then have had a strangely
different strategical position to what it now seemingly
occupies in the midst of almost treeless hills. Possibly,
too, the powerful effect of so many square miles of vegeta-
tion in condensing vapour may have had a distinct influence
upon the rainfall, and have rendered water more plentiful
than now: a consideration which may help to explain the
manner in which these ancient forts were held.

The general deficiency of moisture characteristic of these
chalk hills is such that it is said agriculture flourishes best
upon them in what is called a ‘dropping’ summer, when
there is a shower every two or three days, the soil absorbing
itso quickly. For the grass and hay crops down below in
the vale, and for the arable fields there with a stiff heavy
soil, on the other hand, a certain amount of dry weather is
desirable, else the plough cannot work in its seasons nor
the crops ripen or the harvest be garnered in. So that the
old saying was that in a drought the vale had to feed the
hill, and in a wet year the hill had to feed the vale: which
remains true to a considerable extent, so far at least as the
cattle are concerned, and was probably true of men and
their food also before the importation of corn in such im-
mense quantities placed both alike free from anxiety on that
account. This deficiency of moisture being borne in mind,
it is a little curious to find ponds of water on the very
summit of the down.

Scarcely a quarter of a mile from the earthwork, and
on a level with it—close to the clump of firs and beech
alluded to previously—there may be seen on this warm
summer day a broad, circular, pan-like depression partially
filled with water. Being on the very top of the ridge, and
only so far sunk as to hold a sufficient quantity, there is
little or no watershed to drain into the pond; neither is

26 Wild Life in a Southern County

there a spring or any other apparent source of supply. It
would naturally be imagined that in this exposed position,
even if filled to the brim by heavy storms of rain, a week
of sultry sunshine would evaporate it to the last drop; in-
stead of which, excepting, of course, unusually protracted
spells of dry weather such as only come at lengthy inter-
vals, there will always be found some water here; even
under the blazing sunshine a shallow pool remains, and in
ordinary times the circular basin is half full.

It is of quite modern construction, and, except indi-
rectly, has no bearing upon the water supply of the earth-
work, having been made within a few years only for the
convenience of the stock kept upon the hill farms. Some
special care is taken in puddling the bottom and sides to pre-
vent leakage, and a layer of soot is usually employed to repel
boring grubs or worms which would otherwise make their
holes through and let the water soak into the thirsty chalk
beneath. In wet weather the pond quickly fills; once full,
it is afterwards kept up by the condensation of the thick,
damp mists, the dew and cloud-like vapours, that even in
the early mornings of the hot summer days so frequently
cling about the downs. These more than supply the waste
from evaporation, so that the basin may be called a dew-
pond. The mists that hang about the ridges are often
almost as laden with moisture asa rain-cloud itself. They
deposit a thick layer of tiny bead-like drops upon the coat
of the wayfarer, which seem to cling after the manner of
oil. Though these hills have not the faintest pretensions
to be compared with mountains, yet when the rainy clouds
hang low they often strike the higher ridges, which from
a distance appear blotted out entirely, and are then receiv-
ing a misty shower.

Then there rise up sometimes thick masses of vapour

frozen Vapours oy

which during the night have gathered over the brooks
and water-meadows, the marshy places of the vale, and
now come borne on the breeze rolling along the slopes;
and as these pass over the dew-pond, doubtless its colder
water condenses that portion which draws down into the de-
pression where it stands. In winter the vapours clinging
about the clumps of beech freeze to the boughs, forming,
not a rime merely, like that seen in the vale, but a kind
of ice-casing, while icicles also depend underneath. Now,
if a wind comes sweeping across the hill with sudden blast,
these glittering appendages rattle together loudly, and
there falls a hail of jagged icy fragments. When one has
seen the size and quantity of these, it becomes more easy
to understand the amount of water which an intangible
vapour may carry with it to be condensed into the pond or
congealed upon the tree.

There is another such a pond half a mile or more from
the earthwork in another direction, but also on a level,
making two upon this high and exposed down. Many
others are scattered about—they have become more nu-
merous of late years. Several are situate on the lower
plateau, which is also dry enough. Toiling over the end-
less hills in the summer heats, I have often been driven by
necessity of thirst to taste a little of the water contained
in them, though well knowing the inevitable result. The
water has a dead flavour; it is not stagnant in the sense
of impurity, but dead, even when quite clear. In a few
moments after tasting it, the mouth dries, with a harsh
unpleasant feeling, as if some impalpable dusty particles
had got into the substance of the tongue. This is caused
probably by suspended chalk, of which it tastes; for
assuaging thirst, therefore, it is worse than useless in
summer: very different is the exquisitely limpid cool

28 Wild Life in a Southern County

liquid which bubbles out in the narrow coombes far
below.

The indirect bearing of the phenomena of these dew-
ponds upon the water-supply of the ancient fort is found
in the evidence they supply that under different conditions
the deposit of moisture here might have been very much
larger. The ice formed upon the branches of the beech
trees in winter proves that water is often present in the
atmosphere in large quantities; all it requires is some-
thing to precipitate it. Therefore, if these hills were once
clothed with forest, as previously suggested, it appears
possible that the primitive inhabitants, after all, may have
carried on their agriculture with less difficulty, and have
been able to store up water in their camps with greater
ease, than would be the case at present. This may explain
the traces of primeval cultivation to be seen here on the
barest, bleakest, and most unpromising hill-sides. Such
traces may be discovered at intervals all along the slope,
on the summit, and near the foot of the down at the rear
of the entrenchment.

It is easy to pass almost over them without observing
the nearly obliterated marks—the faint lines left on the
surface by the implements of men in the days when the
first Caesar was yet a living memory. These marks are
like some of the little-used paths which traverse the hills:
if you look a long way in front you can see them tolerably
distinctly, but under your feet they are invisible, the turf
being only so slightly worn by wayfarers. So, to find the
signs of ancient fields, look for them from a distance as
you approach along the slope; then you will see squares
and parallelograms dimly defined upon the sward by
slightly raised and narrow banks, green with the grass
that has grown over them for so many centuries.

Ancient Fields 29

They have the appearance sometimes of shallow ter-
races raised one above the other, rising with the slope of
the down. This terrace formation is perhaps occasionally
artificial; but in some cases, I think, the natural con-
formation of the ground has been taken advantage of,
having seen terraces where not the faintest trace of culti-
vation was visible. It is not always easy either to dis-
tinguish between the genuine enclosures of ancient days
and the trenches left after the decay of comparatively
modern fir-plantations, which it is usual to surround with
a low mound and ditch. Long after the fir trees have
died ont the green mound remains; but there are rules
by which the two, with a little care, may be distinguished.

The ancient field, in the first place, is generally very
much smaller; and there are usually three or four or more
in close proximity, divided by the faint green ridges, some-
times roughly resembling in ground-plan the squares of a
chess-board. The mound that ouce enclosed a fir-plantation
is much higher, and would be noticed by the most casual
observer. It encircles a wide area, often irregular in shape,
oval or circular, and does not present the regular internal
divisions of the other—which, indeed, would be unnecessary
and out of place in a copse.

It has become the fashion of recent years to break up
the sward of the downs, to pare off the turf and burn it,
and scatter the ashes over the soil newly turned up by the
plough ; the idea being mainly to keep more sheep by the
aid of turnips and green crops than could be grazed upon
the grass. In places it answers—in many others not;
after two or three crops the yield sometimes falls to next
to nothing. There isa ploughed field here right upon the
ridge of the down, close to the ancient earthwork, where in
dry summers I have seen ripening oats barely a foot high,

30 Wild Life in a Southern County

and barley equally short. With all the resources of modern
agriculture, artificial manure, deeper ploughing, and more
complete cleaning, such results do not seem altogether
commensurate with the labour bestowed. Of course it
is not always so, else the enterprise would be at once
abandoned. But when I come to think of the ancient
tillage in the terraces upon the barren slopes, I find it
difficult to see how, with their rude implements, the men
of those times could have procured any sustenance from
their soil, unless I suppose the conditions different.

If there was forest all around, to condense the vapours
rolling over and deposit a heavy dew or grateful rainfall,
then they may have found the stubborn earth more fruit-
ful. Trees and brakes, and thickets, too, would give
shelter and protect the rising growth from the bitter winds;
while when first tilled the soil itself would be rich from
the decay of accumulated leaves, dead boughs, and vege-
table matter. So that the terrace gardens may have yielded
plentifully then, and were probably surrounded with stock-
ades to protect them from the ravages of the beasts of the
forest. Now the very site of the ancient town can scarcely
be distinguished: the sheep graze, the lambs gambol
gaily over it in the sunshine, and the shepherd dozes hard
by on the slope while his dog watches the flock.

A long day of rain is often followed by a moderately
fine evening—the clouds breaking up as the sun nears the
horizon. It happened one summer evening, after just
such a day of continuous showers, that I was in a meadow
about two miles distant from the hills. The rain had
ceased, and the sky was clear overhead of all but a thin
film of cloud, through which the blue was visible in places.
But westward there was still a bank of vapour concealing
the sinking sun; and eastwards, towards the downs, it

An Illusion 31

was also thick and dark. I walked slowly along with a
gun, on the inner side of a great hedge which hid the hills,
waiting every now and then behind a projecting bush for
a rabbit to come out—a couple being wanted. In heavy
rain, such as had lasted all day, they generally remain
within their ‘buries ’—or if one slips out, he usually keeps
on the bank, sheltered by stoles and trees, and nibbling a
little of the grass that grows there and is comparatively
dry. But as evening approaches and the rain ceases,
they naturally come forth to break a long fast, and may
then be shot.

Some little time passed thus, when, in sauntering
along, I came to a gap in the hedge, and glanced through
it in the direction of the downs, there partly visible. The
idea at once occurred to me that the part of the hills seen
through the gap was remarkably high—very much higher
and more mountainous than any I had ever visited; and
actually, in the abstraction of the moment, half-intent on
the rabbits and half perhaps thinking of other things, I
resolved to explore that section more thoroughly. Yet,
after walking a few yards further, somehow it seemed
singular that the great elevation of this down should
never previously have been so apparent. In short, grow-
ing curious in the matter, I returned to the gap and looked
again.

There was no mistake: there was the down rising up
against the sky—a huge dusky mountainous hill, exactly
the same in outline as 1 remembered it, quite familiar, and
yet entirely strange. There was the old barn near the foot
of the slope ; above it the black line of a low hedge and
mound ; on the summit the same old clump of trees; and
lastly, a tall column of black smoke rising upwards, as if
from a steam plough at work. It was all just the same,

32 Wild Life in a Southern County

but lifted up into the air—the hill grown into a mountain.
A second and longer gaze failed to discover the explana-
tion of the apparition: the eye was completely deceived,
and yet the mind was not satisfied. But upon getting up
into the gap of the hedge, so as to obtain a better view from
the mound, the cause of the illusion was at once visible.

Looking through the gap was like looking through a
narrow window, only a short section of the hill being
within sight; from the elevation of the mound the whole
range of hills could be seen at the same time. Then it
became immediately apparent that on either side of this
great mountain the continuation of the down right and left
remained still at its former level. Upon the central hill a
cloud was resting, and had for the time taken its exact
shape. The ridge itself was dark, and the dark grey vapour
harmonised precisely with its hue ; so that the real hill and
the cloud merged into each other. Hither the barn and
clump of trees were reproduced or perhaps enlarged and
distorted by the refraction : the seeming column of smoke
was a fragment of a blacker colour which chanced to be in
a nearly perpendicular position. Even when recognised as
such, the illusion was still perfect ; nor could the eye sepa-
rate the hill from the unsubstantial vapour.

As I watched it, the apparent column of smoke bent,
and its upper part floated away, enlarging just as smoke,
its upward motion overcome by the wind, slowly yields to
the current. Soon afterwards the light breeze stretched
out one end of the mass of cloud, began to roll up the
other, and presently lifted it, revealing the real ridge
beneath, which grew momentarily more distinctly defined.
Finally the misty bank hung suspended over the down, and
slowly sailed eastwards with the wind. Some time after-
wards I saw a similar mirage-like enlargement of the down

The Hills ‘draw’ the Thunder a5

by cloudy vapour resting on it and assuming its contour ;
but the illusion was not so perfect, because seen from a
more open spot, allowing an extended view of the range,
and because the cloud was lighter in colour than the hill to
which it clung.

These clouds were, of course, passing at a very low
elevation above the earth; in rainy weather, although but
a few hundred feet high, the ridges are frequently obscured
with cloud. The old folk in the vale, whose whole lives
chave been spent watching and waiting on the weather, say
that the hills ‘draw’ the thunder—that wherever a storm
arises it always ‘draws’ towards them. If it comes from
the west it often splits—one storm going along the ridges
to the south, and the other passing over detached hills to
the northward ; so that the basin between is rarely visited
by thunder overhead. They have, too, an old superstition
—hbased, apparently, on a text of the Bible—that the
thunder always rises originally in the north, though it may
reach them from a different direction. For it is their
belief also that thunder ‘works round;’ so that after a
heavy storm, say in the afternoon, when the air has cleared
to all appearance, they will tell you that the sunshine and
calm are a deception. In a few hours’ time, or in the
course of the night, the storm will return, having ‘ worked
round :’ and indeed in that locality this is very often the
case. It is to be observed that even a small copse will for
a short distance in its rear quite divert the course of a
breeze; so that a weathercock placed on the leeside is
entirely untrustworthy : if the wind really blows from the
south and over the copse, the weathercock will sometimes
point in precisely the opposite direction, obeying the
‘undertow’ of the gale, as it were, drawing backwards.

In summer especially, I fancy, an effect is sometimes

D

34 Wald Life %% a Southern County

produced by a variation in the electrical condition of com-
paratively small areas, corresponding perhaps with the
ditterence of soil—one becoming more heated than another.
Showers are certainly often of a remarkably local character:
a walk of half a mile along a road dark from recent rain
will frequently bring you to a place where the dust is
white and thick as ever, the line of demarcation sharply
marked across the highway. In winter rain takes a wider
sweep.

From the elevation of the earthwork on the downs—
with a view of mile after mile of plain and vale below—it
is easy on a showery summer day to observe the narrow
limits of the rain. Dusky streamers, like the train of a
vast dark robe, slope downwards from the blacker water-
carrying cloud above—downwards and backwards, the
upper cloud travelling faster than the falling drops. Be-
tween the hill and the rain yonder intervenes a broad
space of several miles, and beyond it again stretches a clear
opening to the horizon. The streamers sweep along a nar-
row strip of country which is drenched with rain, while
on either side the sun is shining.

It seems reasonable to imagine that in some way that
strip of country acts differently for the time being upon
the atmosphere immediately above it. So singularly local
are these conditions, sometimes, that one farmer will show
you a flourishing crop of roots which was refreshed by a
heavy shower just in the nick of time, while his neighbour
is loudly complaining that he has had no rain. When the
sky is over-cast—large masses of cloud, with occasional
breaks, passing slowly across it at a considerable elevation
without rain—sometimes through these narrow slits long
beams of light fall aslant upon the distant fields of the
vale. They resemble, only on a greatly lengthened scale.

Evening Mists 35

the beams that may be seen in churches of a sunny after-
noon, falling from the upper windows on the tiled floor of
the chancel, and made visible by motes in the air. So
through such slits in the cloudy roof of the sky the rays of
the sun shoot downwards, made visible on their passage
by the moisture or the motes floating in the atmosphere.
They seem to linger in their place as the clouds drift with
scarcely perceptible motion; and the labourers say that
the sun is sucking up water there.

In the evening of a fine day the mists may be seen from
hence as they rise in the meadows far beneath: beginning
first over the brooks, a long white winding vapour marking
their course, next extending over the moist places and
hollows. Higher in the air darker bars of mist, separate
and distinct from the white sheet beneath them, perhaps
a hundred feet above it, gradually come into sight as they
grow thicker and blacker, one here one yonder—long and
narrow in shape. These seem to approach more nearly in
character to the true cloud than the mist which hardly
rises higher than the hedges. The latter will sometimes
move or draw across the meadows when there is no
apparent wind, not sufficient to sway a leaf, as if in
obedience to light and partial currents created by a
variation of temperature in different parts of the same
field.

Once now and then, looking at this range of hills from
a distance of two or three miles on moonless nights, when
it has been sufficiently clear to distinguish them, I have
noticed that the particular down on which the earthwork
is situate shows more distinctly than the others. By day
no difference is apparent; but sometimes by night it seems
slightly lighter in hue, and stands out more plainly.

D2

35 Wild Life in a Southern County

This may perhaps be due to some unobserved characteristic
of the herbage on its slope, or possibly to the chalky sub-
soil coming there nearer to the surface. The power of
reflecting light possessed by the earth, and varied by
different soils or by vegetation, is worth observation.

The Yellow-Hammer a7

CHAPTER III.

{THE HILLSIDE HEDGE: ITS BIRDS AND FLOWERS,—A GREEN
TRACK.—THE SPRINGHEAD.

A tow thick hawthorn hedge runs along some distance
below the earthwork just at the foot of the steepest part
of the hill. It divides the greensward of the down from
the ploughed land of the plain, which stretches two or
three miles wide, across to another range opposite. A few
stunted ash trees grow at intervals among the bushes,
which are the favourite resort of finches and birds that
feed upon the seeds and insects they find in the cultivated
fields. Most of these cornfields being separated only by a
shallow trench and a bank bare of underwood, the birds
naturally flock to the few hedges they can find. So that,
although but low and small in comparison with the copse-
like hedges of the vale, the hawthorn here is often alive
with birds: chaffinches and sparrows perhaps in the
greatest numbers, also yellowhammers.

The colour of the yellowhammer appears brighter in
spring and early summer: the bird is aglow with a beau-
tiful and brilliant, yet soft yellow, pleasantly shaded with
brown. He perches on the upper boughs of the hawthorn
or on a rail, coming up from the corn as if to look around
him—for he feeds chiefly on the ground—and uttering two
or three short notes. His plumage gives a life and tint to
the hedge, contrasting so brightly with the vegetation and

38 Wild Life in a Southern County

with other birds. His song is but a few bars repeated, yet
it has a pleasing and soothing effect in the drowsy warmth
of summer. Yellowhammers haunt the cornfields princi-
pally, though they are not absent from the meadows.

To this hedge the hill-magpie comes: some magpies
seem to keep almost entirely to the downs, while others
range the vale, though there is no apparent difference
between them. His peculiar uneven and, so to say,
flickering flight marks him at a distance as he jauntily
journeys along beside the slope. He visits every fir copse
and beech clump on his way, spending some time, too, in
and about the hawthorn hedge, which is a favourite spot.
Sometimes in the spring, while the corn is yet short and
green, if you glance carefully through an opening in the
bushes or round the side of the gateway, you may see him
busy on the ground. His restless excitable nature betrays
itself in every motion: he walks now to the right a couple
of yards, now to the left in a quick zigzag, so working
across the field towards you; then with a long rush he
makes a lengthy traverse at the top of his speed, turns and
darts away again at right angles, and presently up goes
his tail and he throws his head down with a jerk of the
whole body as if he would thrust his beak deep into the
earth. This habit of searching the field apparently for
some favourite grub is evidence in his favour that he is
not so entirely guilty as he bas been represented of inno-
cent blood: no bird could be approached in that way. All
is done in a jerky, nervous manner. As he turns sideways
the white feathers show with a flash above the green corn}
another movement, and he looks all black.

It is more difficult to get near the larger birds upon
the downs than in the meadows, because of the absence of
cover ; the hedge here is so low, and the gateway open and

Wood Pigeons and Wild Flowers 39

bare, without the overhanging oak of the meadows, whose
sweeping boughs snatch and retain wisps of the hay from
the top of a waggon-load as it passes under, The gate
itself is dilapidated—perhaps only a rail, or a couple of
‘flakes’ fastened together with tar-cord: there are no
cattle here to require strong fences.

In the young beans yonder the wood-pigeons are busy
—too busy for the farmer; they have a habit, as they rise
and hover about their feeding-places, of suddenly shooting
up into the air, and as suddenly sinking again to the level
of their course, describing a line roughly resembling the
outline of a tent if drawn on paper, a cone whose sides
droop inward somewhat. They do this too, over the ash
woods where they breed, or the fir trees; it is not done
when they are travelling straight ahead on a journey.

The odour of the bean-flower lingering on the air in
the early summer is delicious; in autumn when cut the
stalk and pods are nearly black, so that the shocks on the
side of the hills show at a great distance. The sward,
where the slope of the down becomes almost level beside
the hedge, is short and sweet and thickly strewn with tiny
flowers, to which and to the clover the bees come, settling,
as it were, on the ground, so that as you walk you nearly
step on them, and they rise from under the foot with a
shrill, angry buzz.

On the other side the plough has left a narrow strip of
green running along the hedge: the horses, requiring some
space in which to turn at the end of each furrow, could not
draw the share any nearer, and on this narrow strip the
weeds and wild flowers flourish. The light-sulphur-
coloured charlock is scattered everywhere—out among the
corn, too, for no cleaning seems capable of eradicating this
plant; the seeds will linger in the earth and retain their

40 Wild Life tn a Southern County

germinating power for a length of time, till the plough
brings them near enough to the surface, when they are
sure to shoot up unless the pigeons find them. Here also
may be found the wild garlic, which sometimes gets
among the wheat and lends an onion-like flavour to the
bread. It grows, too, on the edge of the low chalky
banks overhanging the narrow waggon track, whose ruts
are deep in the rubble—worn so in winter.

Such places, close to cultivated land yet undisturbed,
are the best in which to look for wild flowers; and on the
narrow strip beside the hedge and on the crumbling rubble
bank of the rough track may be found a greater variety
than by searching the broad acres beyond. In the season
the large white bell-like flowers of the convolvulus will climb
over the hawthorn, and the lesser striped kind will creep
along the ground. The pink pimpernel hides on the very
verge of the corn, which presently will be strewn with the
beautiful ‘ blue-bottle’ flower, than whose exquisite hue
there is nothing more lovely in our fields. The great
scarlet poppy with the black centre, and ‘eggs and butter’
—curious name for a flower—will, of course, be there:
the latter often flourishes on a high elevation, on the very
ridges, provided only the plough has been near.

At irregular intervals along the slope there are deep
hollows—shallow near the summit, deepening and widen-
ing as they sink, till by the hedge at the foot they broaden
out into a little valley in themselves. These great green
grooves furrow the sides of the downs everywhere, and for
that reason it is best to walk either on the ridge or in the
plain at the bottom: if you follow the slope half-way up
you are continually descending and ascending the steep
sides of these gullies, which adds much to the fatigue. At
the mouths of the hollows, close to the hedge, the great

Over-valued Relics 4t

flint stones and lumps of chalky rubble rolling down from
above one by one in the passage of the years have accu-
mulated: so that the turf there is almost hidden as by a
stony cascade.

On the ridge here is a thicket of furze, grown shrub-
like and strong, being untouched by woodman’s tool; here
the rabbits have their ‘buries,’ and be careful how you
thread your way between the bushes, for the ground is
undermined with innumerable flint-pits long abandoned.
This is the favourite resort of the chats, who perch on the
furze or on the heaps of flints, perpetually iterating their
one note, from which their name seems taken. Within
the enclosure of the old earthwork itself the flint-diggers
have been at work: they occasionally find a few fragments
of rusty metal, doubtless relics of ancient weapons; but
little worth preserving is ever found there. Such trea-
sures are much more frequently discovered in the corn-
fields of the plain immediately beneath than here in the
camp where one would naturally look for them.

The labourers who pick up these things often put an
immensely exaggerated value on them: a worn Roman
coin of the commonest kind, of which hundreds are in
existence, they imagine to be worth a week’s wages, till
after refusing its real value from a collector they finally
visit a watchmaker whose aquafortis test proves the sup-
posed gold to be brass. So, too, with fossils: a man
brought me a common echinus, and expected a couple of
‘crownds ’ at least for it; nothing could convince him that,
although not often found just in that district, in others
they were numerous. The ‘crownd’ is still the unit, the
favourite coin of the labourers, especially the elder folk.
They use the word something in the same sense as the
dollar, and look with regret upon the gradual disappear-

42 Wild Life in a Southern County

ance of the broad silver disc with the figure of ‘ St. Gaarge’
conquering the dragon.

Everywhere across the hills traces of the old rabbit-
warrens may be found in the names of places. Warren
Farms, Warren Houses, &c., are common; and the term
is often added to the names of the villages to distinguish
an outlying part of the parish. From the earthwork the
sites of four such warrens, now cultivated, can be seen
within the radius of as many miles. Rabbits must have
swarmed on the downs in the olden times. In the season
when the couch and weeds are collected in heaps and
burned, the downs—were it not for the silence—might
seem the scene of a mighty conflict, the smoke of the
battle rolling along the slopes and hanging over the plains,
rising up from the hollows in dusky clouds. But the
cannon of the shadowy army give forth no thunderous
roar. The smouldering fires are not, of course, peculiar
to the hills, but the smoke shows so much more at that
elevation.

At evening, if you watch the sunset from the top of
the rampart, as the red disc sinks to the horizon and the
shadows lengthen—the trees below and the old barn
throwing their shadows up the slope—the eye is deceived
by the position of the light, and the hill seems much
higher and steeper, looking down from the summit, than
it does at noonday. It is an optical delusion. Here on
the western side the grass is still dry—in the deep narrow
valleys behind the sun set long since over the earthwork
and ridge, and the dew is already gathering thickly on
the sward.

A broad green track runs for many a long, long mile
across the downs, now following the ridges, now winding
past at the foot of a grassy slope, then stretching away

A Track of the Primitive Peoples 43

through cornfield and fallow. It is distinct from the
waggon-tracks which cross it here and there, for these are
local only, and, if traced up, land the wayfarer presently
in a maze of fields, or end abruptly in the rickyard of a
lone farmhouse. It is distinct from the hard roads of
modern construction which also at wide intervals cross
its course, dusty and glaringly white in the sunshine. It
is not a farm track—you may walk for twenty miles along
it over the hills; neither is it the king’s highway.

For seven long miles in one direction there is not so
much as a wayside tavern; then the traveller finds a little
cottage, with a bench under a shady sycamore and a trough
for a thirsty horse, situate where three such modern roads
(also lonely enough) cross the old green track. Tar apart,
and far away from its course, hidden among their ricks and
trees a few farmsteads stand, and near them perhaps a
shepherd’s cottage: otherwise it is an utter solitude, a
vast desert of hill and plain; silent, too, save for the tinkle
of a sheep-bell, or, in the autumn, the moaning hum of a
distant thrashing-machine rising and falling on the wind.

The origin of the track goes back into the dimmest
antiquity ; there is evidence that it was a military road
when the fierce Dane carried fire and slaughter inland,
leaving his ‘nailed bark’ in the creeks of the rivers, and
before that when the Saxons pushed up from the sea.
The eagles of old Rome, perhaps, were borne along it, and
yet earlier the chariots of the Britons may have used it—
traces of all have been found; so that for fifteen centuries
this track of the primitive peoples has maintained its
existence through the strange changes of the times, till
now in the season the cumbrous steam-ploughing engines
jolt and strain and pant over the uneven turf.

To-day, entering the ancient way, eight miles or so

44 Wild Life in a Southern County

from the great earthwork, hitherto the central post of
observation, I turn my face once more towards its distant
rampart, just visible, showing over the hills a line drawn
against the sky. Here, whence I start, is another such a
camp, with mound and fosse ; beyond the one I have more
closely described some four miles is still a third, all con-
nected by the same green track running along the ridges
of the downs and entirely independent of the roads of
modern days. They form a chain of forts on the edge of
the downland overlooking the vale. At starting the track
is but just distinguishable from the general sward of the
hill: the ruts are overgrown with grass—but the tough
‘tussocky ’ kind, in which the hares hide, avoids the path,
and by its edge marks the way. Soon the ground sinks,
and then the cornfields approach, extending on either
hand—barley, already bending under the weight of the
awn, swaying with every gentle breath of air, stronger
oats and wheat, broad squares of swede and turnip and
dark-green mangold.

Plough and harrow press hard on the ancient track,
and yet dare not encroach upon it. With varying width,
from twenty to fifty yards, it runs like a green riband
through the sea of corn—a width that allows a flock of
sheep to travel easily side by side, spread abroad, and
snatch a bite as they pass. Dry, shallow trenches full of
weeds, and low narrow mounds, green also, divide it from
the arable land; and on these now and then grow storm-
stunted hawthorn bushes, gnarled and aged. On the
banks the wild thyme grows in great bunches, emitting
an exquisite fragrance—luxurious cushions these to rest
upon beneath the shade of the hawthorn, listening to the
gentle rustle of the wheat as the wind rushes over it,
Away yonder the shadows of the clouds come over the

Young Partridge Chicks 45

ridge, and glide with seeming sudden increase of speed
down-hill, then along the surface of the corn, darkening it
as they pass, with a bright band of light following swiftly
behind. It is gone, and the beech copse away there is
blackened for a moment as the shadow leaps it. On the
smooth bark of those beeches the shepherd lads have cut
their names with their great clasp-knives.

Sometimes in the evening, later on, when the wheat is
nearly ripe, such a shepherd lad will sit under the trees
there ; and as you pass along the track comes the mellow
note of his wooden whistle, from which poor instrument
he draws a sweet sound. There is no tune—no recog-
nisable melody : he plays from his heart and to himself.
In a room doubtless it would seem harsh and discordant ;
but there, the player unseen, his simple notes harmonise
with the open plain, the looming hills, the ruddy sunset,
as if striving to express the feelings these call forth.

Resting thus on the wild thyme under the hawthorn,
partly hidden and quite silent, we may see stealing out
from the corn into the fallow hard by first one, then two,
then half a dozen or more young partridge chicks. With
them is the anxious mother, watching the sky chiefly, lest
a hawk be hovering about; nor will she lead them far
from the cover of the wheat. She stretches her neck up
to listen and look: then, reassured, walks on, her head
nodding as she moves. The little ones crowd after, one
darting this way, another that, learning their lesson of
life—how and where to find the most suitable food, how to
hide from the enemy: imitation of the parent developing
hereditary inclinations.

At the slightest unwonted sound or movement, she
first stretches her neck up for a hurried glance, then, as
the labouring folk say, ‘ quats ’—i.e. crouches down—and

45 Wild Life ti a Southern County

in a second or two runs swiftly to cover, using every little
hollow of the ground skilfully for concealment on the way,
like a practised skirmisher. The ants’ nests, which are so
attractive to partridges, are found in great numbers along
the edge of the cornfields, being usually made on ground .
that is seldom disturbed. The low mounds that border
the green track are populous with ants, whose nests are
scattered thickly on these banks, as also beside the paths
and waggon-tracks that traverse the fields and are not
torn up by the plough. Any beaten track such as this old
path, however green, is generally free from them on its
surface: ants avoid placing their nests where they may be
trampled upon. This may often be noticed in gardens:
there are nests at and under the edge of the paths, but
none where people walk. It is these nests in the banks
and mounds which draw the partridges so frequently from
the middle of the fields to the edges where they can be
seen; they will come even to the banks of frequented
roads for the eggs of which they are so fond.

Now that their courting-time is over, the larks do not
sing so continuously. Later on, when the ears of wheat
are ripe and the reapers are sharpening their sickles, if
you walk here, with the corn on either hand, every ten or
twenty yards a cloud of sparrows and small birds will rise
from it, literally hiding the hawthorn bush on which they
settle, so that the green tree looks brown. Wait a little
while, and with defiant chirps back they go, disappearing
in the wheat.

The sparrows will sometimes flutter at the top of the
stalk, hovering for a few moments in one spot, as if trying
to perch on the ears; then, grasping one with their claws,
they sink with it and bear it to the ground, where they cau
revel at their leisure. A place where a hailstorm or heavy rain

Lverywhere Silence, Solitude a7

has beat down and levelled the tall corn flat is the favourite
spot for these birds; they rise from it in hundreds at a
time. But some of the finches are probably searching for
the ripe seeds of the weeds that spring up among the corn;
they find also a feast of insects.

Leaving now the gnarled hawthorn and the cushion of
thyme, I pass a deserted sheep-pen, where in the early
year the tender lambs were sheltered from the snow and
wind. Mile after mile, and still no sign of human life——-
everywhere silence, solitude. Hill after hill and plain
after plain. Presently the turf is succeeded by a hard
road—flints ground down into dust by broad waggon-
wheels bearing huge towering loads of wool or heavy
wheat. Just here the old track happens to answer the
purposes of modern civilisation. Past this, and again it
reverts to turf, leaving now the hills for a mile or two to
cross a plain lying between a semicircle of downs; and
here at last are hedges of hawthorn and hazel and stunted
crab tree.

Round black marks upon the turf, with grey ashes
scattered about and half-consumed sticks, show where the
gipsies have recently bivouacked, sheltered somewhat at
night by the hedges. Near by is an ancient tumulus, on
which grows a small yet obviously aged sycamore tree,
stunted by wind and storm, and under it the holes of
rabbits—drilling their habitations into the tomb of the
unknown warrior. In his day, perhaps, the green track
wound through a pathless wood long since cleared. Soon
the hedges all but disappear, the ground rises once more,
nearing the hills; and here the way widens out—first
fifty, then a hundred yards across—green sward dotted
with furze and some brake fern, and bunches of tough dry
grass. Above on the summit is another ancient camp,

48 Wild Life tn a Southern County

and below two more turf-grown tumuli, low and shaped
like an inverted bowl. Many more have been ploughed
down, doubtless, in the course of the years: sometimes
still, as the share travels through the soil there is a sudden
jerk, and a scraping sound of iron against stone.

The ploughman eagerly tears away the earth, and
moves the stone to find a thin jar, as he thinks—in fact, a
funeral urn. Like all uneducated people, in the far East
as well as in the West, he is imbued with the idea of
finding hidden treasure, and breaks the urn in pieces to
discover—nothing; it is empty. He will carry the frag-
ments home to the farm, when, after a moment’s curiosity,
they will be thrown aside with potsherds, and finally used
to mend the floor of the cowpen. The track winds away
yet further, over hill after hill; but a summer’s day is not
long enough to trace it to the end.

In the narrow valley, far below the frowning ramparts
of the ancient fort that has been more specially described,
a beautiful spring breaks forth. Three irregularly circular
green spots, brighter in colour than the dry herbage
around, mark the outlets of the crevices in the earth
through which the clear water finds its way to the surface.
Three tiny threads of water, each accompanied by its
riband of verdant grasses, meander downwards some few
yards, and then unite and form a little stream. Then the
water in its channel first becomes visible, glistening in the
sun; for at the sources the aquatic grasses bend over,
growing thickly, and hide it from view. But pressing
these down, and parting them with the hand, you may
trace the exact place where it rises, gently oozing forth
without a sound.

Lower down, where the streamlet is stronger and has
worn a groove—now rushing over a floor of tiny flints,

At the Springhead 49

now partly buoyed up and chafing against a smooth round
lump of rubble—there is a pleasant murmur audible at a
short distance. Still farther from the source, where,
grown wider, the shallow water shoots swiftly over a steeper
gradient, the undulations of its surface cross each other,
plaiting a pattern like four strands interwoven. The re-
semblance to the pattern of four rushes which the country
children delight to plait together as they wander by the
brooks is so close as almost to suggest the derivation of
the art of weaving rushes, flags, and willows by the hand.
The sheep grazing at will in the coombe eat off the herbage
too closely to permit of many flowers. Where the springs
join and irrigate a broader strip there grows a little water-
cress, and some brooklime, said to be poisonous and occa-
sionally mistaken for the cress; a stray cuckoo flower
shows its pale lilac petals in spring, and a few bunches of
rushes are scattered round. They do not reach any height
or size; they seem dry and sapless, totally unlike the tall
green succulent rush of the meadows far below.

A water-wagtail comes now and then; sometimes the
yellow variety, whose colour in the spring is so bright as to
cause the bird to resemble the yellowhammer at the first
glance. But besides these the springhead is not much
frequented by birds; perhaps the clear water attracts less
visible insect life, and, the shore of the stream being hard
and dry, there is no moisture where grubs and worms may
work their way. Behind the fountain the steep green wall
of the coombe rises almost perpendicularly—so steep as
not to be climbed without exertion. At the summit are
the cornfields of the level plain which here so suddenly
sinks without warning. The plough has been drawn along
all but on the very edge, and the tall wheat nods at the
verge. From thence a strong arm might send a flat round

E

50 Wild Life tn a@ Southern County

stone skimming across to the other side of the narrow
hollow, and its winding course is apparent.

Like a deep groove it cuts a channel up towards the
hills, becoming narrower as it approaches; and the sides
diminish in height, till at the neck a few rails and a gate
can close it, being scarcely broader than a waggon-track.
There. at the foot of the down, it ends, overlooked by a
barn, the home of innumerable sparrows, whose nests are
made under the eaves, everywhere their keen eyes can find
an aperture large enough to squeeze into.

Looking down the steep side of the coombe, near the
bottom there runs along a projecting ledge, or terrace,
like a natural footway. On the opposite side is another
corresponding ledge, or green turf-covered terrace ; these
follow the windings of the valley, decreasing in width as
it diminishes, and gradually disappearing. In its broadest
part one of them is used as a wageon-track, for which it
is admirably adapted, being firm and hard, even smoother
than the bottom of the coombe itself. If it were possible
to imagine the waters of a tidal river rising and ebbing
up and down this hollow these ledges would form its banks.
Their regular shape is certainly remarkable, and they are
not confined to this one place. Such steep-sided narrow
hollows are found all along the edge of this range of downs,
where they slope to the larger valley which stretches out
to the horizon. There are at least ten of them in a space
of twelve miles, many having similar springs of water and
similar terrace-like ledges, more or less perfect. Towards
the other extremity of this particular coombe—where it
widens before opening on the valley—the spring spreads
and oceupies a wider channel, beside which there is a strip
of osier-bed.

When at the fountain-head, and looking down the

The enpty Snail-Shell ex

current, the end of the coombe westwards away from the
hills seems to open to the sky; for the ground falls rapidly,
and the trees hide any trace of human habitation. The
silent hills close in the rear, capped by the old fort; the
silent cornfields come to the very edge above; the silent
steep green walls rise on either hand, so near together that
the swallows in the blue atmosphere high overhead only
come into sight for a second as they shoot swiftly across.
In the evening the red sun, enlarged and bulging as if
partly flattened, hangs suspended, as it seems, at the very
mouth of the trough-like hollow. It is natural in the
silence and the solitude for thoughts of the lapse of time
to arise—of the endless centuries since, by some slow
geological process, this hollow was formed. Fifteen hun-
dred years ago the men of the camp above came hither
to draw water; stil] the spring oozes and flows, and the
sun sinks at the western mouth. So too, doubtless, the
sun shone into the hollow in the evening cycle upon cycle
ere then.

Up the blade of grass here a tiny white-shelled snail
has crawled, feeling in its dull, dim way that evening is
approaching. The coils of the little shell are exquisitely
turned—the workmanship is perfect; the creature within,
there can be no question, is equally perfect in its way and
finds a joy in the plants on which it feeds. On the ground
below, hidden among the fibres near the roots of the gras~,
lies another tiny shell; but it is empty, the life that once
animated it has fled—whither? Presently the falling dew
will condense upon it, and at the opening one round drop
will stand; after awhile to add its mite to the ceaseless
flow of the fountain. Could any system of notation ever
express the number of these creatures that have existed in
the past? If time is measured by the duration of hie,

E2

ag Wild Life in a Southern County

reckoned by their short spans eternity upon eternity has
gone by. To me the greatest marvel is the countless, the
infinite number of the organisms that have existed, each
with its senses and feelings, whose bodies now help to build
up the solid crust of the earth. These tiny shells have
had millions of ancestors: Nature seems never weary of
repeating the same model.

In the osier-bed the brook-sparrow chatters; there,
too, the first pollard willow stands, or rather leans, hollow
and aged, across the water. This tree is the outpost of a
thousand others that line the banks of the stream for mile
after mile yonder down in the valley. How quickly this
little fountain grows into a streamlet and then to a consi-
derable brook !—without apparently receiving the waters
of any feeders. In the first half-mile it swells sufficiently,
if bayed up properly, to drive a mill—as, indeed, many
of the springs issuing from these coombes do just below
the mouth. In little more than a mile, measuring by its
windings, it becomes broad enough to require some effort
to leap it, and then deepens into a fair-sized brook.

The rapidity of the increase is accounted for by the
fact that every field it passes whose surface inclines towards
it is a watershed from which an unseen but considerable
drainage takes place. When no brook passes through the
fields the water stands and soaks downwards, or evaporates
slowly: directly a ditch is opened it fills, and the effect of
a stream is not only to collect water till then unseen, but
to preserve it from evaporation or disappearance into the
subsoil. Probably, if it were possible to start an artificial
stream in many places, after a while it would almost keep
itself going at times, provided, of course, that the bottom
was not porous. Below the mouth of the coombe the water
has worn itself a channel quite six feet deep in the chalk

The Pool, or ' Dipping-Place’ 53

—washing out the flints that now lie at the bottom.
Hawthorn bushes bend over it, and great briars uncut since
their first shoot was put forth; the elder, too, grows
luxuriously, whose white flowers, emitting a rich but sickly
odour, the village girls still gather to make elder-water to
remove freckles. These bushes hide the deep gully in
which the current winds its way—so deep that no cattle
can get down to drink.

A cottage stands on the very edge a little further
along; the residents do not dip their water from the
running stream, but have made a small pool beside it,
with which no doubt it communicates, for the pool, or
‘dipping-place,’ is ever full of cool, clear, limpid water.
The plan is not without its advantages, because the stream
itself, though usually clear, is liable to become foul from
various causes—such as a flood, when it is white from
suspended chalk, or from cattle higher up above the
gully coming to slake their thirst and stirring the sandy
grit of the bottom. But the little pool long remains
clear, because the water from the stream to enter it has
to strain itself through the narrow partition of chalky
rubble.

So limpid is the current in general, that the idea of
seeing trout presently when it shall widen out naturally
arises. But before then the soil changes, and clay and
loam spoil the clean, sandy, or gravelly bottom trout de-
light in. In one such stream hard by, however, the
experiment of keeping trout has been tried, and with some
success: it could be done without a doubt if it were not
that after a short course all the streams upon this side
of the downs enter the meadows, and immediatly run over
a mud bottom. With care, a few young fish were main-
tained in the upper waters, but it was only as an experi-

354 Weld Life im a Southern County

ment; left to themselves they would speedily disappear,
and of course no angling could be thought of.

On the opposite side of the range of hills, where they
decline in height somewhat, but still roll on for a great
distance, the contrary is the case. The springs that run
in that direction pass over a soil that gives a good clear
bottom, and gradually assume the character of rivers;
narrow, indeed, and shallow, but clear, sweet, and beautiful.
There, as you wander over the down, and push your way
through one of those extensive nut-woods which grow on
the hills, acres and acres of hazel bushes, suddenly you
come to the edge of a steep cliff, falling all but perpendicu-
larly, and lo! at the foot is a winding river, bordered by
broad green meads dotted with roan-and-white cattle.

Here in the season the angler may be seen skilfully
tempting the speckled trout. Across the meads a grove
of elm and oak, and the dull red of old houses dimly seen
between, and the low dark crenellated tower of a village
church. Behind the downs rise again, their slopes in
spring a mass of colour—green corn, squares of bright
yellow mustard, bright crimson trifolium, and brown
fallows,

firs and Poplars 55

CHAPTER IV.

THE VILLAGE—THE WASHPOOL—VILLAGH INDUSTRIES—THE
BELFRY—JACKDAWS—-VILLAGH CHRONICLES.

A sHorT distance below the cottagers’ ‘dipping-place’
just mentioned, the same stream, leaving the deep groove
or gully, widens suddenly into a large clear pool, shaded
by two tall fir trees and an equally tall poplar. The tops
of these trees are nearly level with the plain above the
verdant valley in which the stream flows, and, being side
by side, the difference in the manner of their growth is
strongly contrasted. The branches of the fir gracefully
depend, as if weighted downwards by the burden of the
heavy deep green fringe they carry—a fringe tipped with
bullion in the spring, for the young shoots are of so light
a green as to shade into a pale yellow. The branches of
the poplar, on the contrary, point upwards—growing nearly
vertically ; so that the outline of the tree resembles the
tip of an immensely exaggerated artist’s brush. This
formation is ill adapted for nest-building, as it affords
little or no surface to build on, and so the poplar is but
seldom used by birds.

The pool beneath is approached by a broad track—it
cannot be called road—trampled into innumerable small
holes by the feet of flocks of sheep, driven down here from
the hills for the periodical washing. At that time the
roads are full of sheep day after day, all tending in the

59 Wild Life in a Southern County

same direction; and the little wayside inns, and those of
the village which closely adjoins the washpool, find a
sudden increase of custom from the shepherds. There is no
written law regulating the washing, but custom has fixed
it as firmly as an Act of Parliament: each shepherd knows
his day, and takes his turn, and no one attempts to inter-
fere with the monopoly of the men who throw the sheep
in. The right of wash here is upheld as sternly as if it
were a bulwark of the Constitution.

Sometimes a landowner or a farmer, anxious to make
improvements, tries to enclose the approach or to utilise
the water in fertilising meadows, or in one way or another
to introduce an innovation. He thinks perhaps that
education, the spread of modern ideas, and the fact that
labourers travel nowadays, have weakened the influence of
tradition. He finds himself entirely mistaken: the men
assemble and throw down the fence, or fill up the new
channel that has been dug; and, the general sympathy of
the parish being with them and the interest of the sheep-
farmers behind them to back them up, they always carry
the day, and old custom rules supreme.

The sheep greatly dislike water. The difficulty is to
get them in; after the dip they get out fast enough.
Only if driven by a strange dog, and unable to escape on
account of a wall or enclosure, will they ever rush into a
pond. Ifa sheep gets into a brook and cannot get out—
his narrow feet sink deep into the mud—should he not be
speedily relieved he will die, even though his head be above
water, from chill and fright. Cattle, on the other hand,
love to stand in water on a warm day.

In rubbing together and struggling with the shepherds
and their assistants a good deal of wool is torn from the
sheep and floats down the current. This is caught by a

The old-fashioned Wool Mop 57

net stretched across below, and finally comes into the
possession of one or two old women of the village, who
seem to have a prescriptive right to it, on payment of a
small toll for beer-money. These women are also on the
look-out during the year for such stray scraps of wool as
they can pick up from the bushes beside the roads and
lanes much travelled by sheep—also from the tall thistles
and briars, where they have got through a gap. This wool
is more or less stained by the weather and by particles of
dust, but it answers the purpose, which is the manufacture
of mops.

The old-fashioned wool mop is still a necessary adjunct
of the farmhouse, and especially the dairy, which has to
be constantly ‘swilled’ out and mopped clean. With the
ancient spinning-wheel they work up the wool thus
gathered ; and so, even at this late day, in odd nooks and
corners, the wheel may now and then be found. The
peculiar broad-headed nail which fastens the mop to the
stout ashen ‘steale,’ or handle, is also made in the village.
I spell ‘ steale’ by conjecture, and according to pronuncia-
tion. It is used also of a rake: instead of a rake-handle
they say rake-steale. Having made the mops, the women
go round with them to the farmhouses of the district,
knowing their regular customers—who prefer to buy of
them, not only as a little help to the poor, but because the
mops are really very strongly made.

In the meadows of the vale the waters of the same
stream irrigate numerous scattered withy-beds, pollard
willow-trees, and tall willow-poles growing thickly in the
hedges by the brook. The most suitable of these poles
are purchased from the farmers by the willow handi-
craftsmen of the village up here, to be split into thin
flexible strips and plaited or woven into various articles,

53 Wild Life in a Southern County

These strips are made into ladies’ workbaskets and endless
knick-knacks. The flexibility of the willow is surprising
when reduced to these narrow pieces, scarcely thicker than
stout paper. This industry used to keep many hands
employed. There were willow-looms in the village, and
to show their dexterity the weavers sometimes made a
shirt of willow—of course only as a curiosity. The de-
velopment of straw weaving greatly interfered with this
business; and now it is followed by a few only, who are
chiefly engaged in preparing the raw material to go else-
where.

From the ash woods on the slopes and the copses of
the fields large ash-poles are brought, which one or two
old men in the place spend their time splitting up for
‘flakes ’"—a ‘flake’ being a frame of light wood, used after
the manner of a hurdle to stop a gap, or pitched in a row
to part a field into two. Hurdle-making is another in-
dustry; but of late years hurdles have been made on a
large scale by master carpenters in the market-towns, who
employ several men, and undersell the village maker.

The wheelwright is perhaps the busiest man in the
place; he not only makes and mends waggon and cart
wheels, and the body of those vehicles, but does almost
every other kind of carpentering. Sometimes he combines
the trade of a builder with it—if he has a little capital—
and puts up cottages, barns, sheds, &c., and his yard is
strewn with timber. There is generally a mason, who goes
about from farm to farm mending walls and pigsties, and
all such odd jobs, working for his own hand.

The blacksmith of course is there—sometimes more
than one—usually with plenty to do; for modern agri-
culture uses three times as much machinery and ironwork
as was formerly the case. At first the blacksmiths did

Village Industries 59

not understand how to mend many of these new-fangled
machines, but they have learned a good deal, though some
of the pieces still have to be replaced from the implement
factories if broken. Horses come trooping in to have new
shoes put on. Sometimes a village blacksmith acquires a
fame for shoeing horses which extends far beyond his forge,
and gentlemen residing in the market towns send out their
horses to him to be shod. He still uses a ground-ash
sapling to hold the short chisel with which he cuts off the
glowing iron on the anvil. He keeps bundles of the
young, pliant ground-ash sticks, which twist easily and are
peculiarly tough; and, taking one of these, with a few
turns of his wrist winds it round the chisel so as to have a
long handle. One advantage of the wood is that it ‘ gives’
a little and does not jar when struck.

The tinker, notwithstanding his vagrant habits, is
sometimes a man of substance, owning two or more small
cottages, built out of his savings by the village mason—
the materials perhaps carted for him free by a friendly
farmer. When sober and steady, he has a capital trade:
his hands are never idle. Milk-tins, pots, pans, &c., con-
stantly need mending; he travels from door to door, and
may be seen sitting on a stool in the cart-house in the
farmyard, tinkering on his small portable anvil, with
two or three cottagers’ children—sturdy, yellow-haired
youngsters—intently watching the mystery of the craft.

In spite of machine-sewn boots and their cheapness,
the village cobbler is still an institution, and has a con-
siderable number of patrons. The labourers working in
the fields need a boot that will keep out the damp, and for
that purpose it must be hand-sewn: the cobbler, having
lived among them all his life, understands what is wanted
better than the artisan of the cities, and knows how to stud

60 Wild Life in a Southern County

the soles with nails and cover toe and heel with plates till
the huge boot is literally iron-clad. Even the children
wear boots which for their size are equally heavy : many of
the working farmers also send theirs to be repaired. The
only thing to be remembered in dealing with a village
cobbler is, if you want a pair of boots, to order them six
months beforehand, or you will be disappointed. The
business occupies him about as long as it takes a ship-
wright to build a ship.

Under the trees of the lane that connects one part of
the village with another stands a wooden post, once stout,
now decaying; and opposite it at some distance the
remnants of a second. This was a rope-walk, but has long
since fallen into disuse; the tendency of the age having
for a long time been to centralise industry of all kinds.
It is true that of late years many manufacturers have
found it profitable to remove their workshops from cities
into the country, the rent of premises being so much less,
water to be got by sinking a well, less rates, and wages
little cheaper. They retain a shop and office in the cities,
but have the work done miles away. But even this is
distinctly associated with centralisation. The workmen
are merely paid human machines; they do not labour for
their own hands in their own little shops at home, or as
the rope-maker slowly walked backwards here, twisting
the hemp under the elms of the lane, afterwards, doubtless,
to take the manufactured article himself to market and
offer his wares for sale from a stand in the street.

The millwright used to be a busy man here and there
in the villages, but the railways take the wheat to the
steam mills of cities, and where the water-mills yet run,
ironwork has supplanted wood. In some few places still
the women and girls are employed making gloves of a

The old Church-Tower 61

coarse kind, doing the work at home in their cottages ;
but the occupation is now chiefly carried on nearer to the
great business centres than this. Another extinct trade
is that of the bell foundry. One village situate in the
hills hard by was formerly celebrated for the church bells
cast there, many of which may be found in far distant
towers ringing to this day.

Near the edge of the hill, just above the washpool,
stands the village church. Old and grey as it is, yet the
usage of the pool by the shepherds dates from still earlier
days. Like some of the farmhouses further up among the
hills, the tower is built of flints set in cement, which in
the passage of time has become almost as hard as the flint
itself. The art of chipping flint to a face for the purpose
of making lines or patterns in walls used to be carried to
great perfection, and even old garden walls may be seen so
ornamented.

The tower is large and tall, and the church a great
one ; or so it appearsin comparison with the small popula-
tion of the place. But it may be that when it was built there
were more inhabitants; for some signs remain that here
—as in many other such villages—the people have decreased
in numbers: the population has shifted elsewhere. An
adjacent parish lying just under the downs has now not
more than fifty inhabitants ; yet in the olden time a church
stood there—long since dismantled: the ancient church-
yard is an orchard, no one being permitted to dig or plough
the ground.

Entering the tower by the narrow nail-studded door,
it is not so easy to ascend the winding geometrical stone
staircase, in the confined space and the darkness, for the
arrow slits are choked with cobwebs and the dust of years.
A faint fluttering sound comes from above, as of wings

62 Wild Life in a Southern County

beating the air in a confined space—it is the jackdaws in
the belfry ; just as the starlings and swallows in the huge
old-fashioned chimneys make a similar murmuring noise
before they settle. Passing a slit or two—the only means
of marking the height which has been reached—and the
dull tick of the old clock beccmes audible: slow and
accompanied with a peculiar grating vibration, as if the
frame of the antique works had grown tremulous with age.
The dial-plate outside is square, placed at an angle to the
perpendicular lines of the tower: the gilding of the hour-
marks has long since tarnished and worn away before the
storms, and they are now barely distinguishable; and it is
difficult to tell the precise time by the solitary pointer,
there being no minute-hand.

Past another slit, and the narrow stone steps—you
must take care to keep close to the outer wall where they
are widest, for they narrow to the central pillar—are
scooped out by the passage of feet during the centuries ;
some, too, are broken, and others are slippery with some-
thing that rolls and gives under the foot. It is a number of
little sticks and twigs which have fallen down from the Jack-
daws’ nests above: higher up the steps are literally covered
with them, so that you have to kick them aside before you
can conveniently ascend. These sticks are nearly all of
the same size, brown and black from age and the loss of
the sap, the bark remaining on. It is surprising how the
birds contrive to find so many suitable to their purpose,
searching about under the trees; for they do not break
them off, but take those that have fallen.

The best place for finding these sticks—-and those the
rooks use—is where a tree has been felled or a thick hedge
cut some months before. In cutting up the smaller
branches into faggots the men necessarily frequently step

In the Belfry 63

on them, and so break off innumerable twigs too short
to be tied up in the bundle. After they have finished
faggotting, the women rake up the fragments for their
cottage fires; and later on as the spring advances, the
birds come for the remaining twigs, of which great quanti-
ties are left. These they pick up from among the grass ;
and it is noticeable that they like twigs that are dead but
not decayed: they do not care for them when green, and
reject them when rotten. Have they discovered that
green wood shrinks in drying, and that rotten wood is
untrustworthy ? Rooks, jackdaws, and pigeons find their
building materials in this way, where trees or hedges have
been cut; yet even then it must require some patience.
They use also a great deal of material rearranged from the
nests of last year—that is, rooks and jackdaws.

Stepping out at last into the belfry, be careful how you
tread ; for the flooring is worm-eaten, and here and there
planks are loose: keep your foot, if possible, on the beams,
which at least are fixed. It is a giddy height to fall from
down to the stone pavement below, where the ringers
stand. Their ropes are bound round with list or cloth, or
some such thing, for a better grasp for the hand. High as
it is to this the first floor, if you should attempt to ring
one of these bells, and forget to let the rope slip quickly,
it will jerk you almost to the ceiling: thus many a man
has broken his bones close to the font where he was
christened as a child.

Against the wall up here are iron clamps to strengthen
the ancient fabric, settling somewhat in its latter days;
and, opening the worm-eaten door of the clock-case—the
key stands in it—you may study the works of the old clock
for a full hour, if so it please you; for the clerk is away
labouring in the field, and his aged wife, who produced

64 Wild Life in a Southern County

the key of the church and pointed the nearest way across
the meadow, has gone to the spring. The ancient building,
standing lonely on the hill, is utterly deserted ; the creak
of the boards underfoot or the grate of the rusty hinge
sounds hollow and gloomy. But a streak of sunlight
enters from the arrow-slit, a bee comes in through the
larger open windows with a low inquiring buzz; there is
a chattering of sparrows, the peculiar shrill screech of the
swifts, and a ‘ jack-jack-daw-jack-daw ’-ing outside. The
sweet scent of clover and of mown grass comes upon the
light breeze—mayhap the laughter of haymakers passing
through the churchyard underneath to their work, and
idling by the way as haymakers can idle.

The name of the maker on the clock shows that it was
constructed in a little market town a few miles distant a
century ago, before industries were centralised and local
life began to lose its individuality. There are sparrows’
nests on the wooden case over it, and it is stopped now
and then by feathers getting into the works: it matters
nothing here; Festina lente is the village motto, and time
is little regarded. So, if you wish, take a rubbing, with
beelball borrowed from the cobbler, of the inscriptions
round the rims of the great bells; but be careful even then,
for the ringers have left one carelessly tilted, and if the
rope should slip, nineteen hundredweight of brazen metal
may jam you against the framework.

The ringers are an independent body, rustics though
they be—monopolists, not to be lightly ordered about, as
many a vicar has found to his cost, having a silent belfry
for his pains, and not a man to be got, either, from adja-
cent villages. It is about as easy to knock this solid tower
over with a walking-stick as to change village customs.
Put if towards Christmas you should chance to say to the

Nest of the Jackdaw 65

ringers that such and such a chime seemed rung pleasantly,
be certain that you will hear it night after night coming
with a throbbing joyfulness through the starlit air—every
note of the peal rising clear and distinct at the exact
moment of time, as if struck by machinery, yet with a
quivering undertone that dwells on the ear after the wave
of sound has gone. Then go out and walk in the garden
or field, for it is a noble music ; remember, too, that it is a
music that has echoed from the hills hundreds and hundreds
of years. Rude men as they are, these bellringers grate-
fully respond to the least appreciation of their art.

A few more turns about the spiral staircase, and then
step out on the roof. The footstep is deadened by the
dull-coloured lead, oxidised from exposure. The tarnished
weathercock above revolves so stiffly as to be heedless of
the light air—only facing a strong breeze. The irreverent
jackdaws, now wheeling round at a safe distance, build in
every coign of vantage, no matter how incongruous their
intrusion may be—on the wings of an angel, behind the
flowing robe of St. Peter, or yonder in the niche, grey and
lichen-grown, where stood the Virgin Mary before icono-
clastic hands dashed her image to the ground. Ifa gur-
goyle be broken or choked so that no water comes through
it, they will use it, but not otherwise. And they have
nests, too, just on the ledge in the thickness of the wall,
outside those belfry windows which are partially boarded
up. . Anywhere, in short, high up and well sheltered, suits
the jackdaw.

When nesting time is over, jackdaws seem to leave the
church and roost with the rooks; they use the tower much
as the rooks do their hereditary group of trees at a distance
from the wood they sleep in at other seasons. How came
the jackdaw to make its nest on church-towers in the first

F

66 Wila Life in a Southern County

place? The bird has become so associated with churches
that it is difficult to separate the two; yet it is certain
that the bird preceded the building. Archzeologists tell us
that stone buildings of any elevation, whether for religious
purposes or defence, were not erected till a comparatively
late date in this island. Now, the low huts of primeval
peoples would hardly attract the jackdaw. It is the argu-
ment of those who believe in immutable and infallible
instinct that the habits of birds, &c., are unchangeable:
the bee building a cell to-day exactly as it built one
centuries before our era. Have we not here, however, a
modification of habit?

The jackdaw could not have originally built in tall
stone buildings. Localising the question to this country,
may we not almost fix the date when the jackdaw began
to use the church, or the battlements of the tower, by
marking the time of their first erection? The jackdaw
‘was clever enough, and had reason sufficient to enable
‘him to see how these high, isolated positions suited his
peculiar habits; and I am bold enough to think that if
the bee could be shown a better mode of building her
comb, she would in time come to use it.

In the churchyard, not far from the foot of the tower
where the jackdaws are so busy, stands a great square
tomb, built of four slabs of stone on edge and a broader
one laid on the top. The inscription is barely legible,
worn away by the ironshod heels of generations of plough-
boys kicking against it in their rude play, and where they
‘have not chipped it, filled with lichen. The sexton says
that this tomb in the olden days was used as the pay-table
‘upon which the poor received their weekly dole. His
father told him that he had himself stood there hungry,
with the rest—not broken-dow: cripples and widows, but

The oldest Inhabstant 67

strong, hale men, waiting till the loaves were placed upon
the broad slab, so that the living were fed literally over
the grave of the dead.

The farmers met every now and then in the vestry and
arranged how many men each would find work for—or
rather partial work—so that the amount of relief might
be apportioned. Men coming from a distance, or even
from the next parish, were jealously excluded from settling,
lest there should be more mouths to feed; if a family, on
the other hand, could by any possibility be got rid of, it
was exiled. There were more hands than work; now the
case is precisely opposite. A grim witness, this old tomb,
to a traditionary fragment in that history of the people
which is now placed above a mere list of monarchs.

The oldest person in the village was a woman—as is
often the case—reputed to be over a hundred: a tidy
cottager, well tended, feeble in body, but brisk of tongue.
She reckoned her own age by the thatch of the roof. It
had been completely new thatched five times since she
could recollect. The first time she was a great girl, grown
up: her father had it thatched twice afterwards; her hus-
band had it done the fourth time, and the fifth was three
years ago. That made about a hundred years altogether.

The straw had lasted better lately, because there were
now no great elm trees to drip, drip on it in wet weather.
Cottagers are frequently really squatters, building on the
waste land beside the highway close to the hedgerow, and
consequently under the trees. This dripping on the roof
is very bad for thatch. Straw is remarkably durable, even
when exposed to the weather, if good in the first place
and well laid on. It may be reckoned to last twenty
years on an average, perhaps more. Five thatchings,
then, made eighty years; add three years since the last

¥2

68 Wild Life in a Southern County

thatching ; and the old lady supposed she was seventeen or
eighteen at the first—i.e. just a century since. But in all
likelihood her recollections of the first thatching were con-
fused and uncertain: she was perhaps eight or ten at that
time, which would reduce her real age to a little over
ninety. A great part of the village had twice been de-
stroyed by fire since she could remember. These fires are,
or were, singularly destructive in villages—the flames
running from thatch to thatch, and, as they express it,
‘wrastling ’ across the intervening spaces. A pain is said
to ‘wrastle,’ or shoot and burn. Such fires are often
caused by wood ashes from the hearth thrown on the dust-
heap while yet some embers contain sufficient heat to fire
straw or rubbish.

The old woman’s memories were wholly of gossipy
family history; I have often found that the very aged
have not half so much to tell as those of about sixty to
seventy years. The next oldest was a man about eighty ;
all he knew of history was that once on a time some traitor
withdrew the flints from the muskets of the English troops,
substituting pieces of wood, which, of course, would not
ignite the powder, and thus they were beaten. Of date,
place, or persons he had no knowledge. He ‘minded’ a
great snowfall when he was a boy, and helping to drag
the coaches out and making a firm road for them with
hurdles. Once while grubbing a hedge near the road he
found five shillings’ worth of pennies—the great old
‘coppers ’—doubtless hidden by a thief. He could not
buy so much with one of the new sort of coppers: liked
them as King George made best.

An old lady of about seventy, living at the village inn,
a very brisk body, seemed quite unable to understand
what was meant by history, but could tell me a story if I

‘Vhere King Charles once slept’ 69

liked. The story was a rambling narrative of an amour
in some foreign country. The lady, to conceal a meeting
with her paramour, which took place in the presence of
her son, who was an imbecile (or, in her own words, had
‘no more sense than God gave him ’—a common country
expression for a fool), went upstairs and rained raisins on
him from the window. The son told the husband what
had happened ; but, asked to specify the time, could only
fix it by, ‘When it rained raisins.’ This was supposed to
be merely a fresh proof of his imbecility, and the lady
escaped.

In this imperfect narrative is there not a distorted
version of a chapter in the ‘Pentameron’? But how did
it get into the mind of an illiterate old woman in an out-
of-the-way village? Nothing yet of Waterloo, Culloden,
Sedgmoor, or the Civil War; but in the end an old man
declared that King Charles had once slept in an old house
just about to be pulled down. But then ‘ King Charles’
slept, according to local tradition, in most of the old
houses in the country. However, I resolved to visit the
place.

Tall yew hedges, reaching high overhead, thick and
impervious, such as could only be produced in a hundred
years of growth and countless clippings, enclosing a green
pleasaunce, the grass uncut for many a year, weeds over-
running the smooth surface on which the bowls once rolled
true to their bias. In the shelter of these hedges, upon
the sunny side, you might walk in early spring when the
east wind is harshest, without a breath penetrating to chill
the blood, warm as within a cloak of sables, enjoying that
peculiar genial feeling which is induced by sunshine at
that period only, and which is somewhat akin to the sense
of convalescence after a weary illness. Thus, sauntering

70 Wild Life in a Southern County

to and fro, your footstep, returning on itself, passed the
thrush sitting on her nest calm and confident,

No modern exotic evergreens ever attract our English
birds like the true old English trees and shrubs. In the
box and yew they love to build; spindly laurels and rhodo-
dendrons, with vacant draughty spaces underneath, they
detest, avoiding them as much as possible. The common
hawthorn hedge round a country garden shall contain
three times as many nests, and be visited by five times as
many birds, as the foreign evergreens, so costly to rear and
so gure to be killed by the first old-fashioned frost.

The thrushes are singularly fond of the yew berry;
it is of a sticky substance, sweet and not unpleasant.
Holly berries, too, are eaten; and holly hedges, despite
their prickly leaves, are favourites with garden birds. It
would be possible, I think, to so plan out a garden as to
attract almost every feathered creature.

A fine old filbert walk extends far away towards the
orchard: the branches meet overhead. In autumn the
fruit hangs thick; and what is more exquisite, when
gathered from the bough and eaten, as all fruit should be,
on the spot? I cannot understand why filbert walks are
not planted by our modern capitalists, who make nothing
of spending a thousand pounds in forcing-houses. I cannot
help thinking that true taste consists in the selection of
what is thoroughly characteristic of soil and climate. Those
magnificent yew hedges, the filbert walk—all, in fact, are
to be levelled to make way for a garish stucco-fronted
hunting-box, with staring red stables and every modern
convenience. The sun-dial shaft is already heaved up and
broken.

The old mansion was used as a grammar school for a
great many years, but has been deserted for the last

The deserted Grammar School re:

quarter of a century ; and melancholy indeed are the silent
hollow halls and dormitories. The whitewashed walls are
yellow and green from damp, and covered in patches with
saltpetre efflorescence; but they still bear the hasty in-
scriptions scrawled on them by boyish hands—some far
back in the eighteenth century. The history of this little
kingdom, with its dynasties of tutors and masters, its suc-
ceeding generations of joyous youth, might be gathered
from these writings on the walls: sketches in burned
stick or charcoal of extinct monarchs of the desk; rude
doggerel verses ; curious jingles of Latin and English words
of which every great school has its specimens; dates of
day and month when doubtless some daring expedition
was carried out; and here and there (originally hidden
behind furniture, we may suppose) bitter words of hatred
against the injustice of ruling authorities—arbitrary ushers
and cruel masters.

The casements, broken and blown in, have permitted
all the winds of heaven to wreak their will; and the
storms sweeping over from the adjacent downs beat ag
they choose upon the floor. Within an upper window—
now obviously enough a wind-door—two swallows’ nests
have been built against the wall close to the ceiling, and
their pleasant twitter greets you as you enter; and so
does the whistling of the starlings on the roof. But
without there, below, the ring of the bricklayer’s trowel as
he chips a brick has already given them notice to quit.

72 Wild Life in a Southern County

CHAPTER V.

VILLAGE ARCHITECTURE—THE COTTAGE PREACHER—COTITAGE SOClETY
—THE SHEPHERD—EVENTS OF THE VILLAGE YEAR,

Some few farmhouses, with cow-yards and rick-yards
attached, are planted in the midst of the village; and
these have cottages occupied by the shepherds and carters,
or other labourers, who remain at work for the same
employer all the year. These cottages are perhaps the
best in the place, larger and more commodious, with
plenty of space round them, and fair-sized gardens close
to the door. The system of hiring for a twelvemonth has
been bitterly attacked; but as a matter of fact there can
be no doubt that a man with a family is better off when
settled in one spot with constant employment, and any
number of odd jobs for his wife and children. The cot~-
tages not attached to any particular farm—belonging to
various small owners—are generally much less convenient ;
they are huddled together, and the footpaths and rights
of way frequently cross, and so lead to endless bickering.
Not the faintest trace of design can be found in the
ground-plan of the village. All the odd nooks and corners
seem to have been preferred for building sites; and even
the steep side of the hill is dotted with cottages, with
gardens at an angle of forty-five degrees or more, and
therefore difficult to work. Here stands a group of elm
trees; there half-a-dozen houses; next a cornfield thrust-

Old-fashioned Cottages 73

ing a long narrow strip into the centre of the place ; more
cottages built with the back to the road, and the front
door opening just the other way; a small meadow, a well,
a deep lane, with banks built up of loose stone to prevent
them slipping—only broad enough for one waggon to pass
at once—and with cottages high above reached by steps;
an open space where three more crooked lanes meet; a
turnpike gate, and, of course, a beerhouse hard by it.

Each of these crooked lanes has its group of cottages
and its own particular name; but all the lanes and roads
passing through the village are known colloquially as ‘ the
street.’ There is an individuality, so to say, in these
by-ways, and in the irregular architecture of the houses,
which does not exist in the straight rows, each cottage
exactly alike, of the modern blocks in the neighbourhood
of cities, And the inhabitants correspond with their
dwelling in this respect—most of them, especially the
elder folk, being ‘characters’ in their way.

Such old-fashioned cottages are practically built around
the chimney; the chimney is the firm nucleus of solid
masonry or brickwork about which the low walls of rubble
are clustered. When such a cottage is burned down the
chimney is nearly always the only thing that remains, and
against the chimney it is built up again. Next in import-
ance is the roof, which, rising from very low walls, really
encloses half of the inhabitable space.

The one great desire of the cottager’s heart—after his
garden—is plenty of sheds and outhouses in which to store
wood, vegetables, and lumber of all kinds. This trait is
quite forgotten as a rule by those who design ‘improved’
cottages for gentlemen anxious to see the labourers on their
estates well lodged; and consequently the new buildings
do not give so much satisfaction as might be expected. It

74 Wild Life in a Southern County

is only natural that to a man whose possessions are limited,
things like potatoes, logs of wood, chips, odds and ends
should assume a value beyond the appreciation of the
well-to-do. The point should be borne in mind by those
who are endeavouring to give the labouring class better
accommodation.

A cottage attached to a farmstead, which has been
occupied by a steady man who has worked on the tenancy
for the best part of his life, and possibly by his father
before him, sometimes contains furniture of a superior kind.
This has been purchased piece by piece in the course of
years, some representing a little legacy—cottagers who
have a trifle of property are very proud of making wills—
and some perhaps the last remaining relics of former pro-
sperity. It is not at all uncommon to find men like this,
whose forefathers no great while since held farms, and even
owned them, but fell by degrees in the social scale, till at
last their grandchildren work in the fields for wages. An
old chair or cabinet which once stood in the farmhouse
generations ago is still preserved.

Upon the shelf may be found a few books—a Bible, of
course ; hardly a cottager who can read is without his Bible
—and among the rest an ancient volume of polemical
theology, bound in leather; it dates back to the days of
the fierce religious controversies which raged in the period
which produced Cromwell. There is a rude engraving of
the author for frontispiece, title in red letter, a tedious
preface, and the text is plentifully bestrewn with Latin
and Greek quotations. These add greatly to its value in
the cottager’s eyes, for he still looks upon a knowledge of
Latin as the essential of a ‘scholard.’ This book has evi-
dently been handed down for many generations as a kind
of heirloom, for on the blank leaves may be seen the names

Latter-Day Roundheads 75

of the owners with the inevitable addition of ‘his’ or ‘her
book.’ It is remarkable that literature of this sort should
survive so long.

Even yet not a little of that spirit which led to the
formation of so many contending sects in the seventeenth
century lingers in the cottage. I have known men who
seemed to reproduce in themselves the character of the
close-cropped soldiers who prayed and fought by turns
with such energy. They still read the Bible in its most
literal sense, taking every word as addressed to them in-
dividually, and seriously trying to shape their lives in
accordance with their convictions.

Such a man, who has been labouring in the hayfield
all day, in the evening may be found exhorting a small
but attentive congregation in a cottage hard by. Though
he can but slowly wade through the book, letter by letter,
word by word, he has caught the manner of the ancient
writer, and expresses himself in an archaic style not without
its effect. Narrow as the view must be which is unassisted
by education and its broad sympathies, there is no mistak-
ing the thorough earnestness of the cottage preacher. He
believes what he says, and no persuasion, rhetoric, or force
could move him one jot. His congregation approve his
discourse with groans and various ejaculations. Men of
this kind won Cromwell’s victories; but to-day they are
mainly conspicuous for upright steadiness and irreproach-
able moral character, mingled with some surly independ-
ence. They are not ‘agitators’ in the current sense of the
term ; the local agents of labour associations seem chosen
from quite a different class.

Pausing once to listen to such a man, who was preach-
ing in a roadside cottage in a loud and excited manner, I
found he was describing, in graphic if rude language, the

76 Wild Life in a Southern County

procession of a martyr of the Inquisition to the stake.
His imagination naturally led him to picture the cireum-
stances as corresponding to the landscape of fields with
which he had been from youth familiar. The executioners
were dragging the victim bound along a footpath across
the meadows to the pile which had been prepared for burn-
ing him. When they arrived at the first stile they halted,
and held an argument with the prisoner, promising him
his life and safety if he would recant, but he held to the
faith.

Then they set out again, beating and torturing the
sufferer along the path, the crowd hissing and reviling.
At the next stile a similar scene took place—promise of
pardon, and scornful refusal to recant, followed by more
torture. Again, at the third and last stile, the victim was
finally interrogated, and, still firmly clinging to his belief,
was committed to the flames in the centre of the field.
Doubtless there was some historic basis for the story; but
the preacher made it quite his own by the vigour and life
of the local colouring in which he clothed it, speaking
of the green grass, the flowers, the innocent sheep, the
faggots, and so on, bringing it home to the minds of his
audience to whom faggots and grass and sheep were so
well known. They worked themselves into a state of in-
tense excitement as the narrative approached its climax,
till a continuous moaning formed a deep undertone to
the speaker’s voice. Such men are not paid, trained,
or organised; they labour from goodwill in the cause.

Now and then a woman, too, may be found who lec-
tures in the little cottage room where ten or fifteen, per-
haps twenty, are packed almost to suffocation; or she
prays aloud and the rest respond. Sometimes, no doubt,
persons of little sincerity practise these things from pure

Cottage Customs 77

vanity and the ambition of preaching—for there is ambi-
tion in cottage life, as elsewhere; but the men and women
I speak of are thoroughly in earnest.

Cottagers have their own social creed and customs. In
their intercourse, one point which seems to be insisted
upon particularly is a previous knowledge or acquaintance.
The very people whose morals are known to be none of
the strictest—and cottage morality is sometimes very far
from severe—will refuse, and especially the women, to
admit a strange girl, for instance, to sleep in their house
for ample remuneration, even when introdued by really
respectable persons. Servant-girls in the country where
railways even now are few and far between often walk long
distances to see mistresses in want of assistance, by appoint-
ment. They get tired; perhaps night approaches, and
then comes the difficulty of lodging them, if the house
happens to be full. Cottagers make the greatest difficulty,
unless by some chance it should be discovered that they
met the girl’s uncle or cousin years ago.

To their friends and neighbours, on the contrary, they
are often very kind, and ready to lend a helping hand. If
they seldom sit down to a social gathering among them-
selves, itis because they see each other so constantly
during the day, working in the same fields, and perhaps
eating their luncheon a dozen together in the same out-
house. A visitor whom they know from the next village
is ever welcome to what fare there is. On Sundays the
younger men often set out to call on friends at a distance
of several miles, remaining with them all day; they carry
with them a few lettuces, or apples from the tree in the
garden (according to the season), wrapped up ina coloured
handkerchief, as a present.

Some of the older shepherds still wear the ancient blue

78 Wild Life tn a Southern County

smockfrock, crossed with white ‘facings’ like coarse lace;
but the rising generation use the greatcoat of modern
make, at which their forefathers would have laughed as
utterly useless in the rain-storms that blow across the
open hills. Among the elder men, too, may be found a
few of the huge umbrellas of a former age, which when
spread give as much shelter as a smalltent. It is curious
that they rarely use an umbrella in the field, even when
simply standing about; but if they go a short journey
along the highway, then they take it with them. The
aged men sling these great umbrellas over the shoulder
with a piece of tar cord, just as a soldier slings his musket,
and so have both hands free—cne to stump along with a
stout stick, and the other to carry a flag basket. The
stick is always too lengthy to walk with as men use it in
cities, carrying it by the knob or handle; it is a staff
rather than a stick, the upper end projecting six or eight
inches above the hand.

If any labourers deserve to be paid well, it is the shep-
herds: upon their knowledge and fidelity the principal
profit of a whole season depends on so many farms. On
the bleak hills in lambing time the greatest care is neces-
sary ; and the fold, situated in a hollow if possible, with
the down rising on the east or north, is built as it were of
straw walls, thick and warm, which the sheep soon make
hollow inside, and thus have a cave in which to nestle.

The shepherd has a distinct individuality, and is
generally a much more observant man in his own sphere
than the ordinary labourer. He knows every single field
in the whole parish, what kind of weather best suits its
soil, and can tell you without going within sight of a
given farm pretty much what condition it will be found in.
Knowledge of this character may seem trivial to those

The Shepherds Book 79

whose days are passed indoors; yet it is something to
recollect all the endless fields in several square miles of
country. As a student remembers for years the type and
paper, the breadth of the margin—can see, as it were,

"before his eyes the bevel of the binding and hear again the
rustle of the stiff leaves of some tall volume which he found
in a forgotten corner of a library, and bent over with such
delight, heedless of dust and ‘ silver-fish’ and the gathered
odour of years—so the shepherd recalls his books, the
fields; for he, in the nature of things, has to linger over
them and study every letter: sheep are slow.

When the hedges are grubbed and the grass grows
where the hawthorn flowered, still the shepherd can point
out to you where the trees stood—here an oak and here
an ash. On the hills he has often little to do but ponder
deeply, sitting on the turf of the slope, while the sheep
graze in the hollow, waiting for hours as they eat their
way. Therefore by degrees a habit of observation grows
upon him—always in reference to his charge; and if he
walks across the parish off duty he still cannot choose but
notice how the crops are coming on, and where there is
most ‘keep.’ The shepherd has been the last of all to
abandon the old custom of long service. While the la-
bourers are restless, there may still be found not a few
instances of shepherds whose whole lives have been spent
upon one farm. Thus, from the habit of observation and
the lapse of years, they often become local authorities ;
and when a dispute of boundaries or water rights or right
of way arises, the question is frequently finally decided by
the evidence of such a man.

Every now and then a difficulty happens in reference
to the old green lanes and bridle-tracks which once crossed
the countrv in every direction, bnt get fewer in number

80 Wild Life in a Southern County

year by year. Sometimes it is desired to enclose a section
of such a track to round off an estate: sometimes a path
has grown into a valuable thoroughfare through increase
of population; and then the question comes, Who is to
repair it? There is little or no documentary evidence to
be found—nothing can be traced except through the
memories of men; and so they come to the old shepherd,
who has been stationary all his life, and remembers the
condition of the lane fifty years since. He always liked
to drive his sheep along it—first, because it saved the
turnpike tolls; secondly, because they could graze on the
short herbage and rest under the shade of the thick
bushes. ven in the helplessness of his old age he is not
without his use at the very last, and his word settles the
matter.

In the winter twilight, after a fall of snow, it is
difficult to find one’s way across the ploughed fields of the
open plain, for it melts on the south of every furrow,
leaving a white line where it has lodged on the northern
side, till the furrows resemble an endless succession of
waves of earth tipped with foam-flecks of snow. These
are dazzling to the eyes, and there are few hedges or trees
visible for guidance. Snow lingers sometimes for weeks
on the northern slopes of the downs—where shallow dry
dykes, used as landmarks, are filled with it: the dark
mass of the hill is streaked like the black hull of a ship
with its line of white paint. Field work during what the
men call ‘the dark days afore Christmas’ is necessarily
much restricted, and they are driven to find some amuse-
nient for the long evenings—such as blowing out candles
at the alehouse with muzzle-loader guns for wagers of
liquor, the wind of the cap alone being sufficient for the
purpose at a short distance.

Christizas Mumming 81

The children never forget St. Thomas’s Day, which
ancient custom has consecrated to alms, and they wend
their way from farmhouse to farmhouse throughout the
parish; it is usual to keep to the parish, for some of the
old local feeling still remains even in these cosmopolitan
times. At Christmas sometimes the children sing carols,
not with much success so far as melody goes, but other-
wise successfully enough; for recollections of the past
soften the hearts of the crustiest.

The young men for weeks previously have been prac-
tising for the mumming—a kind of rude drama requiring,
it would seem, as much rehearsal beforehand as the plays
at famous theatres. They dress in a fantastic manner,
with masks and coloured ribbons; anything grotesque
answers, for there is little attempt at dressing in character.
They stroll round to each farmhouse in the parish, and
enact the play in the kitchen or brewhouse; after which
the whole company are refreshed with ale, and, receiving
a few coins, go on to the next homestead. Mumming,
however, has much deteriorated, even in the last fifteen or
twenty years. On nights when the players were known
to be coming, in addition to the farmer’s household and
visitors at that season, the cottagers residing near used to
assemble, so that there was quite an audience. Now it is
a chance whether they come round or not.

A more popular pastime with the young men, and
perhaps more profitable, is the formation of a brass band.
They practise vigorously before Christmas, and sometimes
attain considerable proficiency. At the proper season they
visit the farms in the evening, and as the houses are far
apart, so that only a few can be called at in the hours
available after work, it takes them some time to perambu-
late the parish. So that for two or three weeks about the

G

Sz Wild Life in a Southern County

end of the old and the beginning of the new year, if one
chances to be out at night, every now and then comes the
unwonted note of a distant trumpet sounding over the
fields. The custom has grown frequent of recent years,
and these bands collect a good deal of money.

The ringers from the church come too, with their
hand-bells, and ring pleasant tunes—which, however, on
bells are always plaintive—standing on the crisp frozen
grass of the green before the window. They are well
rewarded, for bells are great favourites with all country
people.

What is more pleasant than the jingling of the tiny
bells on the harness of the cart-horses? You may hear
the team coming with a load of straw on the waggon three
furlongs distant; then step out to the road, and watch
the massive yet shapely creatures pull the heavy weight
up the hill, their glossy quarters scarcely straining, but
heads held high showing the noble neck, the hoofs planted
with sturdy pride of strength, the polished brass of the
harness glittering, and the bells merrily jingling! The
carter, the thong of his whip nodding over his shoulder,
walks by the shaft, his boy ahead by the leader, as proud
of his team as the sailor of his craft: even the whip is not
to be lightly come by, but is chosen carefully, bound
about with rows of brazen rings; neither could you or I
knot the whipcord on to his satisfaction.

For there is a certain art even in so small a thing, not
to be learned without time and practice; and his pride in
whip, harness, and team is surely preferable to the indif-
ference of a stranger, caring for nothing but his money at
the end of the week. The modern system—men coming
one day and gone the next—leaves no room for the growth
of such feelings, and the art and mystery of the craft loses

‘ Shick-shack Day’ $3

its charm; the harness bells, too, are disappearing ; hardly
one team in twenty carries them now.

Those who labour in the fields seem to have far fewer
holidays than the workers in towns. The latter issue from
factory and warehouse at Easter, and rush gladly into the
country; at Whitsuntide, too, they enjoy another recess.
But the farmer and the labourer work on much the same,
the closing of banks and factories in no way interfering
with the tilling of the earth or the tending of cattle. In
May the ploughboys still remember King Charles, and on
what they call ‘shick-shack day’ search for oak-apples
and the young leaves of the oak to place with a spray of
ash in their hats or button-holes: the ash spray must have
even leaves ; an odd number is not correct. To wear these
green emblems was thought imperative even within the
last twenty years, and scarcely a labourer could be seen
without them. The elder men would tell you—as if it had
been a grave calamity—that they could recollect a year
when the spring was so backward that not an oak-leaf or
oak-apple could be found by the most careful search for
the purpose. The custom has fallen much into disuse
lately : the carters, however, still attach the ash and oak
leaves to the heads of their horses on this particular day.

Many village clubs or friendly societies meet in the
spring, others in autumn. The day is sometimes fixed by
the date of the ancient feast. The club and féte threaten,
indeed, to supplant the feast altogether: the friendly
society having been taken under the patronage of the
higher ranks of residents. Here and there the feast-day,
however (the day on which the church was dedicated),
is still remembered, as in this village, where the elder
farmers invite their friends and provide liberally for the
occasion. Some of the gipsies still come with their stalls,

a2

&4 Wild Life.in a Southern County

end a little crowd assembles in the evening ; but the glory
of the true feast has departed.

The elder men, nevertheless, yet reckon by the feast
day ; it is a fixed point in their calendar, which they con-
struct every year, of local events. Such and such a fair is
calculated to fall so many days after the first full moon in
a particular month; and another fair falls so long after
that. An old man will thus tell you the dates of every
fair and feast in all the villages and little towns ten or
fifteen miles round about. He quite ignores the modern
system of reckoning time, going by the ancient ecclesias-
tical calendar and the moon. How deeply the ancient
method must have impressed itself into the life of these
people to still remain a kind of instinct at this late day!

The feasts are in some cases identified with certain
well-recognised events in the calendar of nature; such as
the ripening of cherries. It may be noticed that these,
chancing thus to correspond pretty accurately on the aver-
age with the state of fruit, are kept up more vigorously
than those which have no such aid to the memory. The
Lady Day fair and Michaelmas fair at the adjacent market
town are the two best recognised holidays of the year.
The fair is sometimes called ‘the mop,’ and stalwart girls
will walk eight or nine miles rather than miss it. Maid-
servants in farmhouses always bargain for a holiday on fair
day. These two main fairs are the Bank Holidays of
rural life. It is curious to observe that the developments
of the age, railroads and manufactories, have not touched
the traditional prestige of these gatherings.

For instance, you may find a town which, by the
incidence of the railroad and the springing up of great
industries, has shot far ahead of the other sleepy little
places; its population may treble itself, its trade be ten

At the Village Fair 85

times as large, its attractions, one would imagine, incal-
culably greater. Nothing of the kind: its annual fair is
not nearly so important an event to the village mind as
that of an old-world slumberous place removed from the
current of civilisation. This place, which is perhaps eight
or nine miles by road, with no facilities of communication,
has from time immemorial had a reputation for its fair.
There, accordingly, the scattered rural population wends,
making no account of distance and very little of weather :
it is a country maxim that it always rains on fair day, and
mostly thunders. There they assemble and enjoy them-
selves in the old-fashioned way, which consists in standing
in the streets, buying ‘fairings’ for the girls, shooting for
nuts, visiting all the shows, and so on.

To push one’s way through such a crowd is no simple
matter; the countryman does not mean to be rude, but he
has not the faintest conception that politeness demands
a little yielding. He has to be shoved, and makes no
objection. <A city crowd is to a certain extent mobile—
each recognises that he must give way. A country crowd
stands stock-still.

The thumping of drums, the blaring of trumpets, the
tootling of pan-pipes in front of the shows, fill the air with
a din which may be heard miles away, and seem to give
the crowd intense pleasure—far more than the crack band
of the Coldstream Guards could impart. Nor are they
ever weary of gazing at the ‘ pelican of the wilderness’ as
the showman describes it—a mournful bird with draggled
feathers standing by the entrance, a traditional part of his
stock-in-trade. One attraction—perhaps the strongest—
may be found in the fact that all the countryside is sure
to be there. Each labourer or labouring woman will meet
acquaintances from distant villages they have not seen or

&3 Wild Life in a Southern County

heard of for months. The rural gossip of half a county
will be exchanged.

Tn the autumn after the harvest the gleaning is still
an important time to the cottager, though nothing like it
used to be. Reaping by machinery has made rapid in-
roads, and there is not nearly so much left behind as in
former days. Yet half the women and children of the
place go out and glean, but very few now bake at home;
they have their bread from the baker, who comes round in
the smallest hamlets. Possibly they had a more whole-.
some article in the olden time, when the wheat from their
gleanings was ground at the village mill, and the flour
made into bread at home. But the cunning of the me-
chanician has invaded the ancient customs; the very
sheaves are now to be bound with wire by the same ma-
chine that reaps the corn. The next generation of country
folk will hardly be able to understand the story of Ruth.

The Flooded Lane 37

CHAPTER VI.

THE HAMLET—COTTAGE ASTROLOGY—GHOST LORE—-HERBS—THE
WAGGON AND ITS CREW — STJLES—-THE TRYSTING-PLACE — THE
THATCHER—SMUGGLERS—AGUE.

In most large rural parishes there is at least one small
hamlet a mile or two distant from the main village. A few
houses and cottages stand loosely scattered about the fields,
no two of them together ; so separated, indeed, by hedges,
meadows, and copses as hardly to be called even a hamlet.
The communication with the village is maintained by a
long, winding narrow lane; but foot passengers follow a
shorter path across the fields, which in winter is sure to be
ankle deep in mud, by the gateways and stiles. The lane,
at the same time, is crossed by a torrent, which may spread
out to thirty yards wide in the hollow, shallow at the edges,
but swift and deep in the middle.

If you wait a couple of hours it will subside, as the
farmers lower down the brook pull up the hatches to let
the flood pass. If you are in a hurry, you must climb up
into the double-mound beside the lane, and force your way
along it between thorns and stoles till you reach the channel
through which the current is rushing. Across that an old
tree trunk will probably lie, and by grasping a bough as a
handrail it is possible to get over. Buteither way, by lane
or footpath, you are sure to get what the country folk call
‘watchet,’ i.e. wet. So that in winter the hamlet is practi-

83 Wild Life in a Southern County

cally isolated; for even in moderately good weather the
lane is an inch or two deep in finely puddled adhesive mud.
It is so shaded by elms and thick hedges that the dirt re-
quires a length of time to dry, whilethe passage of hundreds
of sheep tread and puddle it as only sheep can.

In summer the place is lovely ; but then the inhabitants
are one and all busy in the fields, and have little time for
social intercourse or for travel into the next parish. It is
ten to one if vou knock at a cottage door you will find it
locked—if, indeed, you get so far as that, a padlock being
often on the garden gate. Being so isolated, and apart
from the current of modern life and manners, the hamlet
folk retain something of the old-fashioned way of thinking.
They do not believe their own superstitions with the implicit
credence of yore, but they have not yet forgotten them. I
have known women, for instance, who seriously asserted
that such-and-such an aged person possessed a magic book
which contained spells, and enabled her to foresee some
kinds of coming events. The influence of the moon, so
firm an article of faith among their forefathers, is not al-
together overlooked ; and they watch for the new moon
carefully. If the crescent slopes, it will be wet weather.
But if the horns of the crescent touch, or nearly, a vertical
line, if it stands upright, then it will be fine. Something,
too, must be allowed for the degree of sharpness of defini-
tion of the crescent, which reveals the state of the atmo-
sphere. And the cottage astrologer has a whole table of
the quarters, aspects, and so on, and lays muchstress upon
the day and hour of the change: indeed, it is a very com-
plicated business to understand the moon.

The belief in the power of certain persons to ‘ rule the
planets’ is profound; so profound that neither ridicule,
argument, nor authority will shake it in the minds of the

Current Superstitions 89

hamlet girls, and it abides with them even when they are
placed amidst the disenchanting realities of town life.
When ‘in service,’ they buy dream-books, and consult
fortune-tellers. The gipsies, in passing through the
country, choose the by-ways and lanes; they thus avoid
the tolls, have a chance of poaching, and find waste places
to camp in, though possibly something of the true nomadic
instinct may urge them to leave the beaten tracks and
wander over lonely regions. They camp near the hamlet
as they travel to and from the great sheep fairs which are
held upon the hills, and perhaps stay a few days; and by
them, to some extent, the belief in astrology and palmistry
is strengthened.

The carters, who have to spend some considerable time
every day with their horses in the stable, still retain a large
repertory of legendary ghost-lore. They know the exact
spot in the lane where, at a certain hour of the night, the
white spectre of a headless horse, rushing past with in-
credible swiftness and without the sound of a hoof, brushes
the very coat of the traveller, and immediately disappears
in the darkness. Another lane is haunted by a white
woman, whose spectre crosses it in front of the spectator
and then appears behind him. If he turns his head or
looks on one side in order to escape the sight of the
apparition, it instantly crosses to that side. Indeed, no
matter in which direction he glances, the flickering figure
floats before him, till, making a run for it, he passes be-
yond the limits of the haunted ground.

Near by the hollow, where the stream crosses the lane,
is another spirit, but of an indefinite kind, that does not
seem to take shape, but causes those who go past at the
time when it has power to feel a mortal horror, A
black dog may be seen in at least two different places:

90 Wild Life in a Southern County

the wayfarer is suddenly surprised to find a gigantic
animal of the deepest jet trotting by his side, or he sees a
dark shadow detach itself from the bushes and take the
form of a dog. The black dog has perhaps more vitality,
and survives in more localities, than all the apparitions
that in the olden times were sworn to by persons of the
highest veracity. They may still be heard of in many a
nook and corner. I have known people of the present
day who were positive that there really was ‘something’
weird in the places where the dog was said to appear.

It is supposed that horses are peculiarly liable to take
fright and run away, to shy, or stumble, and break their
knees, at a certain spot in the road. They go very well
till just on passing the fatal spot a sudden fear seizes them
as if they could see something invisible to men ; sometimes
they bolt headlong, sometimes stand stock-still and shiver ;
or throw the rider by a rapid side-movement. In the day-
time—for this supernatural effect is felt in broad day as
well as at night—the horse more frequently falls or stumbles,
as if checked by an invisible force in the midst of his career.
This, too, is a living superstition, and some persons will
recount a whole string of accidents that have happened
within a few yards; till at last, such is the force of itera-
tion, the most incredulous admit it to be a series of remark-
able coincidences. These last two, the black dog and the
dangerous place in the road, are believed in by people of a
much higher grade than carters. Altogether, the vitality
of superstition in the country is very much greater than
is commonly suspected. It is now confined, as it were, to
the inner life of the people: no one talks of such things
openly, but only to their friends, and thus a stranger might
remark on the total extinction of the belief in the super-
natural, But much really remains.

Extraordinary Phenomenon oh

The carters have a story about horses which had spent
the night in a meadow being found the next morning in a
state of exhaustion, as if they had been ridden furiously
during the hours of darkness. They were totally unfit for
work next day. Instances are even given where men have
hidden in a tree with a gun, and when the horses began
to gallop fired at something indistinct sitting on their
haunches, which something at once disappeared, and the
excitement ceased. But these things are said to have
happened a long time ago.

So, also, there is a memory of a man digging stone in
a quarry and distinctly hearing the strokes of a pick be-
neath him. When he wheeled his barrow the subterranean
quarryman wheeled his, and shortly after he had shot the
stones out there came a rumbling from below as if the other
barrow had been emptied. The very quarry is pointed out
where this extraordinary phenomenon took place. It is
curious how a story of this kind, something like which is,
I think, told of the Hartz Mountains, should have got
localised in a limestone quarry so far apart in distance and
character. How well I remember the ancient labourer
who told me this legend as a boy! It is easy to philo-
sophise on it now, and speculate upon the genesis of
the tale, which may have originated in a cavernous hollow
resounding to the tools; but then it was a reality, and I
recollect always giving a wide berth to that quarry at night.
As the old man told it, it was indeed hardly a legend; for
he could disclose every detail, and what has here occupied
a few sentences took him the best part of an hour to
relate.

Now and then the western clouds after the sunset
assume a shape resembling that of a vast extended wing,
as of a gigantic bird in full flight—the extreme tip nearly

92 Wild Life it a Southern County

reaching the zenith, the body of the bird just below the
horizon. The resemblance is sometimes so perfect that
the layers of feathers are traceable by an imaginative eye
This, the old folk say, is the wing of the Archangel Michael,
and it bodes no good to the evil ones among the nations,
for he is on his way to execute a dread command.

Herbs are still believed in implicitly by some. Not
long since I met a labourer, one of the better class too,
whom I had known previously, and now found deeply de-
pressed because of the death of a son. The poor fellow
had had every attention ; the clergyman had exerted him-
self, and wine and nourishing luxuries had not been spared,
nor the best of medical advice. That he admitted, but
still regretted one thing. There was a herb, which grew
beside rivers, and was known to but a few, that was a cer-
tain cure for the kind of wasting disease which had baffled
educated skill. There was an old man living somewhere
by a river fifty miles away, who possessed the secret of this
herb, and by it had accomplished marvellous cures. He
had heard of him, but could not by any inquiry ascertain
his exact whereabouts; and so his child died. Everything
possible had been done, but still he regretted that this
herb had not been applied.

Nothing is done right now, according to the old men
of the hamlet; even the hayricks are built badly and
‘scamped.’ The ‘rickmaker’ used to be an important
person, generally a veteran, who had to be conciliated with
an extra drop of good liquor before he could be got to set
to work in earnest. Then he spread the hay here, and
worked it in there, and had it trodden down at the edge,
and then in the middle, and, like the centurion, sent men
hither and thither. His rick, when complete, did not rise
perpendicularly, but each face or square side sloped a little

A Waggon's History 93

outwards—including the ends—a method that certainly
does give the rick a very shapely look.

But now the new-fangled ‘ elevator’ carries up the hay
by machinery from the waggon to the top, and two ricks
are run up while they would formerly have just been care-
fully laying the foundation for one of faggots to keep off the
damp. The poles put up to support the rick-cloth inter-
fere with the mathematically correct outward slope at the
ends, upon which the old fellow prided himself; so they
are carried up straight like the end wall of a cottage, and
are a constant source of contempt to the ancient invalid.
However, he consoles himself with the reflection that most
of the men employed with the ‘ elevator’ will ultimately
go to a very unpleasant place, since they are continuously
swearing at the horse that works it, tomake him go round
the faster.

After an old cart or waggon has done its work and is
broken up, the wooden axletree, which is very solid, is fre-
quently used for the top bar of a stile. It answers very
well, and, being of seasoned wood that has received a good
many coats of red paint, will last a long time. The life
of a waggon is not unlike that of a ship. On the cradle
it is the pride of the craftsman who builds it, and who is
careful to reproduce the exact ‘lines’ which he learned
from his master as an apprentice, and which have been
handed down these hundred years and more. The builders
of the Chinese junks are said never to saw a piece of timber
into the shape required, nor to bend it by softening the
fibres by hot steam, but always use a beam that has grown
crooked naturally. This plan gives great strength, but it
must take years to accumulate the necessary curved trees.
The waggon-builder, in like manner, has a whole yardful
of timber selected for much the same reason— because it

04 Wild Life in a Southern County

naturally curves in the way he desires, or is specially fitted
for his purpose.

For, like a ship, the true old-fashioned waggon is full
of curves, and there is scarcely a straight piece of wood
about it. Nothing is angular or square; and each piece
of timber, too, is carved in some degree, bevelled at the
edges, the sharp outline relieved in one way or another,
and the whole structure like a ship, seeming buoyant, and
floating, as it were, easily on the wheels. Then the paint-
ing takes several weeks, and after that the lettering of the
name; and when at last completed it is placed outside by
the road, that every farmer and labourer who goes by may
pause and admire. In about twelve months, if the builder
be expeditious (for him), the new vessel may reach her
port under the open shed at the farm, and then her life of
voyages begins.

Her cargoes are hay and wheat and huge mountainous
loads of straw, and occasionally hurdles for the shepherd.
Nor are her voyages confined to the narrow seas of the
fields adjoining home; now and then she goes on adven-
turous expeditions to distant market towns, carrying
mayhap a cargo of oak-bark, stripped from fallen trees, to
the tan-yard. Then she is well victualled for the voyage,
and her course mapped out on the chart in order to avoid
the Scylla of steep hills and stony ways and the Charybdis
of tollgates, besides being duly cautioned against the sirens
that chant so sweetly from the taps of the roadside inns.
Or she sails down to the far-away railway station after coal
—possibly two or more vessels in the same convoy—if the
steam plough be at work and requires the constant services
of these tenders.

She has her own special crew—her captain the carter
—and for forecastle men a lad or two, and often a couple

The Captain of the Waggon 95

cf able-bodied seamen in the shape of labourers, to help
toloadup. When on the more distant voyages to unknown
shores, she takes a supercargo—the farmer’s son—to check
the bills of lading; for on these strange coasts who knows
what treachery there may be brewing? ‘There are arms
aboard, in the form of forks or prongs; and commonly one
or more passengers go out in her—women with vast bundles
and children—not to mention the merchandise of sugars
and of teas from Cathay, which are shipped for delivery
at half the cottages and farmsteads en route homewards.
Wherefore, you see, the captain had needs be a sober and
godly man, having all these and manifold other responsi-
bilities upon his mind.

Besides which he has to make a report upon the state
of the crops on every farm he passes, and what everybody
is doing, and if they have begun reaping; also to hail
every vessel he passes outward or homeward bound, and
enter her answers in his log, and to keep his weather-eye
open and a sharp watch to windward, lest storms should
arise and awake the deep, and if the gale increases to
batten down his hatches and make all snug with the tar-
paulin. He must bear in mind the longitude of those
ports where there are docks, lest his team should cast a
shoe or any of the running rigging want splicing, or the
hull spring a leak—for the blacksmith’s forges are otten
leagues apart, and he may lose his certificate if he strands
his ship or founders on the open ocean of the downs.
Sometimes, if the currents run unexpectedly strong, and
he is deeply laden, he has to borrow or hire a tug from
the nearest farm, getting an extra horse to pull up the
hill.

When he reaches harbour, and has leave ashore, a
jollier seaman never cracked a whip. Perhaps the hap-

96 Weld Life in a Southern County

piest time with the ploughboys is when they are out with
the waggon, having a little change, no harder work than
walking, sips at the ‘ pots’ handed to the captain by his
mates, and nothing to think about. Nor was there ever a
more popular song in the country than—

We'll jump into the waggon,
And we'll all take a ride !

Though in winter, when the horses’ shoes have to be
roughed for the frost, or, worse, when the wheels sink deep
into the spongy turf, and rain and sleet and snow make
the decks slippery, it is not quite so jolly. Yet even then,
so strong is the love of motion, a run with the waggon is
preferred to stationary work.

The captain, when bound on a voyage, generally slips
his cable or weighs anchor with the rising sun. His crew
are first-rate helmsmen: and to see them sweep into the
rickyard through the narrow gateway, with a heavy deck
cargo piled to the skies, all sail set, a stiff breeze, and the
timbers creaking, is a glorious sight! Not a scrape
against the jetty, though ‘touch and go’ is the sign of a
good pilot. His greatest trouble is when his cargo shifts
out of sight of land: sometimes the vessel turns on her
beam-ends with a too ponderous and ill-built load of straw,
and then the wreck lies right in the fairway of all the
ships coming up the channel. To load a waggon success-
fully is indeed a work of art: on the hills, where the
waggons haye to run ‘sidelong’ to pick up the crops, one
side higher than the other, no one but an experienced hand
can make the stuff stay on. Then there is often a tremen-
dous bumping and scraping of the keel on the rocks of the
newly-mended roads, and the nasty chopping seas of the
deep ruts, besides the long regular Atlantic swells of the

The Old Ship outlasts tts Owner 07

furrows and ‘lands.’ So that the cargo had need to be
firmly placed in the hold.

Every now and then she goes into dock and gets a new
streak of paint and a thorough overhauling. The running
rigging of the harness has to be polished and kept in good
condition, and the crew are rarely idle if the captain knows
his business. You should never let your ‘ fo’castle’ hands
loll about; the proverb about the and the idle hands
is notoriously true aboard ship, and in the stables.

How many a man’s life has centred about the waggon!
Asachild he rides in it as a treat to the hay-field with
his father; as a lad he walks beside the leader, and gets
his first ideas of the great world when they visit the market
town. Asaman he takes command and pilots the ship
for many a long, long year. When he marries, the
waggon, lent for his own use, brings home his furniture.
After a while his own children go fora ride in it, and play
in it when stationary in the shed. In the painful ending
the waggon carries the weak-kneed old man in pity to and
from the old town for his weekly store of goods, or may-
hap for his weekly dole of that staff of life his aged teeth
can hardly grind. And many a plain coffin has the old
waggon carried to the distant churchyard on the side of
the hill. It is a cold spot—as life, too, was cold and hard ;
yet in the spring the daisies will come, and the thrushes
will sing on the bough.

Built at first of seasoned wood, kept out of the weather
under cover, repainted, and taken care of, the waggon
lasts a lifetime. Many times repaired, the old ship out-
lasts its owner—his name on it is painted out. But that
step is not taken for years: there seems to be a supersti-
tious dislike to obliterating the old name, as if the dead
would resent it, and there it often remains till it becomes

iH

9S Wild Life in a Southern County

illegible. Sometimes the second owner, too, goes, and the
name fresh painted is that of the third. When at last it
becomes too shaky for farm use, it is perhaps bought by
some poor working haulier, who has a hole cut in the bottom
with movable cover, and uses it to bring down flints from
the hills to mend the roads. But if any of the old folk
live, they will not sell the ancient vessel: it stands behind
the rickyard under the elms till the rain rots the upper
work, and it is then broken up, and the axletree becomes
the top bar of a stile.

Each field has its characteristic stile—or rather two,
one each side (at the entrance and exit of the footpath),
and these are never alike. Walking across the fields for a
couple of miles or more, of all the stiles that must of neces-
sity be surmounted no two are similar. Here is one well
put together—not too high, the rail not too large, and
apparently an ideal piece of workmanship ; but on approach-
ing, the ground on the opposite side drops suddenly three
or four feet—at the bottom is a marshy spot crossed by a
narrow bridge of a single stone, on which you have to be
careful to alight, or else plunge ankle-deep in water. If
clever enough to drop on the stone, it immediately tilts
up slightly, for, like the rocking-stones of Wales, it is
balanced somewhere, and has a see-saw motion well calcu-
lated to land the timid in the ditch.

The next is approached by a line of stepping-stones—
to avoid the mud and water—whose surfaces are so
irregular as barely to afford a footing. The stile itself is
nothing—very low and easy to pass: but just beyond it a
stiff, stout pole has been placed across to prevent horses
straying, and below that a couple of hurdles are pitched to
confine the sheep. This is almost too much ; however, by
patience and exertion, it is managed. Then comes a

The Thatcher 99

double mound with two stiles—one for each ditch—made
very high and intended for steps; but the steps are worn
away, and it is something like climbing a perpendicular
ladder. Another has a toprail of a whole tree, so broad
and thick no one can possibly straddle it, so some friend
of humanity has broken the second rail, and you creep
under. Finally comes a steep bank, six or seven feet high,
with rude steps formed of the roots of trees worn bare by,
iron-tipped boots, and of mere holes in which to put the
toe. At the top the stile leans forward over the precipice,
so that you have to suspend yourself in mid-air. Fortu-
nately, almost every other one has a gap worn at the side
just large enough to squeeze through after coaxing the
briars to yield a trifle. For it is intensely characteristic
of human nature to make gaps and short cuts.

All the lads of the hamlet have a trysting-place at the
cross-roads, or rather cross-lanes, where there is often an
open waste space and a small clump of trees. If there is
any mischief in the wind, there the council of war is sure
to be held. There is a great rickyard not far distant,
where in one of the open sheds is the thatcher’s workshop.

He is avery pronounced character in his way, with
his leathern pads for the knees that he may be able to bear
lengthened contact against the wooden rungs of the ladder,
his little club to drive in the stakes, his shears to snip off
the edges of the straw round the eaves, his iron needle of
gigantic size with which to pass the tar cord through when
thatching a shed, and his small sharp billhook to split out
his thatching stakes. These are of willow, cut from the
pollard trees by the brook, and he sits on a stool in the
shed and splits them into three or four with the greatest
dexterity, giving his billhook a twist this way and then
that, and so guiding the split in the direction required.

H2

100 = Wild Life in a Southern County

‘Then holding it across his knee, he cuts the point with a
couple of blows and casts the finished stake aside upon the
heap.

A man of no little consequence is the thatcher, the
most important perhaps of the hamlet craftsmen. He
ornaments the wheat ricks with curious twisted tufts of
straw, standing up not unlike the fantastic ways in which
savages are represented doing their hair. But he does
not put the thatch on the wheat half so substantially as
formerly, because now only a few remain the winter—the
thatch is often hardly on before it is off again for the
thrashing-machine—for the ‘sheening,’ as they call it.
On the hayricks, which stand longer, he puts better work,
especially on the southern and western sides or angles,
binding it down with a crosswork of bonds to prevent the
gales which blow from those quarters unroofing the rick.

It is said to be an ill wind that blows nobody any
good: now the wind never blew that was strong enough
to please the thatcher. If the hurricane roughs up the
straw on all the ricks in the parish, unroofs half-a-dozen
sheds, and does not spare the gables of the dwelling-houses,
why he has work for the next two months. He is attended
by a man to carry up the ‘ yelms,’ and two or three women
are busy ‘ yelming ’"—i.e., separating the straw, selecting
the longest and laying it level and parallel, damping it
with water, and preparing it for the yokes. These yokes
must be cut from boughs that have grown naturally in the
shape wanted, else they are not tough enough. A tough
old chap, too, is the thatcher, a man of infinite gossip, well
acquainted with the genealogy of every farmer, and, indeed,
af everybody from Dan to Beersheba, of the parish.

The memory of the smugglers is not yet quite extinct.
The old men will point out the route they used to follow,

Lliicit Trade IOL

and some of the places where they are said to have stored
their contraband goods. Smuggling suggests the sea, but
the goods landed on the beach had afterwards to be con-
veyed inland for sale, so that the hamlet, though far distant
from the shore, has its traditions of illicit trade. The
route followed was a wild and unfrequented one, and the
smugglers appear to have kept to the downs as much as
possible. More than one family—well-to-do for the hamlet
or village, where a small capital goes a long way—are said
to have originally derived their prosperity from assisting
the storage or disposal of smuggled goods; and the sym-
pathies of the hamlet would be with the smugglers still.

The old folk, too, talk of having the ague, and say that
it was quite common in their early days; but it is rare to
hear of a case now. Possibly the better drainage of the
fields and the better food and lodging enjoyed by the
labourers have something to do with this. There are, of
course, no scientific or precise data for exact comparison ;
but, judging from the traditions transmitted down, the
hamlet is much more healthy at the present day than it
was in the olden times.

102 «Wald Life in a Southern County

CHAPTER VII.

THE FARMHOUSE—TRADITIONS—HUNTING PICTURES—THE FARMER'S
YEAR—SPORT—THE AUCTION FESTIVAL—A SUMMER’S DAY—BEAUTY
OF WHEAT.

THE stream, after leaving the village and the wash-pool,
rushes swiftly down the descending slope, and then enter-
ing the meadows, quickly loses its original impetuous
character. Not much more than a mile from the village
it flows placidly through meads and pastures, a broad,
deep brook, thickly fringed with green flags bearing here
and there large yellow flowers. By some old thatched
cattle-sheds and rick-yards, overshadowed with elm-trees,
a strong bay or dam crosses it, forcing the water into a
pond for the cattle, and answering the occasional purpose
of a ford; for the labourers in their heavy boots walk over
the bay, though the current rises to the instep. They call
these sheds, some few hundred yards from the farmhouse,
the ‘Lower Pen.’ Wick Farm—almost every village has
its outlying ‘ wick ’—stands alone in the fields. It is an
ancient rambling building, the present form of which is
the result of successive additions at different dates, and in
yarious styles.

When a homestead, like this, has been owned and
occupied by the same family for six or seven generations,
it seems to possess a distinct personality of its own. A
history grows up round about it; memories of the past

Fletrlooms 103

accumulate, and are handed down fresh and green, linking
to-day and seventy years ago as if hardly any lapse of
time had intervened. The inmates talk familiarly of the
‘comet year,’ as if it were but just over; of the days when
a load of wheat was worth a little fortune; of the great
snows and floods of the previous century. They date
events from the year when the I’oremeads were purchased
and added to the patrimony, as if that transaction, which
took place ninety years before, was of such importance
that it must necessarily be still known to all the world.

The house has somehow shaped and fitted itself to the
character of the dwellers within it: hidden and retired
among trees, fresh and green with cherry and pear against
the wall, yet the brown thatch and the old bricks subdued
in tone by the weather. This individuality extends to the
furniture; it is a little stiff and angular, but solid, and
there are nooks and corners—as the window-seat—sugges-
tive of placid repose: a strange opposite mixture through-
out of flowery peace and silence, with an almost total lack
of modern conveniences and appliances of comfort—as
though the sinewy vigour of the residents disdained arti-
ficial ease.

In the oaken cupboards—not black, but a deep tawny
colour with age and frequent polishing—may be found a
few pieces of old china, and on the table at tea-time,
perhaps, other pieces, which a connoisseur would tremble
to see in use, lest a clumsy arm should shatter their fragile
antiquity. Though apparently so little valued, you shall
not be able to buy these things for money—not so much
because their artistic beauty is appreciated, but because of
the instinctive clinging to everything old, characteristic of
the place and people. These have been there of old time:
they shall remain still. Somewhere in the cupboards,

1o4 TVild Life tn a Southern County

too, is a curiously carved piece of iron, to fit into the
hand, with a front of steel before the fingers, like a
skeleton rapier guard; it is the ancient steel with which,
and a flint, the tinder and the sulphur match were ignited.
Up in the lumber-room are carved oaken bedsteads of
unknown age; linen-presses of black oak with carved
panels, and a drawer at the side for the lavender-bags; a
rusty rapier, the point broken off; a flintlock pistol, the
barrel of portentous length, and the butt weighted with a
mace-like knob of metal, wherewith to knock the enemy
on the head. An old yeomanry sabre lies about some-
where, which the good man of the time wore when he
rode in the troop against the rioters in the days of
machine-burning—which was like a civil war in the
country, and is yet recollected and talked of. The present
farmer, who is getting just a trifle heavy in the saddle
himself, can tell you the names of labourers living in the
village whose forefathers rose in that insurrection. It is
a memory of the house how one of the family paid 401.
for a substitute to serve in the wars against the French.
The mistress of the household still bakes a batch of
bread at home in the oven once now and then, priding
herself that it is never ‘dunch,’ or heavy. She makes all
kinds of preserves, and wines too—cowslip, elderberry,
ginger—and used to prepare a specially delicate biscuit,
the paste being dropped on paper and baked by exposure
to the sun’s rays only. She has a bitter memory of some
money having been lost to the family sixty years ago
through roguery, harping upon it as a most direful mis-
fortune: the old folk, even those having a stocking or a
teapot well filled with guineas, thought a great deal of
small sums. After listening to a tirade of this kind, in
the belief that the family were at least half-ruined, it

An Aged Man of Wisdom 105

turns out to be all about 100/. Her grandmother after
marriage travelled home on horseback behind her husband ;
there had been a sudden flood, and the newly-married
couple had to wait for several hours till the waters went
down before they could pass. Times are altered now.
Since this family dwelt here, and well within what
may be called the household memory, the very races of
animals have changed or been supplanted. The cows in
the field used to be longhorns, much more hardy, and
remaining in the meadows all the winter, with no better
shelter than the hedges and bushes afforded. Now the
shorthorns have come, and the cattle are housed carefully.
The sheep were horned—up in the lumber-room two or
three horns are still to be found. The pigs were of a
different kind, and the dogs and poultry. If the race of
men have not changed they have altered their costume ;
the smock-frock lingered longest, but even that is going.
Some of the old superstitions hung on till quite re-
cently. The value of horses made the arrival of foals an
important occasion, and then it was the custom to call in
the assistance of an aged man of wisdom—not exactly a
wizard, but something approaching it nearly in reputation.
Even within the last fifteen years the aid of an ancient
like this used to be regularly invoked in this neighbour-
hood; in some mysterious way his simple presence and
good-will—gained by plentiful liquor—was supposed to
be efficacious against accident and loss. The strangeness
of the business was in the fact that his patrons were not
altogether ignorant or even uneducated—they merely
carried on the old custom, not from faith in it, but just
because it was the custom. When the wizard at last died
nothing more was thought about it. Another ancient
used to come round once or twice in the year, with a

106 Wild Life in a Southern County

couple of long ashen staves, and the ceremony performed
by him consisted in dancing these two sticks together in
a fantastic manner to some old rhyme or story.

The parlour is always full of flowers—the mantelpiece
and grate in spring quite hidden by fresh green boughs of
horse-chestnut in bloom, or with lilac, blue-bells, or wild
hyacinths ; in summer nodding grasses from the meadows,
roses, sweet-briar; in the autumn two or three great
apples, the finest of the year, put as ornaments among the
china, and the corners of the looking-glass decorated with
bunches of ripe wheat. A badger’s skin lies across the back
of the armchair; a fox’s head, the sharp white tusks showing,
snarls over the doorway ; and in glass cases are a couple
of stuffed kingfishers, a polecat, a white blackbird, and a
diver—rare here—shot in the mere hard by.

On the walls are a couple of old hunting pictures,
dusky with age, but the crudity of the colours by no
means toned down, or their rude contrast moderated:
bright scarlet coats, bright white horses, harsh green grass,
prim dogs, stiff trees, human figures immovable in tight
buckskins ; running water hard as glass, the sky fixed, the
ground all too small for the grouping, perspective painfully
emphasized, so as to be itself made visible; the surface
everywhere ‘ painty ’—in brief, most of the possible faults
compressed together, and proudly fathered by the artist's
name in full,

One representing a meet, and the other full cry, the
pack crossing a small river; the meet still and rigid, every
horseman in his place—not a bit jingling, or a hoof pawing,
or anything in motion. Now the beauty of the meet, as
distinct from a drilled cavalry troop, is its animation :
horses and riders moving here and there, gathering to-
gether and spreading out again, new-comers riding smartly

Crude Hunting Pictures 107

up, in continuous freshness of grouping, and constant relief
to the eye. The other—in full ery—all polished and
smooth and varnished as when they left the stable; horses
with glossy coats, riders upright and fatigueless, dogs
clean, and not a sign of poaching on the turf. The dogs
are coming out of the water with their tails up and straight
—dogs as they trail their flanks out of a brook always, in
fact, droop their tails, while their bodies look smaller and
the curves project, because the water lays the hair flat to
the body till several shakes send it out again. Not a
speck on a top-boot, not a coat torn by a thorn, and the
horses as plump as if fresh from their mangers, instead of
having worked it down. Not a fleck of foam; the sun,
too, shining, and yet no shadow—all glaring. And, despite
of all, deeply interesting to those who know the country-
side and have a feeling knowledge of its hunting history.
For the horses are from life, and the men portraits ;
the very hedges and brooks faithful—in ground-plan, at
least. The costume is true to a thread, and all the names
of the riders and some of the hounds are written under-
neath. So that a hunter sees not the crude colour or
faulty drawing, but what it is intended to represent.
Under its harshness there is the poetry of life. But
looking at these pictures, the reflection will still arise
how few really truthful hunting scenes we have on canvas
in this the country of hunting. The best are so conven-
tional, and have toomuch colour. All nature in the season
is toned down and subdued—the gleaming red and bright
yellows of the early autumn leaves soaked and soddened to
a dull brown; the sky dark and louring—if it is bright
there is frost; the glossy coat of the horses, and the scarlet,
or what coloured cloth it may be, of the riders deadened by
rain and the dewdrops shaken from the bushes. Think

108 = Wild Life in a Southern County

for a moment of a finish as it isin reality, and not in these
gaudy, brilliant colour-studies.

A thick mist clings in the hollow there by the osier-
bed where the pack have overtaken the fox, so that you
cannot see the dogs. Beyond, the contour of the hill is
lost in the cloud trailing over it; the foreground towards
us shows a sloping ploughed field, a damp brown, with a
thin mist creeping along the cold furrows. Yonder, three
vague and shadowy figures are pushing laboriously forward
beside the leafless hedge; while the dirt-spattered bays
hardly show against its black background and through the
mist. Some way behind, a weary grey—the only spot of
colour, and that dimmed—is gamely struggling—it is not
leaping—through a gap beside a gaunt oak tree, whose
dark buff leaves yet linger. But out of these surely an
artist who dared to face Nature as she is might work a
picture.

The year really commences at Wick farmhouse im-
mediately before the autumn nominally begins—nominally,
because there is generally a sense of autumn in the atmo-
sphere before the end of September. Just about that time
there comes a slackening of the work requiring earnest
personal supervision. When the yellow corn has been
cut and carted, and the thrashing machine has prepared a
sample for the markets—when the ricks are thatched, and
the steam plough is tearing up the stubble—then the
farmer can spare a day or so free from the anxieties of
harvest. There is plenty of work to be done; in fact, the
yearly rotation of labour may be said to begin in the
autumn too, but it does not demand such hourly attention.
It is the season for picnics—while the sun is yet warm and
the sward dry—on the downs among the great hazel copses,
or the old entrenchment, with its view over a vast land-

The inevitable Double-Barrel 109

scape, dimmed, though, by yellow haze, or by the shallow
lake in the vale.

With the exception of knocking over a young rabbit
now and then for household use, the farmer, even if he is
independent of a landlord, as in this case, does not shoot
till late in the year. Old-fashioned folk, though not in
the least constrained to do so, still leave the first pick of
the shooting to some neighbouring landowner between
whose family and their own friendly relations have existed
for generations. It is true that the practice becomes rarer
yearly as the old style of men die out and the spirit of
commerce is imported into rural life: the rising race pre-
ferring to make money of their shooting, by letting it, in-
stead of cultivating social ties.

At Wick, however, they keep up the ancient custom,
and the neighbouring squire takes the pick of the wing-
game. They lose nothing for their larder through this
arrangement—receiving presents of partridges and phea-
sants far exceeding in number what could possibly be
killed upon the farm itself; while later in the year the
boundaries are relaxed on the other side, and the farmer
kills his rabbit pretty much where he likes, in moderation.

He is seldom seen without a gun on his shoulder from
November till towards the end of January. No matter
whether he strolls to the arable field, or down the meadows,
or across the footpath to a neighbour’s house, the inevitable
double-barrel accompanies him. To those who live much
out of doors a gun is a natural and almost a necessary
companion, whether there be much or little to shoot ; and
in this desultory way, without much method or set sport,
he and his friends, often meeting and joining forces, find
sufficient ground game and wild-fow] to give them plenty
of amusement. When the hedges are bare of leaves the

110 Wild Life in a Southern County

rabbit-burrows are ferreted: the holes can be more con-
veniently approached then, and the frost is supposed to
give the rabbit a better flavour.

About Christmas-time, half in joke and half in earnest,
a small party often agree to shoot as many blackbirds as
they can, if possible to make up the traditional twenty-four
fora pie. The blackbird pie is, of course, really an occa-
sion for a social gathering, at which cards and music are
forthcoming. Though blackbirds abound in every hedge,
it is by no means an easy task to get the required number
just when wanted. After January the guns are laid aside,
though some ferreting is still going on.

The better class of farmers keep hunters, and ride con-
stantly to the hounds; so do some of the lesser men who
‘make’ hunters, and ride not only for pleasure but possible
profit from the sale. Hunting is, to a considerable extent,
a matter of locality. In some districts it is the one great
winter amusement, and almost every farmer who has got a
horse rides more or less. In others which are not near the
centres of hunting, it is rather an exception for the farmers
to go out. On and near the Downs coursing hares is much
followed. Then towards the spring, before the grass begins
to grow long, comes the local steeplechase—perhaps the
most popular gathering of the year. It is held near some
small town, often rather a large village than a town, where
it would seem impossible to get a hundred people together.
But it happens to be one of the fixed points, so to say, in
a wide hunting district, and is well known to every man
who rides a horse within twenty miles.

Numerous parties come to the race-ground from the
great houses of the neighbourhood. The labouring people
flock there en masse ; some farmers lend waggons and teams
to the labourers that they may go. An additional—a

The Annual Auction Itt

personal—interest attaches to many of the races because
the horses are local horses, and the riders known to the
spectators. Some of these meetings are moveable; they
are held near one town one year and another the next, so
as to travel round the whole hunting district—returning,
say, the fourth year to the first place. Most of the market
towns of any importance have their annual agricultural
show now, which is well attended.

In the spring comes the rook-shooting; the date varies
a week or so according to the season, whether it has been
mild and favourable or hard and late. This still remains
a favourite occasion for a party. Sheep-shearing in sheep
districts, as the Downs, is also remembered ; some of the
old folk make much of it; but as a general rule this
ancient festival has fallen a good deal into disuse. It is
not made the grand feast it once was for master and man
alike—at least, not in these parts. With the change that
has come across agriculture at large a variation has taken
place in the life of the people. New festivals, and of a
different character, have sprung up.

The most important of these is the annual auction on
the farm: the system of selling by auction which has
become so widely diffused has, indeed, quite revolutionised
agriculture in many ways. Where the farm is celebrated for
a special breed of sheep, the great event of the year is the
annual auction at home of ram lambs. Where the farm is
famous for cattle, the chief occasion is the yearly sale of young
short-horns. And recently, since steam plough and artificial
manure and general high pressure have been introduced,
many large arable farmers sell their corn crops standing.
The purchaser pays a certain price for the wheat as it
grows, reaps it when ripe, and makes what profit he can.

In either case the auctioneer is called in, a dinner is

112 Wild Life in a Southern County

prepared, and everybody who likes to come is welcome.
If there happens to be a great barn near the homestead it
is usually used for the dinner. The marquee has yet to
be invented which will keep out a thunderstorm—that
common interruption of country meetings—like an old
barn. But barns are not always ava‘lable, and a tent is
then essential. Though the spot may be lonely and several
miles from a town or station, a large number of persons
are sure to be there; and if it is an auction of sheep or
cattle with a pedigree, many of them will be found to have
come from the other end of the kingdom, and sometimes
agents are present from America or the colonies. Much
time is consumed in an examination of the stock, and
then the dinner begins—at least two hours later than
was announced. But this little peculiarity is so well
understood by all interested as to cause no inconvenience.

Scarcely any ale is to be seen; it is there if asked for;
but the great majority now drink sherry, The way in
which this wine has supplanted the old-fashioned October
ale is remarkable, and a noticeable sign of the times. At
home the farmer may still have his foaming jug, but
whenever farmers congregate together on occasions like
this, sherry is the favourite. When calling at the inns in
the towns on market days—much business is transacted
at the inns—spirits are usually taken, so that ale is no
longer the characteristic country liquor. With the sherry
cigars are handed round—another change. It is true the
elderly men stick to their long clay pipes, and it is
observable that some of the younger after a while go back
to the yard of clay ; but on the whole the cigar is now the
proper thing.

Then follow a couple of toasts, the stockowner’s and
auctioneer’s —usually short—and an adjournment takes

The Court Leet ts still held 113

place—if it be stock, to the yards; if corn, the cloth is
cleared of all but the wine, and the sale proceeds there
and then. In either case the sherry and the cigars go
round—persons being employed to press them freely upon
all; and altogether avery jovial afternoon is spent. Some
of the company do not separate till long after the con-
clusion of the sale: the American or colonial agent perhaps
stays a night at the farmstead. In the house itself there
is all this time yet more liberal hospitality proffered: it is
quite open-house hospitality, master and mistress vying
in their efforts to make every one feel at home. These
gatherings do much to promote a friendly spirit in the
neighbourhood.

In the summer the farmer is too much occupied to
think of amusement. It is a curious fact that very few
really downright country people care for fishing; a gun
and a horse are as necessary as air and light, but the rod
is not a favourite. There seems to be greater enthusiasm
than ever about horses; whether people bet or not, they
talk and think and read more of horses than they ever did
before.

In this locality Clerk’s Ale, which used to be rather an
event, is quite extinct. The Court Leet is still held, but
partakes slightly of the nature of a harmless farce. The
lord of the manor’s court is no terror now. A number of
gentlemen, more for the custom’s sake than anything, sit
in solemn conclave to decide whether or no an old pollard
tree may be cut down, how much an old woman shall pay
in quit-rent for her hovel, or whether there was or was not
a gateway in a certain hedge seventy years ago. However,
it brings neighbours together, and causes the inevitable
sherry to circulate briskly.

The long summer days begin very early at Wick.

I

14 Wild Life in a Southern County

About half-past two of a morning in June a faint twitter-
mg under the eaves announces that the swallows are
awaking, although they will not commence their flight for
a while yet. At three o’clock the cuckoo’s call comes up
from the distant meadows, together with the sound of the
mower sharpening his scythe, for he likes to work while
the dew is heavy on the grass, both for coolness and
because it cuts better. He gets half a day’s work done
before the sun grows hot, and about eight or nine o’clock
lies down under the hedge for a refreshing nap. Between
three and four the thrushes open song in the copse at the
corner of the Home-field, and soon a loud chorus takes up
their ditty as one after the other joins in.

Then the nailed shoes of the milkers clatter on the
pitching of the courtyard as they come for their buckets;
and immediately afterwards stentorian voices may be
heard in the fields bellowing ‘Coom up! ya-hoop!’ to
which the cows, recognising the well-known call, respond
very much in the same tones. Slowly they obey and
gather together under the elms in the corner of the
meadow, which in summer is used as the milking-place.
About five or half-past another clattering tells of the
milkers’ return ; and then the dairy is in full operation.
The household breakfasts at half-past six or thereabouts,
and while breakfast is going on the heavy tramp of feet
may be heard passing along the roadway through the
rick-yard—the haymakers marching to the fields. For
the next two hours or so the sounds from the dairy are
the only interruption of the silence: then come the first
waggons loaded with hay, jolting and creaking, the carter’s
lads shouting, ‘Woaght!’ to the horses as they steer
through the gateway and sweep round, drawing up under
the rick,

After the Day's Labour tis

Between eleven and twelve the waggons cease to
arrive—-it is luncheon time: the exact time for luncheon
varies a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, or more,
according to the state of the work. Messengers come home
for cans of beer, and carry out also to the field wooden
“bottles ’—small barrels holding a gallon or two. After
a short interval work goes on again till nearly four o'clock,
when it is dinner-time. One or two labourers, deputed by
the rest and having leave and licence so to do, enter the
farmhouse garden and pull up bundles of onions, lettuces,
or radishes—sown over wide areas on purpose—and carry
them out to the cart-house, or wherever the men may be.
If far from home, the women often boil a kettle for tea
under the hedge, collecting dead sticks fallen from the
trees. At six o’clock work is over: the women are allowed
to leave half an hour or so previously, that they may pre-
pare their husbands’ suppers.

As the sanset approaches the long broad dusty road
loses its white glare, and yonder by the hamlet a bright
glistening banner reflects the level rays of the sun with
dazzling sheen; it is the gilding on the swinging wayside
sign transformed for the moment from a wooden board
rudely ornamented with a gilt sun, all rays and rotund
cheeks, into a veritable oriflamme.

There the men will assemble by-and-by, on the forms
about the trestle table, and share each other’s quarts in
the fellowship of labour. Ov perhaps the work may be
pressing, and the waggons are loaded till the white owl
noiselessly flits along the hedgerow, and the round moon
rises over the hills. Then those who have stayed to assist
find their supper waiting for them in the brewhouse, and
do it ample justice.

Once during the morning, while busy in the hay-field,

12

116 Wild Life in a Southern County

not so much with his hands as his eyes, watching that the
‘wallows’ may be turned over properly, and the ‘ wakes’
made at a just distance from each other, that the waggon
may pass easily between, the farmer is sure to be sum-
moned home with the news of a swarm of bees. If the
work be pressing, they must be attended to by deputy; if
not, he hurries home himself; for although in these days
bee-keeping is no longer what it used to be, yet the old-
fashioned folk take a deep interest in the bees still. They
tell you that ‘a swarm in May is worth a load of hay; a
swarm in June is worth a silver spoon; but a swarm in
July is not worth a fly’—for it is then too late for the
young colony to store up a treasure of golden honey before
the flowers begin to fade at the approach of autumn.

It is noticeable that those who labour on their own
land (as at Wick) keep up the ancient customs much more
vigorously than the tenant who knows that he is liable to
receive a notice to quit. And farms, for one reason or
another, change tenants much more frequently now than
they used to do. Here at Wick the owner feels that
every apple tree he grafts, every flower he plants, returns
not only a money value, but a joy not to be measured by
money. So the bees are carefully watched and tended, as
the blue tomtits find to their cost if they become too
venturesome.

These bold little bandits will sometimes make a dash
for the hive, alighting on the miniature platform before
the entrance, and playing havoc with the busy inmates.
If alarmed they take refuge in the apple trees, as if con-
scious that the owner will not shoot them there, since
every pellet may destroy potential fruit by cutting and
breaking those tender twigs on which it would presently
grow. Itis a pleasant sight in autumn to see the room

Ivheat from Green to Yellow 117

devoted to the honey—great broad milk-tins full to the
brim of the translucent liquid, distilling slowly from pure
white comb, from the top of whose cells the waxen cover-
ing has been removed.

All the summer through fresh beauties, indeed, wait
upon the owner’s footsteps. In the spring the mowing-
grass rises thick, strong, and richly green, or hidden by
the cloth-of-gold thrown over it by the buttercups. He
knows when it is ready for the scythe without reference to
the almanac, because of the brown tint which spreads over
it from the ripening seeds, sometimes tinged with a dull
red, when the stems of the sorrel are plentiful. At first
the aftermath has a trace of yellow, as if it were fading;
but a shower falls, and fresh green blades shoot up. Or,
passing from the hollow meads up on the rising slopes
where the plough rules the earth, what so beautiful to
watch as the wheat through its various phases of colour?

First green and succulent; then, presently, see a
modest ear comes forth with promise of the future. By-
and-by, when every stalk is tipped like a sceptre, the
lower stalk Jeaves are still green, but the stems havea
faint bluish tinge, and the ears are paling into yellow.
Next the white pollen—the bloom—shows under the warm
sunshine, and then the birds begin to grow busy among
it. They perch on the stalk itself—it is at that time
strong and stiff enough to uphold their weight, one on a
stem—but not now for mischief. You may see the sparrow
carry away with him caterpillars for his young upon the
housetop hard by; later on, it is true, he will revel on the
ripe grains.

Yesterday you came to the wheat, and found it pale
like this (it seems but twenty-four hours ago—it is really
only a little longer); to-day, when you look again, lo!

118 = tld Life in a Southern County

there is a fleeting yellow already on the ears. They have
so quickly caught the hue of the bright sunshine pouring
on them. Yet another day or two, and the faint fleeting
yellow has become fixed and certain, as the colours are
deepened by the great artist. Only when the wind blows
and the ears bend in those places where the breeze takes
most, it looks paler because the under part of the ear is
shown and part of the stalk. Finally comes that rich hue
for which no exact similitude exists. In it there is some-
what of the red of the orange, somewhat of the tint of
bronze, and somewhat of the hue of maize; but these are
poor words wherewith to render fixed a colour that plays
over the surface of this yellow sea, for if you take one, two,
or a dozen ears you shall not find it, but must look abroad,
and let your gaze travel to and fro. Nor is every field
alike; here are acres and acres more yellow, yonder a
space whiter, beyond that a slope richly ruddy, according
to the kind of seed that was sown.

Out of the depths of what to it must seem an impene-
trable jungle, from visiting a flower hidden below, a
humble-bee climbs rapidly up a stalk a yard or two away
while you look, and mounting to the top of the ear, as a
post of vantage clear of obstructions, sails away upon the
wind.

‘We be all jolly vellers what vollers th’ plough!’—
but not to listen to, and take literally according to the
letter of the discourse. It runs something like this the
seasons through as the weather changes: ‘Terrible dry
weather this here to be sure; we got so much work to do
uz can't get drough it. The fly be swarming in the
turmots—the smut be on the wheat—the wuts be amazing
weak in the straw. Got a fine crop of wheat this year,
aud prices be low, so uz had better drow it to th’ pigs.

A Thousand and One Grumbles 119

Last year uz had no wheat fit to speak on, and prices was
high. Drot this here wet weather! the osses be all in
the stable eating their heads off, and the chaps be all
idling about and can’t do no work: a pretty penny for
wages and not a job done. Them summer ricks be all
rotten at bottom. The ploughing-engine be stuck fast up
to the axle, the land be so soft and squishey. Us never
gets uo good old frosts now, like they used to have. Drot
these here frosty mornings! a-cutting up everything.
There'll be another rate out soon, a’ reckon. Us had better
give up this here trade, neighbour!’

And so on for a thousand and one grumbles, fitting
into every possible condition of things, which must not,
however, be taken too seriously ; for of all other men the
farmer is the most deeply attached to the labour by which
he lives, and loves the earth on which he walks like a
true autochthon, He will not leave it unless he is suffering
severely,

120) ©6- Weld Life in a Southern County

CHAPTER VIII.

BIRDS OF THE FARMHOUSE—SPEECH OF A STARLING—POPULATION OF
A GABLE—THE KING OF THE HEDGE—THB THRUSHES’ ANVIL,

Wick farmhouse is thatched, and has many gables hidden
with ivy. In these broad expanses of thatch, on the great
“chimney-tuns,’ as country folk call them, and in the ivy,
tribes of birds have taken up their residence. The thatch
has grown so thick in the course of years by the addition
of fresh coats that it projects far from the walls and forms
wide, far-reaching eaves. Over the cellar the roof descends
within three or four feet of the ground, the wall being low,
and the eaves here cast a shadow with the sun nearly at
the zenith.

On the higher parts of the roof, especially round the
chimneys, the starlings have made their holes, and in the
early summer are continuously flying to and fro their
young, who never cease crying for food the whole day
through. A tall ash tree stands in the hedgerow, about
fifty yards from the house. On this tree, which is detached,
so that they can see all round, the starlings perch before
they come to the roof, as if to reconnoitre, and to exchange
pourparlers with their friends already on the roof; for if
ever birds talk together starlings do. Many birds utter
the same notes over and over again ; others sit on a branch
and sing the same song, as the thrush; but the starling
has a whole syllabary of his own, every note of which

The Starling’s Eloquence 121

evidently has its meaning, and can be varied and accented
at pleasure.

His whistle ranges from a shrill, piercing treble to a
low, hollow bass; he runs a complete gamut, with ‘ shakes,’
trills, tremulous vibrations, every possible variation. He
intersperses a peculiar clucking sound, which seems to
come from the depths of his breast, fluttering his wings
all the while against his sides as he stands bolt upright on
the edge of the chimney. Other birds seem to sing for
the pure pleasure of singing, shedding their notes broad-
cast, or at most they are meant for a mate hidden in the
bush. The starling addresses himself direct to his fellows :
I think I may say he never sings when alone, without a
companion in sight. He literally speaks to his fellows. I
am persuaded you may almost follow the dialogue and guess
the tenor of the discourse.

A starling is on the chimney-top; yonder on the ash
tree are four or five of his acquaintance. Suddenly he
begins to pour forth a flood of eloquence—facing them as
he speaks: Will they come with him down to the field
where the cows are grazing? There will be sure to be
plenty of insects settling on the grass round the cows, and
every now and then they tear up the herbage by the roots
and expose creeping things. ‘Come,’ you may hear him
say, modulating his tones to persuasion, ‘come quickly ;
you see it is a fresh piece of grass into which the cows
have been turned only a few hours since; it was too long
for us before, but where they have eaten we can get at the
ground comfortably. The water-wagtail is there already ;
he always accompanies the herd, and will have the pick
and choice of everything. Or what do you say to the
meadow by the brook? The mowers have begun, and the
swathe has fallen before their scythes; there are acres of

139 Wild Life in a Southern County

ground there which we could not touch for weeks ; now it
is open, and the place is teeming with good food. The
finches are there as busy as may be between the swathes—
chafinch and greenfinch, hedge-sparrow, thrushes, and
blackbirds too. Are you afraid? Why, no one shoots in
the middle of a summer's day. Still irresolute ? (with an
angry shrillness). Will you or will you not? (a sharp
short whistle of interrogation). You are simply idiots
(finishing with a scream of abuse). I’m off!’

Seeing him start, the rest follow at once, jealous lest
he should enjoy these pleasures alone, As he flies every
few minutes he closes his wings, so that for half a dozen
yards he shoots like an arrow through the air; then
rapidly uses them, and again closes and shoots forward,
all the time keeping a level straight course, going direct
to his object.

The starlings that breed in the roof, though they leave
the place later on and congregate in flocks roosting in
trees, still come back now and then to revisit their homes,
especially as the new year opens, when they alight on the
house frequently and consult on the approaching impor-
tant period of nesting. If you should be sitting near
a, window close under the roof where they are busy, read-
ing a book, with the summer sunshine streaming in, now
and then a flash like lightning will pass across the page.
It is a starling rapidly vibrating his wings before he
perches on the thatch; the swift succession of light and
shadow as the wings intercept the rays of the sun causes
an impression on the eye like that left by a flash of light-
ning. They are beautiful birds: on their plumage, when
seen quite close, the light plays in iridescent gleams.

Upon the roof of the old farmstead, too, the chirp of
the sparrow never ceases the livelong day. It is amusing

Superstitions about Birds 123

to see these birds in the nesting season carrying up long
straws—towing their burden through the air with evident
labour—or feathers. These they sometimes drop just as
they arrive at their destination. Eager to utter a chirp to
their mates, they open their beaks, and away floats the
feather, but they catch it again before it reaches the
ground. Fluffy feathers are great favourites. The fowls,
as they fly up to roost on the beams in the sheds, beat out
feathers from their clumsy wings; these lie scattered on
the ground, marking the spot. These roosting-places are
magazines from which the small birds draw their supplies
for domestic purposes. The sparrows have their nests in
lesser holes in the thatch ; sometimes they use a swallow’s
nest built of mortar under the eaves, to which the owners
have not returned.

The older folk still retain some faint superstitions about
swallows, looking upon them as semi-consecrated and not
to be killed or interfered with. They will not have their
nests knocked down. If they do not return to the eaves
but desert their nests, it is asign of misfortune impending
over the household. So, too, if the rooks quit the rookery,
or the colonies of bees in the hives on the sunny side of the
orchard decay and do not swarm, but seem to die off, it is
an evil omen. If at night a bird flutters against the win-
dow-pane in the darkness—as they will sometimes in a
great storm of wind, driven, perhaps, from their roosting-
places by the breaking of the boughs, and attracted by a
light within—the knocking of their wings betokens that
something sad is about to happen. If an invalid asks for
a pigeon—taking a fancy to a dish of pigeons to eat—it
is a sign either of coming dissolution or of extreme illness.

But the swallows rarely fail to come in the spring, and
soon begin to repair their nests or build new ones with

124 Wed Life in a Southern County

mortar from the roads; a rainy day is very useful to them,
and they alight at the edge of the puddles, finding the
mud already mixed and tempered for them there. In such
weather they will fly backwards and forwards by the side
of a hedge for a length of time, skimming just above the
grass, when, looking down on them instead of up at them,
the white bar across the lower part of the body just before
the tail forks is very noticeable. The darker feathers have
a glossy bluish tinge on the black. They seem fond of
flying round and near horses and cattle, as if insects were
more numerous near animals. While driving on a sultry
day I have watched a swallow follow the horse for a mile
or more.

It is a pleasant sight to watch them gliding just above
the surface of smooth water, dipping every now and then.
Once, while observing some swallows flying over a lake, on
a windy day, when there were waves of some size, I saw a
swallow struck by the crest of a wave and overwhelmed.
It was about twenty yards from a lee shore, and the bird
floated on the water, rising and sinking with the waves till
they threw it on the bank. It was much exhausted, but
when placed on a stone in the warm sunshine soon re-
covered and flew off.

As another proof that, quick as they are on the wing,
they do not always judge their position or course precisely,
I know a case where a swallow, in less than ten yards after
leaving her nest under the eaves of a house, flew with
great force against a door in the garden wall painted a
dull blue. The beak was partly broken and the bird com-
pletely stunned: she died in a few minutes. There was
some one in the garden close by at the time: his presence
may have frightened the swallow; yet they are not usually
timid where their nests are undisturbed. Perhaps in her

Swallows 125

hurry the dull blue colour of the gate may have deceived
her sight; but she must have travelled that way a hundred
times before,

Swallows frequently come down the great chimneys at
the farmhouse and are found in the rooms, but are always
allowed to escape from the window. Swallows are said
not to perch; but I have seen them repeatedly perch on
those sticks which, where the thatch has somewhat decayed,
project a few inches above the roof-tree. Sometimes a
row of half a dozen may be observed settled on the roof
here. You may see them, too, perch on the topmost
boughs of the tall damson trees in the orchard; and again,
later in the autumn, after nesting is over, they assemble in
hundreds—one might almost say thousands—in the withy
bed by the brook, settling on the slender willow wands.
There they twitter together for an hour or more every
evening. They can rise without the slightest difficulty
from the ground, if it is level and not encumbered with
grass, as from the surface of the roads. On dull cold days
they settle on the house more frequently than when it is
bright and sunny.

At one end of the farmhouse, which is an irregular
building, there is a quiet gable, and in it a casement
arched over by the thatch, and shaded by a thick growth
of ivy. The casement is low, and not more than eight or
nine feet from the ground; the ivy has climbed the wall,
it has spread, too, over the massive wall of the garden
which just there abuts upon the house, so that there is a
secluded corner formed by the angle. Here some time ago
a number of logs of timber—oak, such as are sawn up into
posts for field gateways—were left leaning half against the
garden wall, half against the house, just under the window.
There they have remained (there is never any hurry about

126 = Wild Life in a Southern County

things in the country) so long that the moss has begun to
encase the lower portions. What with the projecting
thatch, the thick ivy, the timber thrown carelessly beneath,
the lichen-grown garden wall, and a large bush of lilac in
the angle, the place could hardly be more quiet, and is
consequently a favourite resort of the birds.

Within reach from the window the swallows have their
nests, and the sparrows their holes, on the right hand;
within reach on the left hand, among the ivy, the water-
wagtail has built her nest year after year. The wagtail
niay always be seen about the place—now in the cowyards
among the cattle, now in the rickyard, and even close to
the door of the dwelling-house, especially frequenting the
courtyard in front of the dairy. As he flies he rises up
and then sinks again, in a succession of undulations, now
spreading the tail out and now closing it. On the ground
he generally alights near water; he is continually jerking
the tail up and down.

One spring a cuckoo came to this nest in the ivy close
to the casement ; she was seen flying near the house several
times, and, being observed to visit the ivy-covered gable,
was finally traced tu the wagtail’s nest. For several days
in succession, and several times a day, the cuckoo came,
and would doubtless have left an egg had not she been shot
by a person who wanted a cuckoo to stuff.

It is difficult to understand upon what principle the
cuckoo selected a nest thus placed. The ordinary con-
siderations put forward as guiding birds and animals in
their actions quite fail. Instinct would scarcely choose a
spot so close to a house—actually on it; the desire of
safety would not lead to it either, nor the idea of conceal-
ment. She might, no doubt, have found nests enough at
a distance from houses, and much more likely to escape

The Cuckoo and Hedge-Sparrow 127

observation. Was there any kind of feeling that this par-
ticular wagtail was more likely to take care of the offspring
than others ?

I doubt the cuckoo’s alleged total indifference to her
young. They certainly linger in the neighbourhood of the
nests which they have selected to deposit their eggs in.
On another occasion a cuckoo used a wagtail’s nest in a
different part of the garden here—in some ivy that had
grown round the decaying stump of an old fir tree. This
bird was watched, but not interfered with; she came
repeatedly, and was seen on the nest, and the egg observed.
Afterwards a cuckoo sang continuously day after day on
an ash tree close to the garden.

Lower down in the ivy, behind the logs of timber
under the casement, the hedge-sparrow builds every year;
and on the wood itself where the trunks formed a little
recess was a robin’s nest. The hedge-sparrow, unlike his
noisy namesake, is one of the quietest of birds: he slips
about in the hedges and bushes all round the garden so
quietly and unobtrusively that unless you watch carefully
you will not see him. Yet he does not seem shy, and if
you sit still will come along the hawthorn within a yard.

In the thatch—under the eaves of the cellar, which are
not more than four feet from the ground and come up to
the ivy of the gable—the wren has a nest. Some birds
seem always to make their nests in one particular kind of
way, and generally in the same kind of tree or bush ;
robins, house-sparrows, and starlings, on the other hand,
adjust their nests to all sorts of places.

The window of a room in which I used to sleep over-
looked the orchard, and there was a pear tree trained
against the wall, some of the boughs of which came up to
the window-sill. This pear tree acted as a ladder, up

128 Wild Life im a Southern County

which the birds came. Pear trees are a good deal fre-
quented by many birds; their rough bark seems to shelter
numerous insects. The window was left open all night in
the sultry summer weather, and presently a robin began
to come in very early in the morning. Encouraged by
finding that no one disturbed him, at last he grew bold
enough to perch morning after morning on the rail at the
foot of my bed. First he seemed to examine the inside of
the window, then went on the floor, and, after a good look
round, finally finished by sitting on the wooden framework
for a few minutes before departing.

This went on some time; then a wren came too; she
likewise looked to see if anything edible could be found in
the window first. Old-fashioned windows often have a
broad sill inside—the window frame being placed nearly
at the outer edge of the wall, so that the thickness of the
wall forms a recess, which is lined with board along the
bottom. Now this wooden lining was decayed and drilled
with innumerable holes by boring insects, which threw up
tiny heaps of sawdust, as one might say, just as moles
throw up mounds of earth where they tunnel. Perhaps
these formed an attraction to the wren. She also fre-
quently visited an old-fashioned bookcase, on the top of
which—it was very low—I often left some old worm-eaten
folios and quartos, and may have occasionally picked up
something there. Once only she ventured to the foot of
the bed. After leaving the room she always perched on a
thin iron projection which held the window open, and
uttered her singularly loud notes, their metallic clearness
seeming to make the chamber ring. Starlings often
perched on the same iron slide, and sparrows continually ;
but only the robin and wren came inside. Tomtits occa-
sionally entered and explored the same board-lining of the

The Pugnacious Robin 129

window, but no farther. They will, however, sometimes
explore a room.

I know a parlour the window of which was partly
overhung by a similar pear tree, besides which there were
some shrubs just outside, and into this room, being quiet
and little used, the tomtits ventured every now and then.
I fancy the placing of flowers in vases on the table or on
the mantelpiece attracts birds to rooms, if they are still.
Insects visit the flowers; birds look for the insects: and
this room generally abounded with cut flowers. Entering
it suddenly one day, a tomtit flew from side to side in great
agitation, and then dropped on the floor and allowed me
to pick it up without an effort to escape. The bird had
swooned from fright, and was quite helpless—the eyes
closed. On being placed outside the window, in five
minutes it came to itself and flew off feebly. In this way
birds may frequently become a prey to. cats and hawks
when to all appearance they might easily escape—becoming
so overwhelmed with alarm as to lose the power of motion.

The robin is a most pugnacious creature. He will fight
furiously with a rival; in fact, he never misses an oppor-
tunity of fighting. But he always chooses the very early
morning for these encounters, and so escapes suspicion,
except, of course, from people who rise early too. It is
even said that the young cock robins, when they are full
grown, turn round on their own parents and fight with
them vigorously. Neither is he a favourite with the upper
class of cottagers—for there is an ‘ upper ten’ even among
cottagers—who have large fruit-gardens. In these they
grow quantities of currants for preserving purposes. The
robin is accused of being a terrible thief of currants, and
meets with scant mercy.

Sometimes while walking slowly along the footpath

K

130 0 6©6Wiald Life in a Southern County

in a lane with hedges each side, a robiu will dart out of the
hawthorn and pick up a worm or grub almost under your
feet; then in his alarm at your presence drop it, and rush
back in a flutter. Other birds will do the same thing,
from which it would seem that the old saying that the eye
sees what it comes to see is as applicable to them as to
human beings. Their eyes, ever on the watch for food,
instantly detect a tiny creeping thing several yards dis-
tant, though concealed by grass; but the comparatively
immense bulk of a man appears to escape notice till they
fly almost up against it.

I fancy that the hive bee and some kindred insects have
a special faculty of seeing colour at a distance, and that
colours attract them. It can hardly be scent, because
when flowers are placed in a room and the window left
open, the wind generally blows strongly into the apart-
ment, and odours will not travel against a breeze. It
seems natural that in both cases the continual watch for
certain things should enable bird and insect to observe the
faintest indication. Slugs, caterpillars, and such creatures,
too, in moving among the grass, cause a slight agitation of
the grass-blades; they lift up a leaf by crawling under it,
or depress it with their weight by getting on it. This
may enable the bird to detect their presence, even when
quite hidden by the herbage, experience having taugnt it
that when grass is moved by the wind broad patches sway
simultaneously, but when an insect or caterpillar is the
agent only a single leaf or blade is stirred.

At the farmhouse here, robins, wrens, and tomtits are
always hanging about the courtyard, especially close to
the dairy, where one or other may be constantly seen
perched on the palings; neither do they scruple to enter
‘the dairy, the brewhouse, or wood-house adjacent, when

Constant Residents tu the Garden 131

they see a chance. The logs (for fuel) stored in the latter
doubtless afford them insects from under the dead bark.

Among the most constant residents in the garden at
Wick Farm are the song thrushes. They are the tamest
of the larger birds ; they corne every morning right under
the old bay-window of the sitting-room on the shady side
of the house, where the musk-plant has spread abroad and
covered the stone-pitching for many yards, except just a
narrow path paved with broad flagstones. The musk finds
root in every interstice of the pitching, but cannot push
up through the solid flat flags; a fungus, however, has
attempted even that, and has succeeded in forcing a great;
stone, weighing perhaps fifteen or twenty pounds, from its
bed, so that instead of being level it forms an inclined
plane. The carpet of musk yields a pleasant odour; in
one corner, too, the ‘monkey-plant’ grows luxuriously,
and the grass of the green or lawn is for ever trying to
encroach upon the paving. In the centre of the green is
a bed of gooseberries and a cherry tree; and though the
fruit is so close to the window, both thrush and blackbird
make as free with it as if it was in the hedgerow.

The thrush, when he wishes to approach the house,
flies first to the cover of these gooseberries; then, after
reconnoitring a few minutes, comes out on the green and
gradually works his way across it to the stone-pitching,
and so along under the very window. The blackbird
comes almost as often to the lawn, but it is in a different
way. His manner is that of a bold marauder, conscious
that he has no right, and aware that a shot from an am-
buscade may lay him low, but defiantly risking the danger.
He perches first on a bush, or on the garden wall, under
the sheltering boughs of the lime trees, at a distance of
some twenty yards ; then, waiting till all is clear, he makes

x2

132 Wild Life in a Southern County

a desperate rush for the fruit trees or the awn. The moment
he has succeeded in violently seizing some delicious morsel
off he goes, uttering a loud chuckle—half as a challenge,
half as a vent for his pent-up anxiety.

This peculiar chuckle is so well known by all the other
birds as a note of alarm that every one in the garden im-
mediately moves his position, if only a yard or two. When
you are stealing down the side of the hedgerow, endeavour-
ing to get near enough to observe the woodpecker in a
tree, or with a gun to shoot a pigeon, the great anxiety is
lest you startle a blackbird. If he thinks you have not
seen him, he is cunning enough to slip out the other side
noiselessly and fly down beside the hedge just above the
ground for some distance. He then crosses the field to a
hedge on the other side, and, just as he safely lands him-
self in a thick hawthorn bush a hundred yards away,
defiantly utters his ery. The pigeon or the woodpecker
will instantly glance round; but, the cry being at a dis-
tance, if you keep still a minute or two they will resume
their occupation. But if you should disturb the blackbird
on the side of the bank next you, where he knows you
must have seen or heard him, or if he is obliged to come
out on your side of the hedge, then he makes the meadow
ring with his alarm-note, and immediately away goes
pigeon or woodpecker, thrushes fly further down the hedge,
and the rabbits feeding in the grass lift up their heads
und, seeing you, rush to their burrows. In this way the
blackbird acts as a general sentinel.

He has two variations of this cry. One he uses when
just about to change his feeding-ground and visit another
favourite corner across the field; it is as much as to say,
‘Take notice, all you menials; I, the king of the hedue,
am coming,’ The other is a warning, and will very often

The most impudent of Birds 133

set two or three other blackbirds calling in the same way
whose existence till then was unsuspected. These calls
are quite distinct from his song.

Sometimes, when sitting on a rail in the shade of a
great bush—a rail placed to close a gap—I have had a
blackbird come across the meadow and perch just above
my head. Till the moment of alighting he was ignorant
of my presence, and for a second the extremity of his
astonishment literally held him speechless at his own
temerity. The next—what an outcry and furious bustle
of excitement to escape! So in the garden here he makes
a desperate rush, seizes his prey, and off again twenty or
thirty yards, exhibiting an amusing mixture of courage
and timidity. This process he will repeat fifty times a
day. No matter how terribly frightened, his assurance
quickly returns, and another foray follows; so that you
begin by thinking him the most cowardly and end by
finding him the most impudent of birds.

I own I love the blackbird, and never weary of observ-
ing him. There is a bold English independence about
him—an insolent consciousness of his own beauty. He
must somehow have read Shakespeare, for he seems quite
aware of his ‘ orange tawny bill’ and deep black hue. He
might really know that he figures in a famous ballad, and
that four-and-twenty of his species were considered a dish
to set before a king.

It is a sight to see him take his bath. In a meadow
not far from the house here is a shallow but clear streamlet,
running down a deep broad ditch overshadowed by tall
hemlock and clogweed, arched over with willow, whose
leaves when the wind blows and their under-side is exposed
give the hedge a grey tint, with maple and briar. Hide
yourself here on a summer morning among the dry grass

134. IWVild Life in a Southern County

and bushes, and presently the blackbird comes to stand a
minute on a stone which checks the tiny stream like a
miniature rock, and then to splash the clear water over
head and back with immense energy. He repeats this
several times, and immediately afterwards flies to an ad-
jacent rail, where, unfettered by boughs, he can preen his
feathers, going through his toilet with the air of a prince.
Finally, he perks his tail up, and challenges the world with
the call already mentioned, which seems now to mean,
‘Come and see Me; am I not handsome ?’

On a warm June day, when the hedges are covered
with roses and the air is sweet with the odour of mown
grass, it is pleasant to listen to the blackbirds in the oaks
pouring forth their rich liquid notes. There is no note so
sweet and deep and melodious as that of the blackbird to
be heard in our fields; it is even richer than the nightin-
gale’s, though not so varied. Just before noonday—
between eleven and twelve—when the heat increases, he
leaves the low thick bushes and moist ditches and mounts
up into an oak tree, where, on a branch, he sits and sings.
Then another at a distance takes up the burden, till by-
and-by, as you listen, partly hidden in a gateway, four or
five are thus engaged in the trees of a single meadow.

He sings in a quiet, leisurely way, as a great artist
should—there is no haste, no notes thickening on notes in
swift crescendo. His voice (so to speak) drops from him,
without an effort, and is so clear that it may be heard at a
long distance. It is not a set song; perhaps, in strict
language, it is hardly a song at all, but rather a succession
of detached notes with intervals between. Except when
singing, the blackbird does not often frequent trees; he is
a hedge-bird, though sometimes when you are looking at
a field of green corn or beans one will rise out of it and

The Thrush's favourite Anvil 135

fly to a tree—a solitary tree such as is sometimes seen in
the midst of an arable field. At Wick Farm, sitting in
the cool parlour, or in the garden under the shade of the
trees, you may hear him almost every morning in the
meadows that come right up to the orchard hedge. That
hedge is his favourite approach to the garden: he flies to
it first, and gradually works his way along under cover till
nearer the cultivated beds. Both blackbird and thrush are
particularly fond of visiting a patch of cabbages in a shady,
quiet corner: there are generally two or three there after
the worms and caterpillars, and so forth.

The thrushes build in the garden in several places,
especially in an ivy-hidden arbour—a wooden frame com~-
pletely covered with ivy and creeping flowers. Close by
is a thick box-hedge, six feet high and nearly as much
through, and behind this is a low-thatched tool-house,
where spades, moletraps, scythes, reaping-hooks, and other
implements are kept. Here lies a sarsen-stone, hard as
iron, about a foot thick, the top of which chances to be
smooth and level. This is the thrush’s favourite anvil.

He searches about under the ivy, under which the snails
hide in their shells in the heat of the day, and brings them
forth into the light. The shell is too large for his beak to
hold it pincer-fashion, but at the entrance—the snail’s
doorway—he can thrust his bill in, and woe then to the
miserable occupant! With a hop and flutter the thrush
mounts the stone anvil, and there destroys his victim in
workmanlike style. Up goes his head, lifting the snail
high in the air, and then, smash! the shell comes down
on the stone with all the force he can use. About two
such blows break the shell, and he then coolly chips the
fragments off as you might from an egg, and makes very
few mouthfuls of the contents. On the stone and round

135 Weld Life in a Southern County

about it lie the fragments of many such shells—relics of
former feasts. Sometimes he will do this close to the bay-
window—if all is quiet—using the stone-flags for an anvil,
it he chances to find a snail hard by; but he prefers the
recess behind the box-hedge. The thrushes seem half-
domesticated here ; they are tame, too, in the hedges, and
will sit and sing on a bough overhead without fear while
you wait for a rabbit on the bank beneath.

Martins Nests 137

CHAPTER IX.

THE ORCHARD—EMIGRANT MARTINS—THE MISSEL-THRUSH—CARAVAN
ROUTE OF BIRDS AND ANIMALS—A FOX IN AMBUSH—A SNAKE IN
A CLOCK.

BroaD green paths, wide enough for three or four to walk
abreast, lead from the garden at Wick into the orchard.
On the side next the meadows the orchard is enclosed by
a hawthorn hedge, thick from constant cropping; on the
other a solid stone wall, about nine feet high, parts it from
the road. One summer day a party of martins attacked
this wall outside, and endeavoured to make their nest-
holes in it. These birds are called by the labourers ‘ quar-
martins,’ because they breed in holes drilled in the face of
the sandy precipices of quarries. The boys ‘draw’ their
nests—climbing up at the risk of their limbs—by insert-
ing a long briar, and, when they feel the nest, giving it a
twist which causes the hooked prickles of the stick to take
firm hold, and the nest is then dragged bodily out. The
flight that came to the orchard wall numbered about ten
or twelve, and for the best part of the day they remained
there, working their very hardest at the mortar between
the stones.

The wall being old, some of the mortar had crumbled
—it was not of the best quality—and here and there was
a small cavity. These a portion of the birds tried to
enlarge, while others boldly laboured in places where no

133. Wild Life tn a Southern County

such slight openings existed. It was interesting to watch
their patient efforts as they clung to the perpendicular
wall like bats. Now, two or three flew off and described a
few circles in the air, as if to rest themselves, and then again
returned to work. At last, convinced of the impossibility
of penetrating the mortar, which was much harder beneath
the surface, they went away in a body with a general
twitter, leaving distinct marks of their shallow excava-
tions. The circumstance was the more interesting because
the road was much frequented (for a rural district), and
many people stopped to look at them; but the birds did
not seem in the least alarmed, and evidently only left
because they found the wall impenetrable. Instinct, in-
fallible instinct, certainly would not direct these birds to
such an unsuitable spot. Neither was there any peculiar
advantage to attract them; it was not quiet or retired,
but the reverse. The incident was clearly an experiment,
and when they found it unsuccessful they desisted.

If we suppose this flight of martins to represent a
party emigrating from a sand quarry (there were three
such quarries within a mile radius), where the population
had overflowed, it seems possible to trace the motive which
animated them. I imagine that the old birds drive the
young ones away, when the young return to this country
with their parents after the annual migration. This is
particularly the case after a very favourable breeding
season, when more than the usual proportion of young
birds survive. After such a season, upon returning next
year to the sand quarry, the older birds drive off the
younger; and if these are so numerous that they cannot
find room in another part of the quarry, they emigrate in
small parties.

I think the same thing happens with rooks. The

Putting the Hawk to Flight 139

older rooks will only permit a few of their last year’s off-
spring to build near them. Ifa gentleman has an avenue
of fine elm trees in which he desires to have a rookery,
but cannot contrive to attract them, though perhaps now
and then a nest is partly built and then deserted, an ex-
periment founded on this idea might be tried. It would
be necessary to ask the assistance of the proprietors of the
nearest rookeries, and beg them for one year to refrain
from shooting the young rooks, after the well-known
custom. An unusual proportion of young birds would
then survive, and next building season the larger part of
these would return to the old trees and be immediately
met in battle by their older relatives. Being driven away
from the hereditary group of trees, they would resort to
the next nearest avenue or grove; if they attempted to
mix with a strange tribe, they would encounter a still
fiercer resistance. In this way possibly the avenue in
question might become stocked with rooks.

One reason, I fancy, why nests begun in such distant
trees are so often deserted before completion is that a
solitary nest exposes both the building birds and their
prospective offspring to grave danger from hawks. No
hawk will attempt to approach a rookery—the rooks would
attack him en masse and easily put him to flight. Chickens
are safer under or near a rookery from this cause: a hawk
approaching them would alarm the rooks and be beaten
away. The comparative safety afforded by numbers is
perhaps a reason why many species of birds are gregarious.
The apparently defenceless martins and swallows in this
way dwell in some amount of security. If a hawk comes
near the sand quarry (or the house—in the case of swal-
lows) they all join together and pursue him, twittering
angrily, and as a matter of fact generally succeed in send-

140 Wild Life in a Southern County

ing him about his business. Even those birds which do
not build in close contiguity no sooner find that a hawk is
near than they rise simultaneously and follow and annoy
him: so much so that he will sometimes actually drop
the prey he has captured. It is astonishing with what
temerity small birds, emboldened by numbers—chaffinches,
finches generally, sparrows, swallows, and so on—will
attack a hawk.

The ‘ quar-martins’ that came to the orchard wall—
emigrating from the quarry, and wandering about in
search of a suitable habitation—if young birds, as we have
supposed them to be, would naturally not yet have had
much experience, and so might think the steep wall
(roughly resembling the face of a quarry) available for
their purpose till they had made the experiment. I have
thought, from watching the motions of birds that go in
flights, that most of them have a kind of leader or chief.
They do not yield anything like the same obedience or
reverence to the chief as the bees do to the queen-bee,
and exhibit little traces of following his motions implicitly.
He is more like the president of a republic; each member
is individually free, and twitters his or her mind just as
he or she likes. But it seems to be reserved to one bird
to give the signal for all to move. So these martins, after
lingering about the wall for hours—some of them, too,
leaving it and flying away only to come back again—
finally started altogether. It is difficult to account for such
simultaneous and combined movements, unless we suppose
that it is reserved to a certain bird to give the signal.

In the fork of a great apple tree—a Blenheim orange
—the missel-thrush has built her nest. Missel-thrushes,
doubtless of the same family, have used the tre2 for many
years. Though the nest is large, the young birds as they

1 bold, determined Dird 141

grow up soon get too big for it and fall out. This period
—just before the young can fly—is the most critical in
their existence, and causes the greatest anxiety to the
parents. Without the resource of flight, weak and unable
even to scramble fast through the long grass, betraying
their presence by continually crying for food, they are
exposed to dangers from every species of vermin.

The missel-thrush is a bold, determined bird, and does
his utmost in the defence of his offspring. When the
young birds fall out of the nest (so soon as one has clam-
bered over, the others quickly follow), the parents rarely
leave the orchard together. One or other is almost always
close at hand. If any enemy approaches they immediately
set up an angry chattering, by which noise you may at
once know what is going on. I have seen two missel-
thrushes attack a crow in this way. The crow came and
perched upon a bough within a yard of their nest, which
contained young. The old birds were there immediately,
and they so annoyed and buffeted the murderous robber
that he left without achieving his fell purpose.

The cat is the worst enemy of the missel-thrush. It
is noticeable that while these thrushes will attack anything
that flies they are not so bold on the ground, but seem
afraid to alight. They will strike even at the human
hand that touches their nest. The crow, strong as he
is, they courageously drive away; but the enemy that
stealthily approaches along the ground to the helpless
young bird in the grass they cannot resist. On the wing
they can retreat quickly if pressed; on the ground they
cannot move so swiftly, and may themselves fall a prey
without affording any assistance. The missel-thrushes
come to the orchard frequently after the nesting season is
over and before it commences. They do not seem in

142 Wild Life in a Southern County

search of food, but alight on the trees as if to view their
property. They are strong on the wing, and fly direct to
their object: there is something decided, courageous, and,
as one might say, manly in their character.

The bark of some of the apple-trees peels of itself—that
is, the thin outer skin—and insects creep under these brown
scales curled at the edges. If you sit down on the elm
butt placed here as a seat and watch quietly, before long
the little tree-climber will come. He flies to the trunk of
the apple tree (other birds fly to the branches), and then
proceeds to ascend it, going round it as he rises in a spiral.
His claws cling tenaciously to the bark, his tail touches the
tree, and seems to act as a support—like what I think the
carpenters call a ‘knee ’—and his head is thrown back so as
to enable him to spy into every cranny he passes. After a
few turns round the trunk he is off to another tree, to resume
the same restless spiral ascent there; and in a minute or so
off again to a third; for he never apparently examines one
half of the trunk, though, probably, his eyes, accustomed
to the work, see farther than we may imagine. The orchard
is never long without a tree-climber: it seems a favourite
resort of these birds. They havea habit of rushing quickly
a little way up; then pausing, and again creeping swiftly
another foot, or so, and are so absorbed in their pursuit that
they are easily approached and observed.

Who can stay indoors when the goldfinches are busy
among the bloom on the apple trees? A flood of sunshine
falling through a roof of rosy pink and delicate white
blossom overhead ; underneath, grass deeply green with the
vigour of spring, dotted with yellow buttercups, and strewn
with bloom shaken by the wind from the trees: is not this
better than formal-patterned carpets, and the white flat
ceilings that weigh so heavily upon the sight? Listen how

Feathered Travellers’ Leafy Capital 143

happy the goldfinches are in the orchard. Summer after
summer they build in the same trees—bushy-headed cod-
lings; generation after generation has been born there and
gone forth to enjoy in turn the pleasures of the field.

A year—nay, asingle summer—must be a long time in
their chronology, for they are so very very busy: a bright
sunshiny day must be like amonthto them. Now coquet-
ting, now splashing at the sandy edge of a shallow streamlet
till the golden feathers glisten from the water and the red
topknot shines, away again along the hedgerow searching for
seeds, singing all the while, and the tiny heart beating so
rapidly as to compress twice as many beats of emotion into
the minute as our sluggish organisations are capable of.
Though a path much frequented by the household passes
beneath the trees in which they build, they show no fear.

Just as men from various causes congregate in particular
places, so there are spots in the fields—in the country gene-
rally—which appear to specially attract birds of all kinds.
Wide districts are almost bare of them: on a single farm
you may often find a great meadow which scarcely seems to
have a bird in it, while another little oddly-cornered field

_is populous with them. This orchard and garden at Wick
is one of the favourite places. It is like one of those
Eastern mazts where men of fifty different nationalities, and
picturesquely clad, jostle each other in the bazaars: so
here feathered travellers of every species have a kind of
leafy capital. When the nesting time is over the gold-
finches quit the orchard, and only return for a brief call
now and then. I almost think the finches have got regular
caravan routes round and across the fields which they travel
in small bands.

Tn the meadow, just without the close-cropped hawthorn
which encloses one side of the orchard, is a thick hedge,

144 Wild Life in a Southern County

the end of which comes right up to the apple-trees, being
only separated by the ha-ha wall anda ditch. This hedge,
dividing two meadows, is about two hundred yards long,
and well grown with a variety of underwood, hazel, wil-
low, maple, hawthorn, blackthorn, elder, &c., and studded
with some few elms and ashes, and a fine horse-chest-
nut. Down the ditch for some distance runs a little
stream (except in a long drought); and where another
hedge branches from it is a hollow space arched over and
roofed with boughs. Now this hedge is a favourite highway
of birds and other wild creatures, and leads direct to the
orchard. Most of the visitors to the house and garden
come down it—it is one of their caravan routes.

If ona summer’s morning you go and sit in the gateway
about half-way up the hedge, partly hidden by a pollard
ash and great hawthorn bushes, you will not have long
to wait before you hear the pleasant calls of the greenfinches
coming. They seem always to travel two or more pairs
together, and constantly utter a soothing call, as if to say
to their companions, ‘ Here we are, close by, dearest.’ They
all appear to know exactly where they are going—flitting
across the gateway one by one, moving of one accord in the
same direction; and their contented notes gradually become
inaudible as they go towardsthe orchard. The goldfinches
use the same route; sodo the bullfinches. Even the star-
lings, before they come to the house, usually perch on an
ash tree in this hedge.

There is another hedge, running parallel to it, 150 yards
distant, the end of which also approaches the premises, but
it is comparatively deserted. You may wait there in vain
and see nothing but a robin.

By the same caravan route the blackbirds come to the
garden; they, however, are not such travelling birds as the

fTung with Festoons of Eggs 145

finches. But the tomtits are: they work their way from
tree to tree for miles; they also come to the orchard by this
hedge highway. As I have said before, it abuts on the
orchard; and a straight line carried across to the orchard
wall, over that and the road outside, would strike another
great hedge which, were it not for the intervention of the
garden, would be a continuation of the first. The finches,
after spending alittle time in the apple and damson trees,
fly over the wall and road to this second hedge, and follow
it down.for nearly half a mile to a little enclosed meadow,
which, like the orchard, is a specially favourite resort. The
fondness of birds for this route is very striking ; they are
constantly passing up or down it. There is another such
favourite route at some distance, running beside a brook
and likewise leading to the same enclosed meadow—of
which more presently. I think I could make a map of
these fields, showing the routes and resorts of furred and
feathered creatures.

Near the ha-ha wall, where the great meadow-hedge
comes up to the orchard, is a summer-house, witha conical
thatched roof and circular window. It is hung all round
under the ceiling with festoons of eggs taken by the boys of
the farmstead, cordially assisted by the carter’s lads when
not at work. There may be perhaps forty varieties, arranged
so as to increase in size from the tiny tomtits up to the
large wood-pigeons, the peewits, corn-crake, and crow : some
milk-white, others splotched with dark brown spots and
veins, others again blue. These eggs, when taken and the
yolk blown out, were strung on a bennet and s0 carried
home. The lads like to get them as soon after laid as pos-
sible, because they blow best then; if hard set the shell
may break.

In the circular window they have left a nest of the long-

L

140 Wild Life in a Southern County

tailed tit, or ‘tit-mouse,’ built exactly in the shape of
a hut with roof and tiny doorway, and always securely
attacked in the midst of a thorn bush to branches that are
stiff and unlikely to bend with the breeze, so that this
beautiful piece of bird-architecture may not be disturbed.
To take it, it is generally necessary to cut away several
boughs. Such nests are often seen in farmhouses placed as
an ornament on the mantelpiece. Spiders have filled the
window with their webs, and to these every now and then
during the day—there is no door to the summer-house—
come a robin, a wren, and a flycatcher. Hither of these,
but more particularly the two last, will take insects from
the spider’s web.

The flycatcher has a favourite perch close by, and may
perhaps hear the shrill buzz when an insect is caught. The
flycatcher is a regular summer visitor: in the orchard,
garden, and adjacent rickyard at least three pairs build
every year. Under the shady apple trees near the summer-
house one may be seen the whole day long ever on the
watch. He perches on a dead branch, low down—not up
among the boughs, but as much as possible under them.
Every two or three minutes he flies swiftly from his perch
a few yards, darts on an insect—you cannot see it, but can
distinctly hear the snap of the bill—and returns to his
post. He uses the same perch for half an hour or more;
then shifts to another at a little distance, and so works all
yound the orchard, but regularly comes back to the same
~pot. By waiting near it you may be certain of seeing him
presently ; and he is very tame, and will carry on opera-
tions within a few yards—sometimes picking up a fly almost
within reach of your hand. It is noticeable that many
insect-eating birds are especially tame. They will occa-
sionally dart after a moth, but drop it again—as if they did

A Lucky Moth 147

uot care for that kind of food, and yet could not resist the
habit of snapping at such things.

I once saw a flycatcher rush after a buff-coloured moth,
which fluttered aimlessly out of a shady recess: he snapped
it, held it a second or two while hovering in the air, and
then let it go. Instantly a swallow swooped down, caught
the moth, and bore it thirty or forty feet high, then dropped
it, when, as the moth came slowly down, another swallow
seized it and carried it some yards and then left hold, and
the poor creature after all went free. I have seen other
instances of swallows catching good-sized moths to let
them go again.

The brown linnet is another regular visitor building
in the orchard; so too the blackcap, whose song, though
short, is sweet; and the bold bright bullfinches use the
close-cropped hawthorn. They have always a nest there,
made of slender fibres dexterously interwoven. There is
a group of elms near the further end of the enclosure, and
another by the rickyard ; linnets seem fond of elms,

A pair of squirrels sometimes come down the same
hedge—it is a favourite highway of wild animals as well
as birds—to the orchard, and play in the apple trees:
they even venture to a tree only a few yards from the
house. If not disturbed they stay a good while, and then
return by the way they came to a copse at the top of the
meadow. The corner formed by the hedge and the copse—
quiet, but in easy view from the house—is especially fre-
quented by them. Their lively motions on the ground
are very amusing; they visit the ground much oftener
than may be generally supposed. Fir trees seem to attract
them—where there is a plantation of firs you may be sure
of finding a squirrel.

When alarmed or chased a squirrel always ascends the

L 2

148 Wild Life m a Southern County

tree on the opposite side away from you—he will not run
to a solitary tree if he can possibly avoid it: he likes a
group, and his trick is, the moment he thinks he is out of
sight among the upper branches, to slip quietly from one
tree to the other till, while you are scanning every bough,
he has travelled fifty yards away unnoticed. If the
branches are not close enough to hide him, he gets as
much as possible behind a large branch, and stretches,
himself along it—at the same time his tail, which at
other times is bushy, seems to contract, so that he is less
visible. He will leap in his alarm to dead branches, and,
though his weight is trifling, occasionally they snap under
the sudden impact; but that does not distress him in the
least, because a bough rarely breaks clean off, but hangs
suspended by bark or splinters, so that he can scramble to
the ivy that winds round the trunk. Or if he is obliged
to slip down, the next branch catches him; and I have
never seen a squirrel actually fall, though sometimes in
his frightened haste he will send a number of little dead
twigs rustling downwards. When the tail is spread
out, so to say, its texture is so fine and silky that the
light seems to play through it. They love this particular
corner because just there the hedge is composed of hazel
bushes, and even when the nuts are gone from the
branches they still find some which have dropped upon
the bank and are hidden in the dry grass and brown
leaves.

In this corner, too, the bank being dry and sandy,
there is a large settlement of rabbits, and now and then
some of these find their way to the orchard and garden
along the hedge. Rabbits have their own social laws and
customs adapted to the special conditions of their way of
life. At the breeding season there seems to be a tendency

Rabbits and Weasels 149

to migrate on the part of the younger rabbits from the
great ‘bury’ hitherto their home. Many solitary holes
at some distance are then occupied, and the fresh sand
thrown out shows that a tenant has entered on possession.
In this way one or two take up their residence more than
half-way down the hedge towards the orchard. Then the
doe seems to have a desire to separate herself at a certain
period from the rest. She goes out into the mowing-
grass perhaps thirty yards from the ‘ bury,’ and there the
young are born in a short hole excavated for the purpose.
The young rabbits naturally remain close to their birth-
place; they are conducted to the hedge as soon as they
are old enough to run about; and so a fresh colony is
formed. As they get larger, or, say, soon after mid-
summer, they appear to show a tendency to roam; and
by the autumn, if left undisturbed, descendants from the
original settlement will have pushed outposts to a con-
siderable distance. These, having been bred near, have
little fear of entering the orchard, or even the garden, and
next season will rear their offspring close at hand and feed
in the enclosure, using the close-cropped hawthorn as a
cover.

Weasels also occasionally come down the hedge into
the orchard for the various prey they find there; they
visit the outhouses and sheds, too, at intervals in the
cattle-yards adjoining the house. More rarely the stoat
does the same. A weasel may frequently be found prowl-
ing in the highway hedge. When a weasel runs fast on a
level hard surface—as across a road—the hinder quarters
seem every now and then to jump up as if rebounding
from the surface; his legs look too short for the speed he
is going. This peculiar motion gives them when in haste
an odd appearance. In a less degree, a mouse rushing in

150 06«-:*SW tld’ Life tu a Southern County

alarm across a road does the same. The motion ceases
the moment mouse or weasel reaches the turf, which is
rarely quite level.

The brown field-mouse may be found in the orchard
hedge, but is so unobtrusive that his presence is hardly
observed. There are many more of these mice in the
hedges than are suspected to be there; their little bodies
slip about so near the surface of the brown earth, the
colour of which they resemble, that few notice them unless
they chance to be calling each other in their shrill treble.
Even then, though the sound be audible, the mouse is in-
visible ; but you cannot sit quiet in a hedge very long in
summer without becoming aware of their presence. Some
of the older branches of the hawthorn bushes, bent down
when young by the hedge-cutter, are nearly horizontal and
free for some part of their length of twigs. The mice run
along these natural bridges from one part of the hedge to
the other.

Last spring I watched a mouse very busily engaged
sitting on such a branch, about a foot above the bank,
nibbling the tender top leaves of the ‘clite’ plant. The
‘clite’ grows with great rapidity, and climbs up into the
hedge; this plant had already pushed up ten or twelve
inches, so that the mouse on the branch was just about on
a level with the upper and tenderest leaves. These he
drew towards him with his fore feet and complacently
nibbled. When he had picked out what suited his fancy
he ran along the branch, and in an instant was lost to
sight on the bank among the grass.

The nests of the ‘ harvest trow “—a still smaller mouse,
seldom seen except in summer—are common in the grass
of the orchard (and in almost every meadow) before it is
mown. As the summer wanes their dead bodies are fre-

The Fox in the Drain 151

quently found in the footpaths; for a kind of epizoic seems
to seize them at that time, and they die in numbers. It
is curious that an animal which carefully conceals itself in
health should at the approach of death seek an open and
exposed place like a footpath worn clear of grass.

In the ha-ha wall, at that part of the orchard where
the highway hedge comes up, is the square mouth of a
rather large drain. The drain itself is of rude construc-
tion—two stones on edge and a third across at the top. It
comes from the cowyard, passing under the outermost
part of the garden a considerable distance away from the
house. Very early one morning the labourers, coming to
work, saw a fox slip into the mouth of the drain through
the long grass of the meadow on which it opened. In the
summer, the cattle being all out in the fields, the drain
was perfectly dry, and it was known that now and then
the rabbits from the hedge made use of it as a temporary
place of concealment. No doubt the presence of a rabbit
in it was the cause of the fox entering in the first place.
The rabbit must have had a very bad time of it, for, the
drain being closed at the other end with an iron grating,
no possibility of escape existed.

From the traces in the grass and on the dry mud at
the mouth it appeared as if the fox had ventured there
more than once; and, as there were many chickens about,
his object in lying here was evident. The great hedge being
so near, and the narrow space between full of tall mowing
grass—the edge of the ha-ha wall, too, clothed with stone-
crop and grasses growing in the interstices of the loose
stones, and further sheltered by a low box hedge—it was
a place almost made on purpose for Reynard’s cunning
ambuscade. He is as bold or even bolder than he is cun-
ning. A young dog sent up the drain came back quicker

152 Wild Life in a Southern County

than he went, and refused to venture a second time. The
fox remained there all day, and of course ‘ made tracks’ at
night, knowing that his presence had been discovered by
the commotion and talking at the mouth of his cave. He
might easily have been captured, but that was not attempted
on account of the hunt.

Though the fox as a general rule sleeps during the
day, he does not always, but sometimes makes a successful
foray in broad daylight. Fowls, for instance, at night
roost in the sheds at some height from the ground—often
the sheds are contrived specially to protect them; but in
the day they roam about in the vicinity of the rickyards
where they are kept. They will make runs down the
centre of a double-mound hedge, and while thus rambling
occasionally stroll into the jaws of their foe, who has been
patiently waiting hidden in the long grass and underwood.
In the day, too, rabbits often sit out in a bunch of grass,
or dry furrow, a long way from the ‘bury.’ Their form is
usually within a few paces of a well-marked ‘run ’—they
follow the run out into the field, and then leave it and go
among the grass at one side. The run, therefore, some-
times acts as a guide to the fox, who, sheltered by the tall
bennets and thick bunches, occasionally glides up it in the
daytime to his prey.

There is sure to be a snake or two in the grass of the
orchard during the summer, especially if there chance to
be an old manure-heap anywhere near; for that is the
place in which they like to leave their chains of white
eggs, out of which, if broken, the little snakes issue only
two or three inches in length. The heat of the manure-
heap acts as an incubator. When it is wet and the hay
cannot be touched, the hay-makers, there being nothing
else for them to do, are put to turn such heaps, and fre-

The Toad does good Service i353

quently find the eggs of snakes. These creatures now and
then get inside farmhouses, whose floors are generally ona
level with the surface of the earth or nearly so. They
have been found in the clockcase—the old upright eight-
day clock, standing on the floor; they come after the frogs
that enter at the doors—always wide open in summer—
and are supposed also to eat crumbs.

In the cellar there is sure to be a toad under the
barrels on the cool stone-flags; in the garden there is
another, purposely kept in the cucumber-frame to protect
the plant from being eaten by creeping things. It is
curious to notice that they both seem to flourish equally
well—one in the coolest, the other in the hottest place. A
third may generally be found in the strawberry-bed.
Strawberries are much eaten by insects of many kinds; so
that the toad really does good service in a garden.

In winter, when snow is on the ground, a few larks
sometimes venture into the garden where anything green
yet shows above the white covering on the patches. If
the weather is severe, the moorhen will come up from the
brook, though two fields distant, in the night, and the
marks of her feet may be traced round the house. Then,
as the evening approaches, the wild ducks pass over, and
every now and then during the night the weird cries of
waterfowl resound in the frosty air. The heron sails
slowly over, every night and every morning, backwards
and forwards from the mere to the water-meadows and the
brook, uttering his unearthly call at intervals.

154 Wald Life in a Southern County

CHAPTER X.

THE WOOD-PILE—LIZARDS—SHEDS AND RICKYARD—THE WITCHES’
BRIAR—INSECTIS—PLANTS, FLOWERS, AND FRUIT.

THE farmhouse at Wick has the gardens and orchard
already mentioned upon one side, and on the other are the
carthouses, sheds, and rickyard. Between these latter and
the dwelling runs a broad roadway for the waggons to
enter and leave the fields, and on its border stands a great
wood-pile. The faggots cut in the winter from the hedges
are here stacked up as high as the roof of a cottage, and
near by lies a heap of ponderous logs waiting to be split
for firewood. From exposure to the weather the bark of
the faggot-sticks has turned black and is rapidly decaying,
and under it innumerable insects have made their homes.
For these, probably, the wrens visit the wood-pile con-
tinually; if in passing any one strikes the faggots with a
stick, a wren will generally fly out on the opposite side.
They creep like mice in between the faggots—there are
numerous interstices—and thus sometimes pass right
through a corner of the stack. Sometimes a pole which has
been lying by for a length of time is found to be curiousiy
chased, as it were, all over the surface under the loose
bark by creeping things. They eat channels interweaving
and winding in and out in an intricate pattern, occasion-
ally a little resembling the Moorish style of ornamentation
seen on the walls of the Alhambra. I have found poles so

Lizards (55

curiously carved like this that the idea naturally occurred
of using them for cabinet-work. They might at least have
supplied a hint for a design. Besides the wrens, many
other birds visit the wood-pile—sparrows are perpetually
coming, and on the retired side towards the meadow the
robins build their nests. On the ridge where some of the
sticks project the swallows often perch and twitter—gene-
rally a pair seem to come together.

It takes skill as well as mere strength even to do so
simple a thing as to split the rough logs lying here on the
ground. They are not like those Abraham Lincoln began
life working at—even-grained wood, quickly divided—but
tough and full of knots strangely twisted; so that it needs
judgment to put the wedges in the right place.

Near the wood-pile is a well and a stone trough for
thirsty horses to drink from, and as the water, carelessly
pumped in by the carters’ lads, frequently overflows, the
ground just there is usually moist. If one of the loose
oak logs that lie here with the grass growing up round it
is rolled over, occasionally a lizard may be found under it,
This lizard is slender, and not more than three or four
inches in length, general colour a yellowish green. Where
one is found a second is commonly close by. They are
elegantly shaped, and quick in their motions, speedily
making off. They may now and then be discovered under
large stones, if there is a crevice, in the meadows. They
do not in the least resemble the ordinary ‘ land-lizard,’
which is a much coarser-looking and larger creature, and
is not an inhabitant of this locality: at all events it is
rare enough to have escaped me here, though I have often
observed it in districts where the soil is light and sandy
and where there is a good deal of heath-land. The land-
lizards will stroll indoors if the door be left open. These

156 = WN tld Life tn a Southern County

lesser but more elegant lizards appear to prefer a damp
spot—cool and moist, but not positively wet.

A large shed built against the side of the adjacent
stable is used as a carpenter’s workshop—much carpenter's
work is done on a farm—and here is a bench with a vice
and variety of tools. When sawing, the wood operated
on often ‘ties’ the saw, as it is called—that is, pinches it
—which makes it hard to work; a thin wedge of wood is
then inserted to open a way, and the blade of the saw
rubbed with a little grease, which the metal, heated hy
the friction, melts into oil. This eases the work—a little
grease, too, will make a gimlet bore quicker. Country
carpenters keep this grease in a horn—a cow’s horn
stopped at the larger end with a piece of wood and at the
other by its own natural growth. Now the mice (which
are everywhere on farm premises) are so outrageously fond
of grease that they will spend any length of time gnaw-
gnaw-gnawing till they do get at it. Right through the
solid stopper of wood they eat their way, and even through
the horn; so that the carpenter is puzzled to know how
to preserve it out of their reach. It is of no use putting
it on a shelf, because they either rush up the wall or drop
from above. At last, however, he has hit upon a dodge.

He has suspended the horn high above the ground by
a loop of copper wire, which projects six or eight inches
from the wall, like a lamp on a bracket. The mice may
get on the bench, and may run up the wall, but when
they get to the wire they cannot walk out on it—like
tight-rope walking—the more especially as the wire, being
thin and flexible, bends and sways if they attempt it.
This answers the purpose as a rule; but even here the
carpenter declares that once now and then his horu is
pilfered, and can only account for it by supposing that a

Flaunts of the Bat 157

bolder mouse than common makes a desperate leap for it,
and succeeds in landing on the flat surface of the wooden
stopper.

The shed has one small window only, which has no
glass, but is secured by an iron bar (he needs no larger
window, for all carpenters work with the door open); and
through this window a robin has entered and built a nest
in a quiet corner behind some timber. Though a man is
at work here so often, hammering and sawing, the birds
come fearlessly to their young, and pick up the crumbs he
leaves from his luncheon.

Between the timber framework of the shed and the
brickwork of the adjacent stable chinks have opened, and
in these and in the chinks between the wooden lintel of
the stable-door and the bricks above it the bats frequently
hide, passing the day there. Others hide in the tiles of
the roof where their nests are made. The labouring lads
often amuse themselves searching for these creatures,
whose one object in daylight seems to be to cling to some-
thing; they will hang to the coat with the claws at the
extremity of their membranous wings, and if left alone
will creep out of sight into the pocket. There are two
well-marked species of bats here—one small and the other
much larger.

The lesser bat flies nearer to the ground, and almost
always follows the contour of some object or building.
They hawk to and fro for hours in the evening under the
eaves of the farmhouse, and frequently enter the great
garrets and the still larger cheese-room (where the cheese
is stored to mature)—sometimes through the windows,
and sometimes seeming to creep through holes made by
sparrows or starlings in the roof. Moths are probably the
attraction; of these there are generally plenty in and

158 Wild Life in a Southern County

about old houses. Occasionally a bat will come into the
sitting-room, should the doors be left open on a warm
summer evening: this the old folk think an evil omen,
and still worse if in its alarm at the attempts made to
drive it away it should chance to knock against the candle
and overturn or put it out. They think, too, that a bat
seen in daytime is a bad sign. Once now and then one
gets disturbed by some means in the tiles, and flutters in
a helpless manner to the nearest shelter; for in daylight
they seem quite at a loss, though flying so swiftly at night.

The greater bat hawks at a considerable elevation
above houses and trees, and wheels and turns with singular
abruptness, so that some think it a test of a good shot to
bring them down. The reason, however, why many find
it difficult to hit a bat is because they are unaccustomed
to shoot at night, and not because of its manner of flight,
for it often goes quite straight. It is also believed to be
a test of good hearing to be able to hear the low shrill
squeak of the bat uttered as it flies: the same is said of
the shrew mouse, whose cry is yet more faint and acute.
The swift, too, has a peculiar kind of screech, but easily
heard,

Beyond the stables are the cattle-sheds and cow-yards.
These sheds are open on the side towards the yard, sup-
ported there by a row of wooden pillars stepped on stones
to keep them from rotting. On the large cross-beams
within the swallows make their nests. When the eggs
are hard set, the bird will sit so close that with care and a
gentle manner of approach you may sometimes even stroke
her back lightly with your finger without making her rise.
They become so accustomed to men constantly in and out
the sheds as to feel little alarm. Some build their nests
higher up under the roof-tree,

Rooks and Rats 159

To the adjoining rickyard redstarts come every sum-
mer, building their nests there; ‘horse-matchers’ or
stonechats also in summer often visit the rickyard, though
they do not build in it. Some elm trees shade the ricks,
and once now and then a wood-pigeon settles in them for
a little while. The coo of the dove may be heard fre-
quently, but she does not build very near the house.

On this farm the rookery is at some distance in the
meadows, and the rooks rarely come nearer than the field
just outside the post and rails that enclose the rickyard,
though they pass over constantly, flying low down without
fear, unless some one chances just then to come out carry-
ingagun. Then they seem seized with an uncontrollable
panic, and stop short in their career by a violent effort of
the wings, to wheel off immediately at a tangent. Per-
haps no other bird shows such evident signs of recognising
a gun. Chaffinches, it must not be forgotten, frequent
the rickyard in numbers.

Finally come the rats. Though trapped, shot, and
ferreted without mercy, the rats insist on a share of the
good things going. They especially haunt the pigsties,
and when the pigs are served with their food feed with
them at the same trough. Those old rats that come to the
farmstead are cunning fierce beasts, not to be destroyed with-
out much difficulty. They will not step on a trap, though
never so cleverly laid; they will face a ferret, unless he
happens to be particularly large and determined, and bite
viciously at dogs. But with all their cunning there is
one simple trick which they are not up to: this is to post
yourself high up above the ground, when they will not
suspect your presence ; a ladder is placed against a tree
within easy shot of the pigsty, and the gunner, having pre-
viously arranged that everything shall be kept quiet, takes

1600)=—- Wald Life in a Southern County

his stand on it, and from thence kills a couple perhaps at
once.

On looking back, it appears that the farmhouse, garden,
orchard, and rickyard at Wick are constantly visited by
about thirty-five wild creatures, and, in addition, five others
come now and then, making a total of forty. Of these
forty, twenty-six are birds, two bats, eight quadrupeds,
and four reptiles. This does not include some few addi-
tional birds that only come at long intervals, nor those
that simply fly overhead or are heard singing at a
distance.

The great meadow hedge—the highway of the birds—
where it approaches the ha-ha wall of the orchard, is lovely
in June with the wild roses blooming on the briars which
there grow in profusion. Some of these briars stretch
forth into the meadow, and then, bent down by their own
weight, form an arch crowned with flowers. There is an
old superstition about these arches of briar hung out along
the hedge-row: magical cures of whooping-cough and
some other diseases of childhood can, it is believed, be
effected by passing the child at sunrise under the briar
facing the rising sun.

This had to be performed by the ‘wise woman.’ There
was one in every hamlet but a few years ago—and indeed
here and there an aged woman retains something like a
reputation for witchcraft still. The ‘wise woman’ con-
ducted the child entrusted to her care at the dawn to the
hedge, where she knew there was a briar growing in such
a position that a person could creep under it facing the
east, and there, as the sun rose, passed the child through.

In the hollow just beneath the ha-ha wall, where it is
moist, grow tall rushes; and here the great dragon-fly
darts to and fro so swiftly as to leave the impression of a

A most bloodthirsty [nsect 161

line of green drawn suddenly through the air. Though
travelling at such speed, he has the power of stopping
abruptly, and instantly afterwards returns upon his path.
These handsome insects are often placed on mirrors as an
ornament in farmhouses. The labourers will have it that
they sting like the hornet; but this they say also of many
other harmless creatures, seeming to have a general distrust
of the insect kind. They will tell you alarming stories
of terrible sufferings—arms swollen to double the natural
size, necks inflamed, and so forth—caused by the bites of
unknown flies. Not being able to discover what fly it is
that inflicts these poisonous wounds, and having spent so
many hours in the fields without experiencing such effects,
I rather doubt these statements, though put forth in perfect
good faith: indeed, I have often seen the arms and chests
of the men in harvest time with huge bumps rising on them
which they declared were thus caused. The common harvest
bug, which gets under the skin, certainly does not cause
such great swellings as I have seen; nor the stoat-fly,
which latter is the most bloodthirsty wretch imaginable.

With a low hissing buzz, a long, narrow, and brownish
grey insect settles on your hand as you walk among the
hay, and presently you feel a tingling sensation, and may
watch (if you have the patience to endure the irritation)
its body gradually dilate and grow darker in colour as it
absorbs the blood. When once thoroughly engaged,
nothing will frighten this fly away: you may crush him,
but he will not move from fear: he will remain till, replete
with blood, he falls off helpless into the grass.

The horses in the waggons have at-this season to be
watched by a boy armed with a spray of ash, with which
he flicks off the stoats that would otherwise drive the
animals frantic. A green spray is a great protection

M

162 Wild Life tu a Southern County

against flies; if you carry a bough in your hand as you
walk among the meadows they will not annoy you half so
much. Such a bough is very necessary when lying perdu
in a dry ditch in summer to shoot a young rabbit, and
when it is essential to keep quiet and still. Without it
it is difficult to avoid lifting the hand to knock the flies
away—which motion is sure to alarm the rabbit that may
at that very moment be peeping out preparatory to issuing
from his hole. It is impossible not to pity the horses in
the hayfields on a sultry day; despite all the care taken,
their nostrils are literally black with crowds of flies, which
constantly endeavour to crawl over the eyeball. Sunshine
itself does not appear so potent in bringing forth insects
as the close electrical kind of heat that precedes a thunder-
storm. This is so well known that when the flies are more
than usually busy the farmer makes haste to get in his
hay, and lets down the canvas over his rick. The cows
give warning at the same time by scampering about in the
wildest and most ludicrous manner—their tails held up.in
the air—tormented by insects.

The ha-ha wall, built of loose stones, is the home of
thousands upon thousands of ants, whose nests are every-
where here, the ground being undisturbed by passing
footsteps. They ascend trees to a great height, and may
be seen going up the trunk sometimes in a continuous
stream, one behind the other in Indian file.

In one spot on the hedge of the ha-ha is a row of bee-
hives—the garden wall and a shrubbery shelter them here
from the north and east, and the drop of the ha-ha gives
them a clear exit and entrance. This is thought a great
advantage—not to have any hedge or bush in front of the
hives—because the bees, heavily laden with honey or
pollen, encounter no obstruction in coming home. They

Bees and Hornets 163

are believed to work more energetically when this is the
case, and they certainly do seem to exhibit signs of
annoyance, as if out of temper, if they get entangled in a
bush. Indeed, if you chance to be pursued by an angry
cloud of bees whose ire you have aroused, the only safe
place is a hedge or bush, into which make haste to thrust
yourself, when the boughs and leaves will baffle them. If
the hive be moved to a different place, the bees that chance
at the time to be out in the fields collecting honey, upon
their return, finding their home gone, are evidently at a
loss. They fly round, hovering about over the spot for a
long time before they discover the fresh position of the hive.

The great hornet, with its tinge of reddish orange,
comes through the garden sometimes with a heavy buzz,
distinguishable in a moment from the sound of any other
insect. All country folk believe the hornet’s sting to be
the most poisonous and painful of any, and will relate
instances of persons losing the use of their arms for a few
days in consequence of the violent inflammation. Some-
times the hornet selects for its nest an aperture in an old
shed near the farmhouse. I have seen their nests quite
close to houses; but, unless wantonly disturbed, there is
not the slightest danger from them, or indeed from any
other insects of this class. I think the common hive-bees
are the worst tempered of any—they resent the slightest
interference with their motions. The hornet often chooses
ap old hollow withy-pollard for the site of its nest.

In the orchard there is at least one nest of the humble-
bee, made at a great depth in a deserted mouse’s hole.
These bees have eaten away and removed the grass just
round the entrance, so as to get a clear road in and out.
They are as industrious as the hive bee; but, as there are
not nearly so many working together in one colony, they

m2

164 Wild Life in a Southern County

do not store up anything approaching to the same quantity
of honey. There is a superstition that if a humble-bee
buzzes in at the window of the sitting-room it is a sure
sign of a coming visitor.

Be careful how you pick up a ripe apple, all glowing
orange, from the grass in the orchard; roll it over with
your foot first, or you may chance to find that you have got
a handful of wasps. They eat away the interior of the fruit,
leaving little but the rind; and this very hollowness causes
the rind to assume richer tints and a more tempting ap-
pearance. Specked apples on the tree, whether pecked by
a blackbird, eaten by wasps or ants, always ripen fastest,
and if you do not mind cutting out that portion, are the
best. Such a fallen apple, when hollowed out within, is a
veritable torpedo if incautiously handled.

Wasps are incurable drunkards. If they find some-
thing sweet and tempting they stick to it, and swill till
they fall senseless to the ground. They are then most
dangerous, because unseen and unheard; and one may put
one’s hand on them in ignorance of their whereabouts.
Noticing once that a particular pear tree appeared to attract
wasps, though there was little or no fruit on it, I watched
their motions, and found they settled at the mouth of cer-
tain circular apertures that had been made in the trunk.
There the sap was slowly exuding, and to this sap the
wasps came and sipped it till they could sip no more. The
tree being old and of small value, it was determined to see
what caused these circular holes. They were cut out with
a gouge, when the whole interior of the trunk was found
bored with winding tunnels, through which a pistol bullet
might have been passed. This had been done by an
enormous grub, as long and large as one’s finger.

Old-world plants and flowers linger still like heirlooms

Old-World Flowers 165

in the farmhouse garden, though their pleasant odour is
ofttimes choked by the gaseous fumes from the furnaces of
the steam-ploughing engines as they pass along the road
to their labour. Then a dark vapour rises above the tops
of the green elms, and the old walls tremble and the earth
itself quakes beneath the pressure of the iron giant, while
the atmosphere is tainted with the smell of cotton-waste
and oil. How little these accord with the quiet, sunny
slumber of the homestead. But the breeze comes, and ere
the rattle of the wheels and cogs has died away, the
fragrance of the flowers and green things has reasserted
itself. Such a sunny slumber, and such a fragrance of
flowers, both wild and cultivated, have dwelt round and
over the place these 200 years, and mayhap before that.
It is perhaps a fancy only, yet I think that where men
and nature have dwelt side by side time out of mind there
is a sense of a presence, a genius of the spot, a haunting
sweetness and loveliness not elsewhere to be found. The
most lavish expenditure, even when guided by true taste,
cannot produce this feeling about a modern dwelling.

At Wick, by the side of the garden-path, grows a
perfect little hedge of lavender; every drawer in the house,
when opened, emits an odour of its dried flowers. Here,
too, are sweet marjoram, rosemary, and rue; so also bay
and thyme, and some pot-herbs whose use is forgotten,
besides southernwood and wormwood. They do not make
medical potions at home here now, but the lily-leaves are
used to allay inflammation of the skin. The house-leek
had a reputation with the cottage herbalists; it is still
talked of, but I think very rarely used.

Among the flowers here are beautiful dark-petalled
wallflowers, sweet-williams, sweet-briar, and pansies. In
spring the yellow crocus lifts its head from among the

166 Wild Life in a Southern County

grass of the green in front of the house (as the snowdrops
did also), and here and there a daffodil. These, I think,
never look so lovely as when rising from the greensward ;
the daffodils grow, too, in the orchard. Woodbine is
everywhere—climbing over the garden seat under the
sycamore tree, whose leaves are spotted sometimes with
tiny reddish dots, the honey-dew.

Just outside the rickyard, where the grass of the
meadow has not been mown but fed by cattle, grow the
tall buttercups, rising to the knee. The children use the
long hollow stems as tubes wherewith to suck up the warm
new milk through its crown of thick froth from the oaken
milking-pail. There is a fable that the buttercups make
the butter yellow when they come—but the cows never
eat them, being so bitter; they eat all round close up to
the very stems, but leave them standing scrupulously.
The children, too, make similar pipes of straw to suck up
the new cider fresh from the cider-mill, as it stands in the
tubs directly after the grinding. Under the shady trees
of the orchard the hare’s parsley flourishes, and imme-
diately without the orchard edge, on the ‘shore’ of the
ditch, grow thick bunches of the beautiful blue crane’s-bill,
or wild geranium, which ought to be a garden flower and
not left to the chance mercy of the scythe. There, too,
the herb Robert hides, and its fokage, turning colour, lies
like crimson lace on the bank.

Even the tall thistles of the ditch have their beauty—
the flower has a delicate tint, varying with the species
from mauve to purple ; the humble-bee visits every thistle-
bloom in his path, and there must therefore be sweetne:s
in it. Then in the autumn issues forth the floating
thistledown, streaming through the air and rolling like an
aerial ball over the tips of the bennets. Thistledown is

Moths and Sun-beetles 167

sometimes gathered to fill pillow-cases, and a pillow so
filled is exquisitely soft. There is not a nook or corner of
the old place where something interesting may not be
found. Even the slates on a modern addition to the
homestead are each bordered with yellow lichen—perhaps
because they adjoin thatch, for slates do not seem generally
to encourage the growth of lichen. It appears to prefer
tiles, which therefore sooner assume an antique tint.

To the geraniums in the bow-window the humming-
bird moth comes now and then, hovering over the scarlet
petals. Out of the high elms drops a huge grey moth, so
exactly the colour of grey lichen that it might be passed
for it—pursued, of course, as it clumsily falls, by two or
more birds eager for the spoil. It is feast-time with them
when the cockchafers come: they leave nothing but wing-
cases scattered on the garden paths, like the shields of
slain men-at-arms.

In the bright sunshine, when there is not a cloud in
the sky, slender beetles come forth from the cracks of the
earth and run swiftly across the paths, glittering green and
gold, iridescent colours glistening on their backs. These
are locally called sun-beetles, because they appear when the
sun is brightest. Be careful not to step onor kill one; for
if you do it will certainly rain, according to the old super-
stition. The blackbird, when he picks up one of the larger
beetles, holds it with its back towards him in his bill, so
that the legs claw helplessly at the air, and thus carries
it to a spot where he can pick it to pieces at his leisure.

The ha-ha wall of the orchard is the favourite haunt of
butterflies ; they seem to love its sunny aspect, and often
cling to the loose stones like ornaments attached by some
cunning artist. Sulphur butterflies hover here early in
the spring, and later on white and brown and tiny blue

168 Wild Life in a Southern County

butterflies pass this way, calling en route. Sometimes a
great noble of the butterfly world comes in all the glory of
his wide velvety wings, and deigns to pause awhile that
his beauty may be seen.

Somewhere within doors, in the huge beams or wood-
work, the death-tick is sure to be heard in the silence of
the night: even now the old folk listen with a lingering
dread. Give the woodwork a smart tap, and the insect
stops a few moments, but it rapidly gets accustomed to
such taps, and after a few ceases to take notice of them.
This manner of building houses with great beams visibly
supporting the ceiling, passing across the room underneath
it, had one advantage. On a rainy day the children could
go into the garrets or the cheese-loft aud there form a
swing, attaching the ropes to the hooks in the beam across
the ceiling.

The brewhouse, humble though its object may be, is
not without its claim to admiration. It is open from the
floor to the rafters of the roof, and that roof in its pitch,
the craft of the woodwork, the dull polish of the old oak,
has an interest far surpassing the dead staring level of flat
lath and plaster. Noble workmanship in wood may be
found, too, in some of the ancient barns; sometimes the
beams are of black oak, in others of chestnut.

In these modern days men have lost the pleasures of
the orchard; yet an old-fashioned orchard is the most
delicious of places wherein to idle away the afternoon of a
hazy autumn day, when the sun seems to shine with a soft
slumberous warmth without glare, as if the rays came
through an aerial spider's web spun across the sky, letting
all the beauty, but not the heat, slip through its invisible
meshes. There is a shadowy coolness in the recesses under
the trees. On the damson trunks are yellowish crystalline

The Pleasures of the Orchard 169

knobs of gum which has exuded from the bark. Now and
then a leaf rustles to the ground, and at longer intervals
an apple falls with a decided thump. It is silent save for
the gentle twittering of the swallows on the topmost
branches—they are talking of their coming journey—and
perhaps occasionally the distant echo of a shot where the
lead has gone whistling among a covey. It is a place to
dream in, bringing with you a chair to sit on—for it will
be freer from insects than the garden-seat—and a book.
Put away all thought of time: often in striving to get the
most value from our time it slips from us as the reality did
from the dog that greedily grasped at the shadow: simply
dream of what you will, with apples and plums, nuts and
filberts within reach.

Dusky Blenheim oranges, with a gleam of gold under
the rind; a warmer tint of yellow on the pippins. Here
streaks of red, here a tawny hue. Yonder a load of great
russets ; near by heavy pears bending the strong branches ;
round black damsons ; luscious egg-plums hanging their
yellow ovals overhead ; bullace, not yet ripe, but presently
sweetly piquant. On the walnut trees bunches of round
green balls—note those that show a dark spot or streak,
and gently tap them with the tip of the tall slender pole
placed there for the purpose. Down they come glancing
from bough to bough, and, striking the hard turf, the thick
green rind splits asunder, and the walnut itself rebounds
upwards. Those who buy walnuts have no idea of the fine
taste of the fruit thus gathered direct from the tree, when
the kernel, though so curiously convoluted, slips its pale
yellow skin easily and is so wondrously white. Surely it
is an error to banish the orchard and the fruit-garden from
the pleasure-grounds of modern houses, strictly relegating
them to the rear, as if something to be ashamed of.

1700—sTVild Life in a Southern County

CHAPTER XI.

THE HOME-FIELD—HAZEL CORNER—THE DIVINING-ROD— RABBITS’
HOLES—THE CORNCRAKE—VENTRILOQUISM OF BIRDS—HEDGE-FRUIT.

A WICKET-GATE affords a private entrance from the orchard
into the home-field, opening on the meadow close to the
great hedge, the favourite highway of the birds. Tracing
this hedge away from the homestead, in somewhat more
than two hundred yards it is joined by another hedge cross-
ing the top of the field, thus forming a sheltered nook or
angle, which has been alluded to as the haunt of squir-
rels. Here the highway hedge is almost all of hazel,
though one large hawthorn tree stands on the ‘shore’ of
the ditch. Hazel grows tall, straight, and is not so bushy
as some underwood ; the lesser boughs do not interlace or
make convenient platforms on which to build nests, and
birds do not use it much.

The ancient divination by the hazel wand, or, rather,
the method of searching for subterranean springs, is not
yet forgotten; some of the old folk believe in it still. I
have seen it tried myself, half in joke, half in earnest. A
slender rod is cut, and so trimmed as to have a small fork
at one end; this fork is placed under the little finger in
such a way that the rod itself comes over the back of the
other fingers; it is then lightly balanced, and vibrates
easily. The magician walks slowly over the ground
selected, watching the tip of the wand; and should it bend

Nutting 17%

downwards without volition on his part, it is a sign that
water is concealed beneath the spot.

The nuts upon the bushes do not all ripen at the same
time: one or two bushes are first, and offer ripe nuts before
the rest have hardened sufficiently. The leaves on these
also drop earlier, turning a light yellow. The size and
even the shape of the nuts vary too, some being nearly
round and others roughly resembling the almond. Their
flavour when taken from the bush is sweet, juicy, ‘nutty.’
When they will ‘slip udd’ is the proper time to gather
them—i.e. when the hood or outer green covering slips off
at a touch, leaving the light-brown nut in the palm: it is
a delicately shaded brown. Cut off just the tip of the nut
-—the pointed keystone of its Gothic arch—with a pen-
knife; insert the blade ever so slightly, and a gentle turn
splits the shell and shows two onyx-white hemispheres of
kernel.

With a little care the tallest boughs may be pulled
down uninjured; if dragged down rudely the bough will
be ‘sprung’ where it joins the stole below, and will then
wither and die. The plan is simply to apply force by
degrees, pulling the main bough only so far forward as to
enable the hand to reach an upper branch, seizing the
upper branch, and by its aid reaching a still higher one,
and gradually bending the central stem till it forms a bow,
If done gradually and the bow not too acute, the tallest
bush will spring up when released without the least
injury. With a crook to seize the bush as high up as
possible—where it bends more easily—not a twig need be
broken, and nutting may be ne without doing the
least damage.

Under a tall ash tree rising si of the hazel bushes, and
near the great hawthorn on the edge or shore of the ditch,

1f2 Wild Life in a Southern County

the grass grows rank and is of the deepest green. The
dove that could be heard cooing from the orchard built her
nest in the hawthorn, which, where it overhangs the grass
like a canopy, is bare of boughs for six or seven feet up
the gnarled stem. The cattle, who love to shelter under it
from the heat of the sun, browsed on the young shoots, so
that no branch could form; but on the side towards the
ditch there are immense spiny thorns, long enough and
strong enough to make a savage’s arrow-head or awl. The
doves do not seem nearly so numerons as the wood-
pigeons (doves, too, in strict language); they are much
smaller, rather duller in colour—that is, when flying past
—and are rarely seen more than two together. When the
summer thunder is booming yonder over the hills, and the
thin edge of the dark cloud showers its sweet refreshing
rain, with the sunshine gleaming through on the hedge
and grass here, between the rolling echoes the dove may
be heard in the bush coo-cooing still more softly and lov-
ingly to her mate.

Just in the very angle formed by the meeting hedges
the ditch becomes almost a fosse, so broad and deep; the
sandy banks have slipped, and the rabbits have excavated
more, and over all the brambles have arched thickly with
a background of brake-fern. The flower of the bramble
is very beautiful—a delicate pink bloom, succeeded by
green berries, to ripen red, and later black, under the sun.
A larger kind are found here and there—the children call
them dew-berries or jew-berries indifferently. Some of
the bramble leaves linger on a dull green all through the
winter.

In the angle a narrow opening runs through between
the two banks, which do not quite meet: it is so over-
grown with bramble and fern, convolvulus and thorn,

Hunting Instincts of the Dor oe

that unless the bushes were parted to look in no one
would suspect the existence of this green tunnel, which
on the other side opens on the ash copse, where a shallow
furrow (dry) joins it. This tunnel is the favourite way
and passage of the rabbits from the copse out into the
tempting pasturage of the meadow; through it, too, now
and then, a fox creeps quietly. Rabbit-holes drili the bank
everywhere, but one near this green bye-way is noticeable
because of its immense size.

It must measure eighteen inches or nearly in diameter
at the mouth; nor does it diminish abruptly, but con-
tinues almost as large a yard or more inside the bank.
Spaniels will get right into such a ‘bury,’ till nothing but
the tail can be seen, and, if permitted, stay there and dig
and scratch frantically. They would sometimes, perhaps,
succeed in reaching the prey were it not for the roots of
thorn bushes or trees which cross the holes here and there
like bars; these they cannot scratch through, but will
bite and tear with their teeth—coming out now and then
to breathe and shake the sand from their muzzles, then
back again with a whine of eager excitement, till presently,
in sheer exhaustion, they lie down at the mouth of the
cave and pant. This is not allowed if it is known; but
spaniels now and then steal away privately, and so fre-
quently make for a hole like this that when their absence
is discovered it is the first place visited in search of them.
The mingled patience and excitement, the vast labour
they will undergo, the quantity of sand they will throw
out, the whine—it is not a bark—expressing intense
desire, prove how deep is the hunting instinct in the dog.

Even if the burrows be ferreted, in a few weeks this
great hole shows signs of fresh inhabitants; and such a
specially enlarged entrance may be found somewhere in

174 Wild Life in a Southern Couity

most of the banks frequented by rabbits. Why do they
make an aperture so many times larger than they can
possibly require? It may be a kind of ancestral hall, the
favourite cave of the first settlers here, clung to by their
descendants. Within, perhaps three, or even more, tunnels
branch off from it. So busy are they, and so occupied
when excavating a fresh passage, that sometimes when
waiting quietly on a bank you may see the miner at work.
The sand pours out as he casts it behind him with his
hinder paws; his back is turned, so that he does not
notice any one.

Along the banks evidence may be found of attempts at
boring holes, abandoned after a few inches of progress had
been made: sometimes a root, or a stone perhaps, inter-
feres; sometimes, and apparently more often, caprice
seems the only cause why the tunnel was discontinued.
The grass in this corner is sweeter to their taste than
elsewhere: their runs are everywhere—crossing and wind-
ing about.

In the evening, as the shadows deepen and a hush
falls upon the meads, they come out and chase and romp
with each other. When a couple are at play one will rush
ten or a dozen yards away and begin to nibble as if totally
unconscious of the other. The second meanwhile nibbles
too, but all the while stealthily moves forward, not direct,
but sideways, towards the first, demurely feeding. Suddenly
the-second makes a spring; the first, who has been watch-
ing out of the corners of his eye all the time, is off like
the wind. Or sometimes he will turn and face the other,
and jump clean over, a foot high. Sometimes both leap
up together in the exuberance of their mirth.

By the trunk of a mighty oak, growing out of the
hedge that runs along the top of the field, the brambles

A Place to dream in 175

and underwood are thinner, as is generally the case close
under a tree; and it is easy to push through just there.
On the other side, a huge root covered with deep green
moss affords a pleasant seat, leaning back against the
trunk. Upon the right, close by, is the ash copse, with
its border of thick fir trees; on the left oaks at intervals
stand along the hedge; in front stretches the undulating
surface of an immense pasture field called The Warren.
Like a prairie it rolls gently away, dotted with hawthorn
bushes, here and there a crab tree, and two rows of noble
elms, in both of which the rooks are busy in spring.
Beyond, the ground rises, and the small upland meadows
are so thickly timbered as to look like distant glades of a
forest; still farther are the downs.

Under this great oak in the stillness is a place to
dream—in summer, looking upward into the vast expanse
of green boughs, is an intricate architecture, an inimitable
roof, whose lattice-windows are set with translucent lapis
lazult, for the deep blue of the sky seems to come down and
rest upon it. The acorns are already there, as yet all cup,
and little of the acorn proper showing; there isatiny black
speck on the top, and the young acorn faintly resembles
some of the ancient cups with covers, the black speck
being the knob by which the cover is lifted. After the
first frosts, when the acorns are browned and come out of
their cups from their own weight as they fall and strike
the ground, the lads select the darkest or ripest, and
eat one now and then; they half roast them too, like
chestnuts.

In the early spring, when the night is bright and clear,
it isa place to stand a moment and muse awhile. For
the copse is dark and gloomy, the bare oaks are dark
behind; the eye cannot see across the prairie, who3e

176 Wild Life in a Southern County

breadth is doubled by the night. But yonder lies a great
grey sarsen boulder, like an uncouth beast of ancient days
crouching in the hollow. Hush! there was a slight
rustling in the grass there, as of a frightened thing; it
was a startled hare hastening away. The brightest con-
stellations of our latitude pour down their rays and influence
on the birth of bud and leaf in spring; and at no other
season is the sky so gorgeous with stars.

The grass in the meadow or home-field as it begins to
grow tall in spring is soon visited by the corncrakes, who
take up their residence there. In this district (though
called the corncrake) these birds seem to frequent the
mowing-grass more than the arable fields, and they gener-
ally arrive about the time when it has grown sufficiently
high and thick to hide their motions. This desire of
concealment—to be out of sight—is apparently more
strongly marked in them than in any other bird; yet
they utter their loud call of ‘Crake, crake, crake!’ not
unlike the turning of a wooden rattle, continuously though
only at a short distance.

It is difficult to tell from what place the cry proceeds:
at one moment it sounds almost close at hand, the next
fifty yards off; then, after a brief silence, a long way to
one side or the other. The attempt to mark the spot is in
vain ; you think you have it, and rush there, but nothing
is to be seen, and a minute afterwards ‘ Crake, crake!’
comes behind you. For the first two or three such at-
tempts the crake seems to move but a little way, dodging
to and fro in a zig-zag, so that his call is never very far
off; but if repeated again and again he gets alarmed,
there is a silence, and presently you hear him in a corner
of the mead a hundred yards distant. Perhaps once. if
you steal up very, very quietly, and suddenly dart forward,

A Bird-Ventriloguist 139

or if you have been waiting till he has come unawares
close to you, you may possibly see the grass move as if
something passed through it; but in a moment he is
gone, without a glimpse of his body having been seen.
His speed must be very great to slip like this from one
side of the field to the other in so few seconds.

The fact that the call apparently issues from the grass
in one place, and yet upon reaching it the bird is not to
be found, has given rise to the belief that the crake is a
ventriloquist. It may be so; but, even without special
powers of that kind, ventriloquial effects would, I think,
be produced by the peculiar habits of the bird. When
that which causes a sound is out of sight it must always
be difficult to fix upon the exact spot whence the sound
comes. When the sound is made now here, now yonder, as
the bird travels swiftly—still out of sight—it must be still
more difficult. The crake doubtless often cries from a
furrow which would act something like a trough, tending
to draw the sound along it. Finally, the incessant repe-
tition of the same note, harsh and loud, confuses the ear.

Some say in like manner that the starling ventrilo-
quizes. He has, indeed, one peculiar long-drawn hollow
whistle which goes echoing round the chimney-pots and
to and fro among the gables; but it never deceives you as
to his position on the roof unless you are indoors and can-
not see him. It is the same with the finches in the trees,
when the foliage is thick. Their notes seem to come from
this side among the branches, but on peering carefully up
there is no bird visible; then it sounds higher up, and
even in the next tree; all the while the finch is but just
overhead, and the moment he moves he is seen. Other
birds equally deceive the ear: the yellowhammer does
sometimes, and the chattering brook-sparrow ; so will the

N

178 = Wild Life in a Southern County

blackbird when singing—always provided that they are
temporarily invisible.

When the crake remains a long time in one place,
uttering the call continuously, the illusion disappears, and
there is no more difficulty in approximately fixing its posi-
tion than that of any other bird. One summer a crake
chose a spot on the ‘shore’ of the ditch of the highway
hedge, not forty yards from the orchard ha-ha. There was
a thick growth of tall grass, clogweed, and other plants
just there, and some of the bushes pushed out over the
sward. The nest was placed close to the ditch (not in it),
and the noise the crakes made was something astonishing.
‘Crake, crake, crake!’ resounded the moment it was light
—and it is light early at that season: ‘Crake, crake,
crake!’ all the morning ; the sound now and then, if the
bird moved a few yards nearer, echoing back from some of
the buildings. There was, or seemed to be, a slight cessa-
tion in the middle of the day, but towards evening it re-
commenced, and continued without cessation till quite
dark. This lasted for some weeks: it chanced that the
meadow was mown late, so that the birds were undisturbed.
Why so apparently timid a bird should choose a spot near
a dwelling is not easy to understand.

The crakes, however, when thus localised deceived no
one by their supposed ventriloquial powers; therefore it
seems clear that the deception is caused by their rapid
changes of position. The mouse in like manner often
gives an impression that it must be in one spot when it is
really a yard away, the shrill squeak, as it were, left be-
hind it. It is not easy sometimes to fix the position of
the death-tick in woodwork. The home-field or meadow
here is a favourite haunt of the crakes, for like all other
birds they have their special places of resort. Another

fTow to bag the Crake 179

meadow, at some distance on the same farm, is equally
favoured by them. This meadow adjoins that second line
of bird-travel, following a brook previously alluded to. But
as the crakes, though they will take refuge in a hedge, do
not travel along it habitually, this circumstance may be
accidental. Crakes, notwithstanding they run so swiftly,
do not seem to move far when once they have arrived ;
they appear to restrict themselves to the field they have
chosen, or, at the furthest, make an excursion into the
next and return again, so that you may always know where
to go to hear one.

The mowers cutting these meadows find the eggs—the
nest being on the ground—and bring them to the farm-
stead, both as a curiosity and to be eaten, some thinking
them equal to plovers’ eggs. Though you may follow the
sound ‘ Crake, crake!’ in the grass for hours at a time,
and sometimes get so near as to throw your walking-stick
at a bunch of grass, you will never see the bird; and
nothing, neither stick nor stone, will make it rise. Yet it
is easy to shoot, as I found, in one particular way. The
trick is to drive it into a hedge. Two persons and a
spaniel well in hand walk towards the ‘Crake, crake!’
keeping some distance apart. The bird at first runs
straight away; then, finding himself still pursued, tries
to dodge back, but finds the lineextended. He then takes
refuge in silence, and endeavours to slip past unseen and
unheard ; but the spaniel’s power of scent baffles that. At
Jast he makes for the hedge, when one person immediately
goes on the other side, and the spaniel beats up it. The
bird is now surrounded and cannot escape, and, as the dog
comes close upon him, is compelled to rise and fly. As he
rises his flight at first somewhat resembles the partridge’s,
but it is slower and heavier, and he can be shot with the

yu 2

180 Wild Life in a Southern County

greatest ease. But if not fired at, after he has got well
on the wing, the flight becomes much stronger, and it is
evident that he is capable of a long voyage.

Sometimes, by patience and skilfully anticipating his
zig-zag motions in the grass, the crake may be driven to
the hedge without a dog. He will then, after a short time,
if still hunted, ‘quat’ in the thickest bunch of grass or
weeds he can find in the ditch, and will stay till all but
stepped on, when he can be knocked down with a walking-
stick. After the grass is mown, the crakes leave the
meadows and go to the arable fields, where the crops afford
them shelter. This district seems a very favourite resort
of these birds.

The mowing-grass while standing does not appear to
attract other birds much; but immediately the scythe has
passed over they flock to the swathes from the hedges, and
come, too, to the hay itself when quite dry. In hay there
are many plants whose stems are hollow. Now, as soon
as a stalk is dry, if there be any crevice at all, insects will
creep in; so that these tiny tubes are frequently full of
inhabitants, which probably attract the birds.

Sometimes a bird will perch for a moment on a hay-
maker’s hat as he walks slowly down a lane with hedges
each side; the fibres of hay have adhered to it, and the
keen eyes above have detected some moving creature on
them. Birds that are otherwise timid will remain on the
footpath to the very last moment, almost till within reach,
if they chance to be dissecting a choice morsel, some ex-
quisite beetle or moth—pecking at it in eager haste and
running what to them must seem a terrible risk for the
sake of gratifying their taste.

The wood-pigeons are fond of acorns, and come for
them to the oaks growing in an irregular row along the

An Ingredient in Love Potions 181

hedge at the top of the home-field. They are most vora-
cious birds and literally cram their crops with this hard
fruit. Squirrels and mice enjoy the nuts in Hazel Corner,
and the thrushes and pigeons feed on the peggles which
cover the great hawthorn bush there so thickly as to give
it a reddish tint. There is a difference even in this fruit :
on some bushes the peggles consist mainly of the internal
stone, the edible coating being of the thinnest. On others
the stone is embedded in a thick mellow covering affording
twice as much food. Like other products of the hedge,
they are supposed to be improved by frost.

Farther down the highway hedge, by the gateway, a
large elder bush, or rather tree, bears a profusion of berries.
Blue-black sloes adhere to—they do not hang on—the
blackthorn bushes: in places the boughs are loaded with
them. Here and there crabs cling to the tough crab tree,
whose bark has a dull gloss on it, something like dark
polished leather. Bunches of red berries shine on the
woodbine: fruit growing in bunches usually depends, but
these are often on the upper side of the stalk; and the
latter bloom shows by them—flower and fruit at the same
time. The berry has a viscous feel.

Larger berries—some red, some green, on the same
bunch—cluster on the vines of the bryony. The white
bryony, whose leaf is not unlike that of the grape, has a
magical reputation, and the cottage folk believe its root to
be a powerful ingredient in love potions, and also poisonous.
They identify it with the mandrake. If growing in or
close to a churchyard its virtues are increased, for, though
becoming fainter as they lengthen, the shadows of the old
superstitions linger still. Red nightshade berries—not the
deadly nightshade, but the ‘ bitter-sweet’—hang sullenly
among the bushes where this creeping plant has trailed

182. Wald Life in a Southern County

over them. Here and there upon the bank wild gooseberry
and currant bushes may be found, planted by birds carry-
ing off ripe fruit from the garden. A wild gooseberry
may sometimes be seen growing out of the decayed
‘touchwood ’ on the top of a hollow withy-pollard. Wild
apple trees, too, are not uncommon in the hedges.

The beautiful rich colour of the horse-chestnut, when
quite ripe and fresh from its prickly green shell, can hardly
be surpassed ; underneath the tree the grass is strewn with
the shells, where they have fallen and burst. Close to the
trunk the grass is worn away by the restless trampling of
horses, who love the shade its foliage gives in summer.
The oak-apples which appear on the oaks in spring—
generally near the trunk—fall off in the summer, and lie
shrivelled on the ground not unlike rotten cork, or black
as if burned. But the oak-galls show thick on some of
the trees, light green, and round as a ball; they will re-
main on the branches after the leaves have fallen, turning
brown and hard, and hanging there till the spring comes
again.

One of the cottagers in the adjacent hamlet collects
these brown balls and strings them upon wire, making
flower-stands and ornamental baskets for sale. They seem
to appear in numbers upon those oak bushes rather than
trees which spring up when an oak has been cut down but
the stump has not been grubbed up. These shoots at
first often bear leaves of great size, many times larger than
the ordinary oak leaf; some are really immense, measuring
occasionally fourteen or fifteen inches in length. As the
shoots grow into a bush the leaves diminish in size and
become like those of the tree.

In the ditch the tall teazle lifts its prickly head. The
large leaves of this plant grow in pairs, one on each side

Al natural Rain-Gauge 183

of the stem, and while the plant is young are connected in
@ curious manner by a green membrane, or continuation of
the lower part of the leaf round the stem, so as to form a
cup. The stalk rises in the centre of the cup, and of these
vessels there are three or four above each other in storeys.
When it rains, the drops, instead of falling off as from
other leaves, run down these and are collected in the cups,
which thus form so many natural rain-gauges. Ifit is a
large plant, the cup nearest the ground—the biggest—will
hold as much as two or three wine-glasses. This water
remains there for a considerable time, for several days
after a shower, and is fatal to numbers of insects which
climb up the stalk or alight on the leaves and fall in.
While the grass and the earth of the bank are quite dry,
therefore, the teazle often has a supply of water; and
when it dries up, the drowned insects remain at the
bottom like the dregs of a draught the plant has drained.
Round the prickly dome-shaped head, as the summer
advances, two circles of violet-hued flowers push out from
cells defended by the spines, so that, seen protruding above
the hedge, it resembles a tiara—a green circle at the
bottom of the dome, and two circles of gems above.

Some of the grasses growing by the hedge are not to
be handled carelessly, the edge of the long blade cutting
like a lancet: the awn-like seeds of others, if they should
chance to get into the mouth, as happens occasionally to
the haymakers, work down towards the throat, the attempt
to get rid of them causing a creeping motion the oppo-
site way. Thisis owing to the awns all slanting in one
direction.

On the sultry afternoons of the latter part of the
summer the hedge is all but silent. Waiting in the gate-
way there is no sound for half an hour at a time, no call or

184 Wild Life in a Southern County

merry song in the branches, nothing but the buzz of flies.
The birds are quiet, or nearly so: they slip about so noise-
lessly that it is difficult to observe them, so that many
perhaps migrate before it is suspected, and others stay on
when thought to be gone. In the grass the grasshoppers
make their hiss, and towards evening the yellowhammers
utter a few notes; but while the corn is being reaped the
meadows ara all but still.

The Ash Copse 165

CHAPTER XII.

THE ASH COPSE—THE NIGHTINGALE—CLOUD OF STARLINGS—HEDGE=
HOGS—HERON’S MEAD—MOORHENS—AMONG THE REEDS.

A Gap in the hedge by Hazel Corner leads through a fringe
of hawthorn bushes into the ash copse. There is a gate at
a little distance; but somehow it is always more pleasant
to follow the bye-way of the gap, where two steps, one
down into the ditch, or rather on to the heap of sand
thrown out from a rabbit bury, and one up on the
mound, carry you from the meadow—out of cultivation—
into the pathless wood. The green sprays momentarily
pushed aside close immediately behind, shutting out the
vision, and with it the thought of civilisation. These
boughs are the gates of another world. Under trees and
leaves—it is so, too, sometimes even in an avenue—where
the direct rays of the sun do not penetrate, there is ever
a subdued light; it is not shadow, but a light toned with
green.

In spring the ground here is hidden by a verdant
growth, out of which presently the anemone lifts its chaste
flower. Then the wild hyacinths hang their blue bells so
thickly that, glancing between the poles, it is hazy with
colour; and in the evening, if the level beams of the red
sun can reach them, here and there a streak of imperial
purple plays upon the azure. Woodbine coils round the
tall straight poles, and wild hops, whose bloom emits a

186 8 JVild Life in a Southern County

pleasant smell if crushed in the fingers. On the upper
and clearer branches of the hawthorn the nightingale
sings—more sweetly, I think, in the freshness of the
spring morning than at night. Resting quietly on an
ash-stole, with the scent of flowers, and the odour of green
buds and leaves, a ray of sunlight yonder lighting up the
lichen and the moss on the oak trunk, a gentle air stirring
in the branches above, giving glimpses of fleecy clouds
sailing in the ether, there comes into the mind a feeling of
intense joy in the simple fact of living.

The nightingale shows no timidity while all is still,
but sings on the bough in full sight, hardly three yards
away, so that you can see the throat swell as the notes are
poured forth— now in intricate trills, now a low sweet call,
then a liquid ‘jug-jug-jug!’ To me it sounds richer in
the morning—sunlight, flowers, and the rustle of green
leaves seem the natural accompaniment; and the distant
chorus of other birds affords a contrast and relief—an
orchestra filling up the pauses and supporting the solo
singer.

Passing deeper into the wood, it is well to be a little
careful while stepping across the narrow watercourse that
winds between the stoles. Rushes grow thickly by the
side, and the slender stream seems to ooze rather than
run, trickling slowly down to the brook in the meadow.
But the earth is treacherous on its banks—formed of
decayed branches, leaves, and vegetable matter, hidden
under a thin covering of aquatic grasses. Listen! there
is a faint rustling and a slight movement of the grass: it
is a snake gliding away to its hole, with yellow-marked
head lifted above the ground over which his dull green
length is trailing. Stepping well over the moist earth,
and reaching the firmer ground, there the thistles grow

Voices of the Trees 187

great and tall, many up to the shoulder ; it is a little more
open here, the stoles having been cut only two years ago,
and they dra+v the thistles up.

Sometimes the young ash, shooting up after being cut,
takes fantastic shapes instead of rising straight. The
branch loses its roundness and flattens out to a width of
three or four inches, curling round at the top like the
conventional scroll ornament. These natural scrolls are
occasionally hung up in farmhouses as curiosities. The
woodmen jocularly say that the branch grew in the night,
and so could not see its way. In some places (where the
poles are full-grown) the upper branches rub against each
other, causing a weird creaking in a gale. The trees as
the wind rises find their voices, and the wood is full of
strange tongues. From each green thing touched by its
fingers the breeze draws a different note: the bennets on
the hillside go ‘sish, sish;’ the oak in the copse roars
and groans; in the firs there is a deep sighing; the
aspen rustles. In winter the bare branches sing a shrill
‘sir-r-r.’ os

The elm, with its rough leaf, does not grow in the copse: |
it is a tree that prefers to stand clear on two sides at least.
Oak and beech are here; on their lower branches a few
brown leaves will linger all through the winter. Where a
huge bough has been sawn from a crooked ill-grown oak
a yellow bloated fungus has spread itself, and under it, if
you lift it with a stick, the woodlice are crowded in the
rotting stump. The beech boughs seem to glide about,
round and smooth, snake-like in their easy curves. The
bark of the aspen, and of the large willow poles, looks as if
cut with the point of a knife, the cut having widened and
healed with a rough scar. On the trunk of the silver-birch
gometimes the outer bark peals and rolls up of itself. Seen

188 Wild Life in a Southern County

from a distance, the leaves of this tree twinkle as the breeze
_ bends the graceful hanging spray.

The pheasants, that wander away from the preserves
and covers up under the hills far down in the meadows as
the acorns ripen, roost at night here in the copse; and
should a storm arise, after every flash of lightning gleam-
ing over the downs the cocks among them crow. So, too,
in the daytime, after every distant mutter of thunder the
pheasant cocks crow in the preserves, and some declare
they can see the flash, even though invisible to human eyes,
at noon-day.

Clustering cones hang from the firs, fringing the copse
on one side—first green, and then a pale buff, and falling
at last hard and brown to strew the earth beneath. In the
thick foliage of this belt of firs the starlings love to roost.
If you should be passing along any road—east, north, west,
or south—a mile or two distant, as the sun is sinking and
evening approaching, suddenly there will come a rushing
sound in the air overhead: it is a flock of starlings flying
in their determined manner straight for the distant copse.
From every direction these flocks converge upon it: some
large, some composed only of a dozen birds, but all with the
sameintent. Ifthe country chances to be open, the hedges
low, and the spectator on a rise so as to see over some dis-
tance, he may observe several such flights at the same time.
Rooks, in returning to roost, fly in long streams, starlings
in numerous separate divisions. This is especially notice-
able in summer, when the divisions are composed of fewer
birds: in winter the starlings congregate in larger bodies.

It would appear that after the young birds are able to
fly they flock together in parties by themselves, the old
birds clubbing together also, but all meeting at night.
The parties of young birds are easily distinguished by their

4 Cloud of Starlings 189

lighter colour. This may not be an invariable rule (for
the birds to range themselves according to age), but it
is the case frequently. Viewed from a spot three or four
fields away, the copse in the evening seems to be over-
hung by a long dark cloud like a bar of mist, while the sky
is clear and no dew has yet risen. The resemblance to a
cloud is so perfect that any one—not thinking of such things
—may for the time be deceived, and wonder why a cloud
should descend and rest over that particular spot. Sud-
denly, the two ends of the extended black bar contract,
and the middle swoops down in the shape of an inverted
cone, much resembling a waterspout, and in a few seconds
the cloud pours itself into the trees. Another minute and
a black streak shoots upwards, spreads like smoke, parts in
two, and wheels round back into the firs again.

On approaching it this apparent cloud is found to con-
sist of thousands of starlings, the noise of whose calling
to each other is indescribable—the country folk call it a
‘charm,’ meaning a noise made up of innumerable lesser
sounds, each interfering with the other. The vastness of
these flocks is hardly credible until seen; in winter the
bare trees on which they alight become suddenly quite
black. Once or twice in the summer starlings may be
observed hawking to and fro high in the air, as if imitating
the swallows in an awkward manner. Probably some
favourite insect is then on the wing, and they resort to
this unwonted method to capture it.

Beyond the fir trees the copse runs up into a corner,
where hawthorn. bushes, briar, and bramble succeed to the
ash-stoles, and are in turn bordered by some width of furze
and brake fern. When this fern is young and fresh the
sunshine glistens on its glossy green fronds, but on coming
nearer the sheen disappears. On a very hot sultry day

190 Wid. Life in a Southern County

towards the end of summer there is occasionally a peculiar
snapping sound to be heard in the furze, as if some part of
the plant, perhaps the seed, were bursting. The shocks of
wheat, too, will crackle in the morning sun. This corner,
well sheltered by furze and brake, is one of ‘sly Reynard’s’
favourite haunts. The stems of the furze, when they grow
straight, are occasionally cut for walking-sticks. Wood-
pigeons visit the copse frequently—in the spring there are
several nests—and towards evening their hollow notes are
repeated at intervals, Though without the slightest pre-
tensions to a song, there is something soothing in their
call, pleasantly suggestive of woodland glades and deep
shady dells.

Just before the shooting season opens there is a remark-
able absence of song from hedge and tree: even the chirp
of the house-sparrow is seldom heard on the roof, where
only recently it was loud and continuous. Most of the
sparrows have, in fact, left the houses in flocks and resorted
to the corn-fields after the grain. In this silent season the
robin, the wood-pigeon, and the greenfinch seem the only
birds whose notes are at all common: the pigeons call in
the evening as they come to the copse, the greenfinches in
a hushed kind of way talk to each other in the hedge, and
the robin plaintively utters a few notes on the tree. It is
not absolute silence indeed; but the difference is very
noticeable. Through the ash poles on one side of the copse
distant glimpses may be obtained of gleaming water, where
a creek of the shallow lake runs in towards it.

Bordering the furze, a thick hawthorn hedge—a double
mound—extends, so wide as to be itself almost another
copse. In the‘ rowetty’ grass on the bank or in the hollow
places, under fallen leaves and trailing ivy, the hedgehog
hides during the day, so completely concealed that while

Dog attacking the Hedgehog 19t

the sun shines it is extremely difficult to find one without
a dog.

A spaniel racing down the mound will pounce on the
spot and scratch the hedgehog out in a moment; then,
missing the dog, you presently hear a whining kind of bark
—half rage, half pain—and know immediately what he is
doing. He is trying to unroll the hedgehog, who, so soon
as he felt the approach of the enemy, curled himself into
a ball, with the sharp spines sticking out everywhere. The
spaniel, snapping at the animal, runs these quills deepinto
his jowl ; he draws back, snaps again, shakes his head, and
then tries a third time, with bloodspots round his mouth.
Every repulse embitters him—his semi-whine expresses
intense annoyance, and if left alone there he would stay till
covered with blood.

But the older dogs sometimes learn the trick: they then
roll the hedgehog over with a paw, touching it gently, so ag
not to run the spines in, till the depression comes upper-
most where the hedgehog has tucked his head inwards.
This is the only vulnerable place, and with one desperate
bite the dog thrusts his teeth in there, seizes the nose, and
then has the hedgehog in his power. The young of the
hedgehog areamusing little things, and try to roll themselves
up in precisely the same manner; but they cannot close
the aperture where they tuck their heads in so completely.
Though invisible during the sunshine, hiding so carefully
as to be rarely found, when the dew begins to gather thickly
on the grass and the shades deepen they issue forth, and if
you remain quite stillshow no fear at all. While waiting ina
dry ditch I have often had a hedgehog come rustling slightly
along the bottom till he reached my boot; then he would
go up the ‘ shore’ of the ditch out among the grass, hunting
for beetles and the creeping things which he likes most.

192 Wild Life ti a Southern County

In some places they are numerous; one or two other
meadows on the farm beside the home-field are favourite
haunts of theirs, and five or six may be found out feeding
within a short distance. When all is still they move
rapidly through the grass—quite a run; much quicker
than they appear capable of moving. The plough lads, if
they find one, carry it to a pond, knowing that nothing but
water will make it unroll voluntarily—no knocks or kicks ;
but the moment it touches the water it uncoils. Now and
then a labourer will cook a hedgehog and eat it; some of
them will eat a full-grown rook at any time they chance to
shoot it, notwithstanding the bitter flavour of the bird, only
taking out a part of the back. Those who have had some
association with the gipsies or semi-gipsies seem most

addicted to this kind of food.

In the opposite direction to the ash copse, and about
half a mile north of Wick farmhouse, there rises above
the oak and ash trees what looks like the topmast and
yard of a ship lying at anchor or in dock, the hull hidden
by the branches. It is the top of an immensely tall and
gaunt fir-tree, whose thin and perhaps dying boughs pro-
ject almost at right angles. This landmark, visible over
the level meadows for a considerable distance, stands in
that little enclosed meadow which has once before been
mentioned as one of the favourite resorts of birds and wild
animals.

From the ash copse the travelling parties come down
the highway hedge to the orchard: then, crossing the
orchard and road, they enter another thick hedge, which
continues in the same general direction; and finally, fol-
lowing it, arrive at this small green mead walled in by
trees and mounds so broad as to resemble elongated copses.
The mead itself may perhaps be two acres in extent, but

The Heron Ee

it does not appear so much: the part visible on first
glancing over the gateway can hardly exceed an acre.
The rest is formed of nooks—deep indentations, so to say
—not more than six or eight yards wide at the entrance,
and running up to a point. Of these there are four or five
—recesses in the massive walls of green.

These corners are caused by the mound following the
curiously winding course of a brook which flows just
without on the left side; and without, on the right side,
runs a second brook, whose direction is much straighter
and current slower. These two meet at the top of the
mead, and then, forming a junction, make a deep, swift
stream, flowing beside a series of water meadows—broad,
level, and open, like a plain—which are irrigated from it.
The mounds in the angle where the brooks join enclose a
large space planted with osiers, and inside the hedges all
round the mead there is a wide, deep ditch, always full of
slowly moving water: so that the field is really surrounded
by a double moat ; and in one corner, in addition, there is
a pond hidden by maple thickets from within, and intended
for the use of cattle in the adjoining field. The nearest
house is several meadows distant, and no footpath passes
near, so that the spot is peculiarly quiet. These mounds,
hedges, osier-bed, and brooks, occupy an area nearly or
quite equal to the space where cattle can feed.

Upon the fir tree a heron perches frequently in the
daytime, because from that great elevation he can com-
mand an extensive view, and feels secure against attack.
Whenever he visits the water meadows, sailing thither
from the shallow lake (one of whose creeks approaches the
ash copse), he almost always rests here before descending
to the field to take a good look round. The heron is a
most suspicious bird: when he alights in the water

Oo

194 Wild Life i a Southern County

meadows here he stalks about in the very middle of the
great field, far out of reach of the gun. If ever he ventures
to the brook, it is not till after a careful survey from the
fir tree, his tower of observation; and, when in the brook,
his long neck is every now and then extended, that he
may gaze above the banks.

By the gateway, reached by crossing a rude bridge for
the waggons, wild hops festoon the thickets. Behind the
maple bushes in the corner the water of the pond, over-
hung with willow, is dark—almost black in the depth of
shadow. Out of it a narrow and swift current runs into
that slow straight brook which bounds the right side of
the meadow. Here in the long grass and rushes growing
luxuriantly between the underwood lurk the moorhens,
building their nests on bunches of rushes against the bank
and almost level with the water. Though but barely
hatched, and chips of shell clinging to their backs, the
tiny fledglings swim at once if alarmed. When a little
older they creep about on the miniature terraces formed
along the banks by the constant running to and fro of
water-rats, or stand on a broken branch bent down by its
own weight into the water, yet still attached to the stem,
puffing up their dark feathers like a black ball.

If all be quiet, the moorhens come out now and then
into the meadow; and then, as they stand upright out of
the water, the peculiar way in which their tails, white
marked, are turned upwards is visible. The bill is of a
fine colour—almost the ‘ orange-tawny’ of the blackbird,
set in thick red coral at its base. Under the shallow
water at the mouth of the pond the marks of their feet on
the mud may be traced: they run swiftly, and depend
upon that speed and the skilful tricks they practise in
diving—turning back and dodging under water like a

Moorhens 195

hare in the fields—to escape from pursuit, rather than on
their wings. Through the thick green flags they creep,
and into the holes the water-rats have made, or behind
and under the natural cavities in the stoles upon the bank.
They beat the water with their wings when they rise,
showering the spray on either side, for a short distance,
and then, ascending on an inclined plane, fly heavily, but
with some strength.

At night is their time of journeying, when they come
down from the lake or return to it, uttering a weird cry in
the darkened atmosphere. By day, as they swim to and
fro in the flags and through the duckweed, shaded from
the hot sun under willow and aspen, they call to each
other, not unpleasantly, a note something like ‘croog,’
with a twirl of the ‘r.’ In summer they do not move far
from the place they have chosen to breed in: in the frosts
of winter they work their way up the brooks, or fly at
night, but usually come back to the old spot. The dab-
chick, a slender bird, haunts the pond here too, diving
even more quickly than the moorhen.

Nut-tree bushes grow along the bank of the brook on
this side—the nuts are a smaller sort than usual; and
beside the wet ditch within the mound and on the ‘ shore,’
wherever the scythe has not reached, the meadow-sweet
rears its pale flowers. At evening, if it be sultry, and on
some days, especially before a thunderstorm, the whole
mead is full of the fragrance of this plant, which lines the
inside ditch almost everywhere. So heavy and powerful
is its odour that the still motionless air between the thick
hedges becomes oppressive, and it is a relief to issue forth
into the open fields away from the perfume and the brood-
ing heat. But by day it is pleasant to linger in the
shadow and inhale its sweetness—if you are not nervous

02

196 Wild Life in a Southern County

of snakes, for there is one here and there in the grass
gliding away at the jar of the earth under your footstep.
Warmth and moisture favour their increase, as on a larger
scale in tropic lands; and parts of the mead are often
under water when a freshet comes down the brooks so
choked with flags that they cannot carry it away quickly.
The osier-bed in the angle where the brooks join is on
slightly higher ground, for although the withy likes water
at its roots it should not stand in it. Springing across
the ditch, and entering among the tall slender wands,
which, though they look so thick part aside easily, you
may find on the mound behind the butt of an oak sawn
just above the ground; and there, in the shade of the
reeds, and with a cool breeze now and again coming along
the course of the stream, it is delicious in the heat of
summer to repose and listen to the murmur of the water.
The moorhens come down the current slowly, searching
about among the flags; the reed warblers are busy in the
hedge; at the mouth of his hole sits a water-rat rubbing
his face between his paws; across the stream comes his
mate, swimming slowly with one end of a long green sedge
in her mouth, and the rest towed behind on the surface.
They are the beavers of our streams—amusing, intelligent
little creatures, utterly different in habits from the rat of
the drain. Move but a hand, and instantly they fall rather
than dive into the water, making a sound like ‘ thock’ as
they strike it; and then they run along the bottom, or
seem to do so, as swiftly as on dry land. But in a few
minutes out they come again, being at the same time
extremely timid and as quickly reassured; so that if you
remain perfectly still they will approach within a yard.
Where the two brooks meet a hollow willow tree hangs
over the brown pool—brown with suspended sand and

Where the Two Brooks meet 197

dead leaves slowly rotating under the surface where the
swirl of the meeting currents, one swift and shallow, the
other deeper and stronger, has scooped out a basin. A
waving line upon the surface marks where the two streams
shoulder each other and strive for mastery, and its curve,
yielding now to this side, now to that, responds to their
varying volume and weight. While the under-currents
sweep ever slowly round, whirling leaf and dead black
soddened twigs over the hollow, the upper streams are
forced together unwillingly by the narrowing shores, and
throw themselves with a bubbling rush onwards. Through
the brown water, from under the stooping willow whose
age bows it feebly, there shine now and again silvery
streaks deep down as the roach play to and fro. There,
too, come the perch; they are waiting for the insects fall-
ing off the willows and the bushes, and for the food brought
down by the streams.

‘Hush!’ it is the rustle of the reeds, their heads are
swaying—a reddish brown now, later on in the year a
delicate feathery white. Seen from beneath, their slender
tips, as they gracefully sweep to and fro, seem to trace
designs upon the blue dome of the sky. A whispering in
the reeds and tall grasses; a faint murmuring of the
waters: yonder, across the broad water-meadow, a yellow
haze hiding the elms.

In the nooks and corners on the left side of the mead
the hemlock rears its sickly-looking stem; the mound is
broad and high, and thickly covered with grasses, for the
most part dead and dry. These form a warm cover for
the fox: there is usually one hiding somewhere here,
the mead being so quiet. Where the ground is often
flooded watercress has spread out into the grass, growing
so profusely that now the water is low it might be mown

198 Wild Life in a Southern County

by the scythe. And everywhere in their season, the beau-
tiful forget-me-nots nestle on the shores among the flags,
where the water, running slower at the edge, lingers to
kiss their feet.

Once, some five-and-twenty years ago, a sportsman
startled a great bird out of the spot where the streams
join, and shot it, thinking it was a heron. But seeing
that it was no common heron, he had it examined, and it
was found to be a bittern, and as such was carefully pre-
served. It was the last visit of bitterns to the place;
even then they were so rare as not to be recognised : now
the progress of agriculture has entirely banished them.

Pasture-land 199

CHAPTER XIII.

THE WARREN—RABBIT-BURROWS—FERRETS—THE QUARRY—THE
FOREST—SQUIRRELS—DEER—-DYING RABBIT—A HAWK.

Unber the trunks of the great trees the hedges are usually
thinner, and need repairing frequently ; and so it happens
that at the top of the home-field, besides the gap leading
into the ash copse, there is another some distance away
beneath a mighty oak. By climbing up the mound, and
pushing through the brake fern which grows thickly
between the bushes, entrance is speedily gained to the
wide rolling stretch of open pasture called the Warren.
The contrast with the small enclosed meadow just left is
very striking. A fresh breeze comes up from the lake,
which, though not seen in this particular spot, borders
the plain-like field in one part.

The ground is not level ; it undulates, now sinking
into wide hollows, now rising in rounded ridges, and the
turf (not mown but grazed) is elastic under the foot,
almost like that of the downs in the distance. This
rolling surface increases the sense of largeness—of width
—hbecause it is seldom possible to see the whole of the
field at once. In the hollows the ridges conceal itg real
extent: on the ridges a corresponding rise yonder suggests
another valley. The two rows of tall elms—some hundreds
of yards apart—the scattered hawthorn bushes and solitary
trees, groups of cattle in the shade, and sheep grazing by

200 = Wild Life 1x a Southern County

the far-away hedge, give the aspect of a wilder park, the
more pleasant because of its wildness.

Near about the centre, where the land is most level, an
anexpected slope goes down into a cuplike depression.
This green crater may perhaps have been formed by
digging for sand—so long ago that the turf has since
grown over smoothly. Standing at the bottom the sides
conceal all but the sky overhead. Some few dead leaves
of last year, not yet decayed, though bleached and brittle,
lie here at rest from the winds that swept them over the
plain. Silky balls of thistledown come irresolutely rolling
over the hedge, now this way, now that: some rise and
float across, some follow the surface and cling awhile to
the bennets in the hollow. Pale blue harebells, drooping
from their slender stems here and there, meditate with
bowed heads, as if full of tender recollections.

Now, on hands and knees (the turf is dry and soft),
creep up one side of the bowl-like hollow, where the
thistles make a parapet on the edge, and from behind it
look out upon the ground all broken up into low humps,
some covered with nettles, others plainly heaps of sand.
It is the site of an immense rabbit-burrow, the relic of an
old warren which once occupied half the field. The nettle-
covered heaps mark old excavations; where the sand
shows, there the miners have been recently at work. At
the sound of approaching footsteps those inhabitants that
had been abroad hastily rushed into their caves, but now
(after waiting awhile, and forgetting that the adjacent
hollow might hide the enemy) a dozen or more have come
forth within easy gunshot. Though a few like this are
always looking in and out all through the day, it is not
till the approach of evening that they come out in any
number,

Rabbit Settlements 291

This is a favourite spot from whence to get a shot at
them, but the aim must be deadly, or the rabbit will
escape though never so severely wounded. The holes are
so numerous that he has never more than a yard to
scramble, and as he goes down into the earth his own
weight carries him on. If he can but live ten seconds
after the lead strikes him, he will generally escape you.
Watching patiently (without firing), after the twilight
has deepened into night, presently you are aware of a
longer, larger creature than a rabbit stealing out, seeming
to travel close to the earth: it is a badger. There are
almost always a couple somewhere about the warren.
Their residence is easily discovered because of the huge
heap of sand thrown out from the rabbit-hole they have
chosen; and it is this ease of discovery that has caused
the diminution of their numbers by shot or spade.

The ground sounds hollow underneath the foot—per-
haps half an acre is literally bored away under the surface ;
and you have to thread your way in and out a labyrinth
of holes, the earth about some of them perceptibly yield-
ing to your weight. There must be waggon-loads of the
sand that has been thrown out. Beyond this central
populous quarter suburbs of burrows extend in several
directions, and there are detached settlements fifty and a
hundred yards away. In ferreting this place the greatest
care has to be taken that the ferret is lined with a long
string, or so fed that he will not lie in; otherwise, if he is
not picked up the moment he appears at the mouth of the
hole, he will become so excited at the number of rabbits,
and so thirsty for blood, that he will refuse to come forth.

To dig for him is hopeless in that catacomb of tunnels;
there is nothing for it but to send a man day after day to
watch, and if possible to seize him while passing along

‘202 = Wild Life in a Southern County

the upper ground from one bury to another. In time
thirst will drive him to wander; there is no water near
this dry, sandy, and rather elevated spot, and blood causes
great thirst. Then he will roam across the open, and by-
and-by reach the hedges, where in the ditch some water is
sure to be found in winter, when ferreting is carried on.
So that, if a ferret has been lost some time, it is better to
look for him round the adjacent hedges than in the warren.

Long after leaving the bury it is as well to look to your
footsteps, because of solitary rabbit-holes hidden by the
grass growing up round and even over them. If the foot
sinks unexpectedly into one of these, a sprained ankle or
even a broken bone may result. Most holes have sand
round the mouth, and may therefore be seen even in the
dusk; but there are others also used which have no sand
at the mouth, the grass growing at the very edge. Those
that have sand have been excavated from without, from
above ; those that have not, have been opened from below.
The rabbit has pushed his way up from an old bury, so that
the sand he dug fell down behind him into the larger hole.

The same thing may be seen in banks, though then the
holes worked from within are not so much concealed by
grass. These holes are always very much smaller than the
others, some so small that one might doubt how a rabbit
could force his body through them. The reason why the
other tunnels appear so much larger is because the rabbit
has no means of ‘ shoring’ up his excavation with planks
and timbers, and no ‘cage’ with which to haul up the
sand he has moved; so that he must make the mouth
wider than is required for the passage of his body, in order
to get the stuff out behind him. He can really creep
through a much smaller aperture. At night especially,
when walking near a bury situate in the open field, beware

Weasels and Stoats on the Prowl 203

of putting your foot into one of these holes, which will
cause an awkward fall, if nothing worse. Some of the older
holes, now almost deserted, are, too, so hidden by nettles
and coarse grass as to be equally dangerous.

The hereditary attachment of wild animals for certain
places is very noticeable at the warren. Though annually
ferreted, shot at six months out of the twelve, and trapped
—though weasels and foxes prey on the inhabitants—still
they cling to the spot. They may be decimated by the end
of January, but by September the burrows are as full as
ever. Weasels and stoats of course come frequently, bent
on murder, but often meet their own doom through over-
greediness; for some one generally comes along with a
gun once during the day, and if there be any commotion
among the rabbits, waits till the weasel or stoat appears at
the mouth of a hole, and sends a charge of shot at him.
These animals get caught, too, in the gins, and altogether
would do better to stay in the hedgerows.

The grass of this great pasture has a different appear-
ance to that in the meadows which are mown for hay. It
is closer and less uniformly green, because of the innumer-
able dead fibres. There are places which look almost
white from the bennets which the cattle leave standing to
die after the seeds have fallen, and shrink as their sap dries
up. Somewhat earlier in the summer, bright yellow strips
and patches, like squares of praying-carpet thrown down
upon the sward, dotted the slopes: it was the bird’s-foot
lotus growing so thickly as to overpower the grass. Mush-
rooms nestle here and there: those that grow in the open,
far from hedge and tree, are small, and the gills of a more
delicate salmon colour. Under the elms yonder a much
larger variety may be found, which, though edible, are
coarser,

204 Wild Life in a Southern County

Where a part of the lake comes up to the field is a long-
disused quarry, whose precipices face the water like a cliff.
Thin grasses have grown over the excavations below: the
thistles and nettles have covered the heaps of rubbish
thrown aside. The steep inaccessible walls of hardened
sand are green with minute vegetation. Along the edge
above runs a shallow red-brown band—it is the soil which
nourishes the roots of the grasses of the field: beneath it
come small detached stones in sand; these fall out, loosened
by the weather, and roll down the precipice. Then, still
deeper, the sand hardens almost into stone, and finally
comes the stone itself; but before the workmen could get
out more than a thin layer they reached the level of the
water in the lake, which came in on them, slowly forming
pools.

These are now bordered by aquatic grasses, and from
their depths every now and then the newts come up to the
surface. In the sand precipices are small round holes
worked out by the martins—there must be scores of them.
Where narrow terraces afford access to four-footed creatures,
the rabbits, too, have dug out larger caves; some of them
rise upwards, and open on the field above, several yards
from the edge of the cliff. The sheep sometimesclimb up
by these ledges; they are much more active than they
appear to be, and give the impression that in their native
state they must have rivalled the goats, The lambs play
about in dangerous-looking places without injury : the only
risk seems to be of their coming unexpectedly on the cliff
from above; if they begin from below they are safe. A
wood-pigeon may frequently be found in the quarry—some-
times in the pits, sometimes on the ledges high up—and
the goldfinches visit it for the abundant thistledown.

Between the excavated hollow and the lake there is but

Entering the Forest 205

a narrow bank of stone and sand overgrown with sward ;
and, reclining there, the eye travels over the broad expanse
of water, almost level with it, as one might look along a
gun-barrel. Yonder the roan cattle are in the water up to
their knees; the light air ripples the surface, and the sun-
shine playing on the wavelets glistens so brilliantly that
the eye can scarcely bear it; and the cattle ponder
dreamily, standing in a flood of liquid gold.

A path running from Wick across the fields to the
distant downs leads, to the forest. It would be quite
possible to pass by the edge without knowing that it was so
near, for a few scattered trees on the hill-side would hardly
attract attention. Nothing marks where the trees cease :
thin, wide apart, and irregularly placed, because planted by
nature, they look but a group on the down. There is in-
deed a boundary, but it is at a distance and concealed : it
is the trout-stream in the hollow far below, winding along
the narrow valley, and hidden by osier-beds and willow
pollards.

Ascending the slope of the down towards the trees,
the brown-tinted grass feels slippery under foot : this wiry
grass always does feel so as autumn approaches. A suc-
cession of detached hawthorn bushes—like a hedge with
great gaps—grow in a line up the rising ground—the
dying vines of the bryony trail over them—one is showing
its pale greenish white flowers, while the rest bear heavy
bunches of berries. A last convolvulus, toc, has a single
pink-streaked bell, though the bough to which it holds is
already partly bare of leaves. The touch of autumn is
capricious, and passes over many trees to fix on one which
stands out glowing with colour, while on the rest a dull
green lingers. Near the summit a few bunches of the
brake fern rise out of the grass; then the foremost trees

206 Wild Life in a Southern County

are reached, beeches as yet but faintly tinted here and
there. Their smooth irregularly round trunks are of no
great height—both fern and trees at the edge seem stunted,
perhaps because they have to bear the brunt and break the
force of the western gales sweeping over the hills.

For the first two hundred yards the travelling is easy
because of this very scantiness of the fern and underwood ;
but then there seems to rise up a thick wall of vegetation.
To push a way through the ever-thickening bracken becomes
more and more laborious; there is scarce a choice but to
follow a winding narrow path, green with grass and moss,
and strewn with leaves, in and out and round the impene-
trable thickets. Whither it leads—if, indeed, anywhere—
there is no sign. The precise sense of direction is quickly
lost, and then glancing round and finding nothing but fern
and bush and tree on every hand, it dawns upon the mind
that this is really a forest—not a wood, where a few minutes
either way will give you a glimpse of the outer light
through the ash-poles.

Other narrow paths—if they can be called paths which
show no trace of human usage—branch off from the
original one, till by-and-by it becomes impossible to re-
cognise one from the other. The first has been lost
indeed long ago, without its having been observed : for the
bracken is now as high as the shoulders, and the eye can-
not penetrate many yards on either side. Under a huge
oak at last there is an open space, circular, and corre-
sponding with the outer circumference of its branches:
carpeted with dark green grass and darker moss, thickly
strewn with brown leaves and acorns that have dropped
from their cups. A wall of fern enclosesit: the path loses
itself in the grass because it is itself green.

Several such paths debouch here—which is the right

The dead Forest King 207

one to follow? It is pure chance. On again, with more
tall bracken, thorn thickets, and maple bushes, and noting
now the strange absence of living things. Not a bird
rises startled from the boughs, not a rabbit crosses the
way; for in the forest, as in the fields, there are places
haunted and places deserted, save by occasional passing
visitors. Suddenly the bracken ceases, and the paths dis-
appear under a thick grove of beeches, whose dead leaves
and beech-mast seem to have smothered vegetation.

Insensibly the low ground rises again, the brake and
bushes and underwood reappear, but the trees grow thinner
and farther apart; they are mainly oaks, which like to
stand separate in their grandeur. There is one dead oak
all alone in the midst of the underwood, with a wide space
around it. A vast grey trunk, split and riven and hollow,
with a single pointed branch rising high above it, dead too,
and grey: not a living twig, not so much as a brown leaf,
gives evidence of lingering life. The oak is dead; but
even in his death he rules, and the open space around him
shows how he once overshadowed ard prevented the growth
of meaner trees. More oaks, then a broad belt of beeches,
and out suddenly into an opening.

It is but a stone’s throw across—a level mead walled in
with tall trees, whose leaves in myriads lie on the brown
tinted grass. One great thicket only grows in the midst
of it. The nights are chilly here, as elsewhere ; but in the
day, the winds being kept off by the trees and underwood,
it becomes quite summer-like, and the leaves turn to their
most brilliant hues. The stems of the bracken are yellow ;
the fronds vary from pale green and gold, commingled, to
a reddish bronze. ‘The hawthorn leaves are slight yellow,
some touched with red, others almost black. Maple bushes
glow with gold. Here the beeches show great spots of

208 = =9Wild Life in a Southern County

orange; yonder the same tree, from the highest branch to
the lowest, has become a rich brown. Brown, too, and
buff are the oaks; but the tints so shade into each other
that it is hard to separate and name them.

It is not long before sounds and movements indicate
that the forest around is instinct with life. Often it hap-
pens that more may be observed while stationary in one
spot than while traversing a mile or two ; for many animals
crouch or remain perfectly still, and consequently invisible,
when they hear a footstep. There is a slight tapping
sound—it seems quite near, but it is really some little way
off; and presently a woodpecker crosses the open, flying
with a wave-like motion, now dipping and now rising.
Soon afterwards a second passes: there are numbers of
them scattered about the forest. A clattering noise comes
from the trees on the left—it is a wood-pigeon changing
his perch; he has settled again, for now his hollow note is
heard, and he always calls while perching. A loud screech-
ing and chattering deeper in the forest tells that the
restless jaysare there. A missel-thrush comes and perches
on a branch right overhead, uttering his harsh note,
something like turning a small rattle. But he stays a
moment only: he is one of the most suspicious of birds,
and has instantly observed that there is some one near. A
magpie crosses the mead and disappears.

Something moving yonder in the grass catches the
eye; it is a reddish bushy tail, apparently without a body,
yet held nearly upright, and moving hither and thither in
a quick, nervous way. Suddenly down it goes, and the
squirrel raises himself on his haunches to listen to some
suspicious sound, holding his forefeet something like a
kangaroo. Then he recommences searching and the tail
rises, alone visible above the tall grass. Now he bounds,

Stalking the Stag 209

and as his body passes through the air the tail extends
behind and droops so that he seems to form an arch. After
working along ten or fifteen yards in one direction, he
stops, turns sharp round, and comes all the way back again.
Some distance farther, under the trees, two more are
frisking about, and a rabbit, has come to nibble the grass
in the open.

Looking across to the other side, where the fern re-
commences, surely there was a movement as if a branch
was shaken; and a branch that, on second thought, is in
such a position that it cannot be connected with any tree.
Again, and then the head and neck of a stag are lifted
above the fern. He is attacking a tree—rubbing his antlers
against a low branch, much as if he were fighting it. He
is not a hundred yards off; it would be easy to get nearer,
surely, by stalking him carefully, gliding from tree-trunk
to tree-trunk under the beeches.

At the first step the squirrel darts to the nearest beech ;
and although it seems to have no boughs or projections
low down, he is up it in a moment, going round the trunk
ina spiral. A startling clatter resounds overhead : it is a
wood-pigeon that had come quietly and settled on a tree
close by, without being noticed, and now rises in great
alarm. But it is a sound to which the deer are so accus-
tomed that they take no notice. There is little underwood
here beneath the beeches, but the beechmast lies thick,
and there are dead branches, which if stepped on will crack
loudly.

A weasel rushes past almost under foot; he has been
following his prey so intently as not to have observed
where he was going. He utters a strange startled ‘yap,’
or something between that and the noise usually made by
the lips to encourage a horse, and makes all speed into

P

210 Wild Life in a Southern County

the fern. These are the happy hunting grounds of the
weasels.

During spring and summer—so long as the grass,
clover, and corn-crops are standing, and are the cover in
which partridges and other birds have their nests—the
weasels and stoats haunt the fields, being safe from obser-
vation (while in the crops) and certain of finding a dinner.
Then, if you watch by a gap in the hedge, or look through
a gateway into the cornfield, you may be almost certain
of seeing one at least; in a morning’s walk in summer I
have often seen two or three weasels in this way. The
young rabbits and leverets are of course their prey also.
But after the corn is cut you may wait and watch a whole
day in the fields and not see a weasel. They have gone
to the thick mounds, the covers, woods, and forests, and
therein will hunt the winter through.

The stag is still feeding peacefully; he is now scarce
fifty yards away, when he catches sight and is off. His
body as he bounds seems to keep just above the ‘level of
the fern. It is natural to foliow him, though of course in
vain; the mead is left behind, and once more there is a
wall of fern on either side of the path. After a while
a broad green drive opens, and is much more easy to walk
along. But where does it go? for presently it divides
into two, and then the fork pursued again branches.
Hush! what is that clattering? It sounds in several
directions, but nothing is visible.

Then a sharp turn of the drive opens on a long narrow
grassy valley, which is. crowded with deer. Parties of
thirty or forty are grazing; and yonder, farther away by
themselves, there must be nearly a hundred fawns. Stand-
ing behind a tree, it is a pleasant sight to watch them;
but after a while comes back the thought, dismissed con-

Lost in the Forest OIE

temptuously long since—the afternoon is advancing, and
is it possible to be lost? ‘The truth is we are lost for the
time.

It is impossible to retrace one’s footsteps, the paths and
drives are so intricate, and cross and branch so frequently.
There are no landmarks. Perhaps from the rising ground
across the valley a view may be obtained. On emerging
into the open, the whole herd of deer and fawns move
slowly into the forest and disappear. From the hill there
is nothing visible but trees. If a tree be climbed to get
a look-out, there is still nothing but trees. Following a
green drive as a forlorn hope, there comes again the
rattling as of clubs and spears, and strange grunting
sounds. It is the bucks fighting; and they are not
altogether safe to approach. But time is going on; un-
less we can soon discover the way, we may have to remain
till the tawny wood-owls flit round the trees.

There comes the tinkle-tinkle of a bell: a search shows
two or three cows, one of which, after the fashion of the
old time, carries a bell. She comes and butts one play-
fully, and insists on her poll being rubbed. Then there
is more grunting, but of a different kind—this time easily
recognised : it is a herd of swine searching for the beech-
mast and acorns. With them, fortunately, comes the
swineherd—a lad, who shows a drive which leads to the
nearest edge of the forest.

Half an hour after leaving the swineherd, a rabbit is
found sitting on his haunches, motionless, with the head
drooping on one side. He takes no notice—he is dying.
Just beneath one ear is a slight trace of blood—it is the
work of a weasel, who fled on hearing approaching foot-
steps. Soon a film must form over the beautiful eye of
the hunted creature: let us in mercy strike him a sharp

P2

a12 Wild Life in a Southern County

blow on the head with the heavy end of the walking-stick,
and so spare him the prolonged sense of death. A hundred
yards further is a gate, and beyond that an arable field. On
coming near the gate a hawk glides swiftly downwards over
the hedge that there joins the forest. A cloud of sparrows
instantly rise from the stubble, and fly chirping in terror
to the hedge for shelter; but one is too late, the hawk has
him in his talons. Yonder is a row of wheat ricks, the
fresh straw with which they have just been covered con-
trasting with the brown thatch of the farmhouse in the
hollow. There a refreshing glass of ale is forthcoming,
and the way is pointed out.

The City of the Rooks rag)

CHAPTER XIV.

THE ROOKERY—BUILDING NESTS—YOUNG BIRDS—ROOK SHOOTING—
STEALING ROOKS—ANTICS IN THE AIR—MODE OF FLIGHT—WHITE
ROOKS,

THE city built by the rooks in the elms of the great pasture
field (the Warren, near Wick farmhouse) is divided into
two main parts; the trees standing in two rows, separated
by several hundred yards of sward. But the inhabitants
appear to be all more or less related, for they travel
amicably in the same flock and pay the usual visit to the
trees at the same hour. Some scattered elms form a line
of communication between the chief quarters, and each
has one or more nests in it. Besides these, the oaks in
the hedgerows surrounding the field support a few nests,
grouped three or four in close neighbourhood. In some
trees near the distant ash-copse there are more nests,
whose owners probably sprang from the same stock, but
were exiled, or migrated, and do not hold much communion
with the capital.

In early days men seem to have frequently dug their
entrenchments or planted their stockades on the summit
of hills. To the rooks their trees are their hills, giving
security from enemies. The wooden houses in the two
main streets are evidently of greater antiquity than those
erected in the outlying settlements. The latter are not
large or thick: they are clearly the work of one, or at

214. Wild Life in a Southern County

most two, seasons only; for it is noticeable that when
rooks build at a distance from the centre of population
they are some time before they finally decide on a site,
abandoning one place after another. But the nests form-
ing the principal streets are piled up to a considerable
height—fresh twigs being added every year—and are also
thick and bulky. The weight of the whole must be a
heavy burden to the trees.

Much skill is shown in the selection of the branches
upon which the foundations are laid. In the first place,
the branch must fork sufficiently to hold the bottom twigs
firmly and to give some side-support. Then it must be a
branch more or less vertical, or it would swing with the
wind too much up and down as well as to and fro. Thirdly,
there should be a clear or nearly clear space above the nest
to give easy access, and to afford room for it to increase
in size annually. For this reason, perhaps, nests are
generally placed near the top or outer sides of the tree,
where the boughs are smaller, and every upward extension
reaches a clearer place. Fourthly, the bough ought not
to be too stiff and firm; it should yield a little, and sway
easily, though only in a small degree, to the breeze. If
too stiff, in strong gales the nest runs the risk of being
blown clean out of the tree. Fifthly, no other branch
must rub against the one bearing the principal weight of
the nest, for that would loosen the twigs in time, and
dislocate the entire structure. Finally, rooks like an
adjacent bough on which the bird not actually engaged
in incubation can perch and ‘caw’ to his mate, and
which is also useful to alight on when bringing food for
the young.

It may be that the difficulty of finding trees which.
afford all these necessary conditions is one reason why,

Ingenuity of Rooks tn Nest-building 215

rooks who settle at a distance from their city seem long
before they can please themselves. The ingenuity exer-
cised in the selection of the bough and in the placing of
the twigs is certainly very remarkable. When the wind
blows furiously you may see the nest moving gently, riding
on the swaying boughs, while one of the birds perches on
a branch close by, and goes up and down like a boat on
the waves. Except by the concussion of branches beating
hard against the nest, it is rarely broken; up to a certain
point it would seem as if the older nests are the firmest,
perhaps because of their weight. Sometimes one which
has been blown down in the winter—when the absence of
protecting leaves gives the wind more power on them—
retains its general form even after striking against branches
in its descent and after collision with the earth.

Elms are their favourite trees for building in. Oak
and ash are also used, but where there are sufficient elms
they seem generally preferred. These trees, as a rule,
grow higher than any others ordinarily found in the fields,
and are more frequently seen in groups, rows, or avenues,
thus giving the rook facilities for placing a number of
nests in close neighbourhood. The height of the elm
affords greater safety, and the branches are perhaps better
suited for their purpose.

After building in an elm for many years—perhaps
ever since the owner can remember—rooks will suddenly
desert it. There are the old nests still; but no effort is
made to repair them, and no new ones are made. The
winds and storms presently loosen the framework, about
which no care is now taken, and portions are blown down.
Then by-and-by the discovery is made that the tree is
rapidly dying. The leaves do not appear, or if they do
they wither and turn yellow before Midsummer: gradually

216 Wild Life in a Southern County

the branches decay and fall of their own weight or before
the wind.

No doubt if any one had carefully examined the tree
he would have observed signs of decay long before the
rooks abandoned it; but those who pass the same trees
day after day for years do not observe minute changes, or,
if they do, as nature is slow in her movements, get so
accustomed to the sight of the fungi about the base, and
the opening in the bark where the decomposing touchwood
shows, as to think that it will always be so. At last the
rooks desert it, and then the truth is apparent.

Their nests, being heavy, are not safe on branches
up which the strengthening sap no longer rises; and in
addition to the nest there is the weight of the sitting-bird,
and often that of the other who perches temporarily on the
edge. As the branches die they become stiff, and will not
bend to the gale; this immobility is also dangerous to the
nest. So long as the bough yields and sways gently—
not much, but still a little—the strong winds do no injury.
When the bough becomes rigid, the broad side or wall of
the nest offers an unyielding surface, which is accordingly
blown away.

The nests which contain young are easily distinguished,
despite the height, by the almost continuous cry for food.
The labour of feeding the voracious creatures must be
immense, and necessity may partly account for the greater
boldness of the old birds at that season. By counting the
nests from which the cry proceeds the condition of the
rookery is ascertained, and the amount of sport it will
afford reckoned with some certainty, By noting the nests
from which the cry arose last, it is known which trees to
avoid in the rook-shooting ; for the young do not all come
to maturity at the same time, and there are generally a

Young Rooks tu Danger 217

dozen or so which it is best. to leave a week or a fortnight
later than the rest.

When the young birds begin to quit the nests, and
are observed perching on the tree or fluttering from branch
to branch, they must not be left much longer before shoot-
ing, or they will wander and be lost. A very few days
will then make all the difference; and so it has often
happened that men expecting to make a great bag have
been quite disappointed, notwithstanding the evident
number of nests; the shooting has been held a day or so
too late. The young birds get the use of their wings very
quickly, and their instinct rather seems to be to wander
than to remain in the immediate vicinity of their birth-
place.

Some think that the old birds endeavour to entice
them away as much as possible, knowing what is coming.
lt may be doubted if that is the case with respect to the
very young birds; but when the young ones are capable
of something like extended flight, and can cross a field
without much difficulty, I think the parents do attempt to
lead them away. When the shooting is in progress, if
you will go a little distance from the rookery, out of the
excitement of the sport, you may sometimes see two old
rooks, one on each side of a young one, cawing to it with
all their might. The young bird is, perhaps, on the
ground, or on a low hedge, and the old birds are evidently
endeavouring to get it to move. Yet they have not
learned the only way in which that can be done—i.e. by
starting themselves and flying a short distance, and
waiting, when the young bird will almost invariably
follow.

If you approach the trio the two old birds at once take
flight, seeing your gun, and the young bird in a few

218 Wild Life in a Southern County

seconds goes after them. Had they the sense to repeat
this operation, they might often draw the young one away
from danger; as for their cawing, it does not seem to be
quite understood by their offspring, who have hardly yet
learned their own language.

To appreciate this effort on the part of the old birds, it
must be recollected that immediately after the first shot
the great mass of the old rooks fly off in alarm. They go
to some distance and then wheel round and come back at
an immense height, and there, collected in loose order,
circle round and round, cawing as they sail. For an old
rook to remain in or near the rookery when once the firing
has commenced is the exception, and must be a wonderful
effort of moral courage, for of all birds rooks seem most
afraid of a gun; and naturally so, having undergone, when
themselves young, a baptism of fire. Those that escape
slaughter are for the most part early birds that come to
maturity before the majority, and so leave the trees before
the date fixed for shooting arrived, or acquire a power of
flight sufficient to follow their parents on the first alarm
to a safe distance. They have, therefore, a good oppor-
tunity of witnessing the destruction of their cousins, and
do not forget the lesson.

Although the young birds upon getting out of the nest
under ordinary conditions seem to like to wander, yet if
they are driven out or startled by the shot they do not
then at once endeavour to make for the open country or to
spread abroad, but appear rather to cling to the place, as
if the old nests could shelter them. After a while they
begin to understand the danger of this proceeding, and
half an hour’s rapid firing causes the birds to spread about
and get into the trees in the hedges at some distance.
There of course they are pursued, or killed the next day,

Easy Prey 219

three-quarters of a mile or more away from home. It is
rare for old rooks to get shot, for the reason above stated :
they rise into the air out of reach. Those that are killed
are generally such as have lingered in the hope to save a
young bird, and are mistaken and shot as young them-
selves.

Young birds may be easily distinguished by their slow
uncertain flight and general appearance of not knowing
exactly where to go or what to do. They are specially
easy to pick out if you see them about to perch on a tree.
They go at the tree anyhow, crash in among the branches,
and rather fall on a perch than choose it. The old bird
always enters a tree carefully, as if he did not like to ruffle
his feathers, and knew precisely what sort of bough he
preferred to settle on. Close to the rookery there is no
need to wait to pick out the young birds, because they
are all sure to be young birds there; but, as observed, old
birds will linger with young ones at a little distance, and
may then be mistaken—as also on the following day, when
sportsmen go round to pick up the outsiders, and frequently
come on old and young together. The old bird will not
sit and let you aim at him perching; if you shoot him, it
must be on the wing. The young bird will sit and let you
pick him off with a crossbow, and even if a cartridge singes
his wing he will sometimes only hop a yard or two along
the boughs.

Though hard hit and shattered with shot, they will
cling to the branches convulsively, seeming to hang by
the crook of the claw or by muscular contraction even
when perfectly dead, till lifted up by a shot fired directly
underneath, or till the bough itself is skilfully cut off by
a cartridge and both come down together. The young
feathers being soft, and the quills not so hard as in older

2200 Wald Life mm a Southern County

birds, scarcely a rook-shooting ever goes by without some
one claiming to have made a tremendous long shot, which
is quite possible, as it does not require many pellets or
much force behind them.

On dropping a rook, probably at some distance from
the rookery, where the men are whose duty it is to collect
the slain, beware of carrying tho bird; lot him lie, or at
most throw him upon a bramble bush in a conspicuous
spot till a boy comes round. Rooks are perfectly infested
with vermin, which in a few minutes will pass up their
leos on to your hand, and cause an unpleasant irritation,
though it is only temporary—for the insects cannot exist
long away from the bird.

The young birds are occasionally stolen from the
nests, notwithstanding the difficulty of access. Young
labourers will climb the trees, though so large that they
can scarcely grasp the trunk, and with few branches, and
those small for some height; for elms are often stripped
up the trunk to make the timber grow straight and free
from the great branches called ‘limbs.’ Kven when the
marauder is in the tree he has some difficulty in getting
at the nests, which are placed where the boughs diminish
in size. Climbing-irons used to be sometimes eniployed
for the purpose. As elm-trees are so conspicuous, these
thieving practices cannot well be carried on while it is
light. So the rook-poachers go up the trees in the dead
of night ; and as the old rooks would make a tremendous
noise and so attract attention, they carry a lantern with
them, the light from which silences the birds. So long as
they can see a light they will not caw.

The time selected to rob a rookery is generally just
before the date fixed for the shooting, because the young
birds are of little use for cooking till ready to fly.

Young Rooks that escape 22%

The trick, it is believed, has often been played, for the
mere pleasure of spiting the owner, the very night pre-
vious to the rook-shooting party being chosen. These
robberies of young rooks are much less frequent than they
used to be. One reason why those who possess any pro-
perty in the country do not like to see a labouring man
with a gun is because he will shoot an old rook (and
often eat it), if he gets the opportunity, without reference
to times or seasons, whether they are building or not.

The young rooks that escape being shot seem to be
fed, or partly fed, by the old birds for some time after they
can fly well and follow their parents. It is easy to know
when there are young rooks in a flock feeding in a field.
At the first glance the rooks look scattered about, without
any order, each independent of the other. Butin a few
minutes it will be noticed that here and there are groups
of three, which keep close together. These are formed of
the parents and the young bird—apparently as big and as
black as themselves—which they feed now and then. The
young bird, by attending to their motions, learns where to
find the best food. As late as July trios like this may
sometimes be seen.

Besides the young birds that have the good fortune to
pass unscathed through the dangers of rook-shooting day,
and escape being knocked over afterwards, some few get off
on account of having been born earlier than the majority,
thus possessing a stronger power of flight. Some nests are
known to be more forward than the others; but although
the young birds may be on the point of departing, they
are not killed because the noise of the firing would disturb
the whole settlement. So that it becomes the rook’s
interest to incubate a little in advance of the rest.

After a few months they are put into another terrible

222 «Wild Life in a Southern County

fright—on the Ist of September. Guns are going off in
all directions, no matter where they turn, so that they find
it impossible to feel at ease, and instead of feeding wheel
about in the air, or settle on the trees.

The glossy plumage of the rook will sometimes, when
seen at a certain angle, reflect the sun’s rays in such a
manner that instead of looking black the bird appears
clothed in shining light : it is as if the feathers were polished
like a mirror. In feeding they work in a grave, steady
way—a contrast to the restless starlings who so often
accompany them. They do not put a sentinel in a tree to
give warning of the approach of an enemy. The whole
flock is generally on the ground together, and, if half a
dozen perch awhile on the trees, they soon descend. So
far are they from setting a watch, that if you pass up out-
side the hedge to the leeward, on any side except where
the wind would carry the noise of footsteps to them, it is
easy to get close—sometimes, if they are feeding near the
hedge, within three or four yards. Of course, if a rook
happens to be in a tree it will not be possible to do so;
but they do not set a sentinel for this purpose.

Rooks, in a general way, seem more at their ease in
the meadows than in the arable fields. In the latter they
are constantly fired at, if only with blank charges, to
alarm them from the seed, besides being shouted at and
frightened with clappers. The birdkeeper’s efforts are,
however, of very little avail. If he puts the flock up on
one side of the field, they lazily sail to a distant corner,
and when he gets there go back again. They are fully
aware that he cannot injure them if they keep a certain
distance; but this perpetual driving to and fro makes
them suspicious. In the meadows it is rare for them to
be shot at, and they are consequently much less timid.

"Ware the Gun 223

At the same time they can perfectly well distinguish a
gun from a walking-stick. If you enter a meadow with a
gun under your arm, and find a flock feeding, they imme-
diately cease searching for food and keep a strict watch on
your movements; and if you approach they are off directly.
If you carry a walking-stick only, you may pass within
thirty yards sometimes, and they take little notice, pro-
vided you use the stick in the proper way. But now lift
it, and point it at the nearest rook, and in an instant he is
up with a ‘caw’ of alarm—though he knows it is not a
gun—and flies just above the surface of the ground till he
considers himself safe from possibility of danger. Often
the whole flock will move before that gesture. It is
noticeable that no wild creatures, birds or animals, like
anything pointed at them; you may swing your stick
freely, but point it, and off goes the finch that showed no
previous alarm. So, too, dogs do not seem easy if a stick
is pointed at them.

Rooks are easily approached in the autumn, when
gorging the acorns. They may often be seen flying carry-
ing an acorn in the bill. Sometimes a flock will set to
work and tear up the grass by the roots over a wide space
—perhaps nearly half an acre—in search of a favourite
beetle. The grass is pulled up in little wisps, just about
as much as they can hold in their beaks at atime. In
spring they make tracks through the mowing-grass—not
in all the meadows, but only in one here and there, where
they find the food they prefer. These tracks are very
numerous, and do the grass some damage. Besides
following the furrows made by the plough, and destroying
grubs, beetles, wireworm, and other pests in incalculable
numbers, they seem to find a quantity of insect food in
anripe corn; for they often frequent wheatfields only just

224 Wild Life tn a Southern County

turning yellow, and where the grain is not yet developed.
Except perhaps where they are very numerous, they do
much more good than harm.

Rooks may now and then be seen in the autumn, on
the hayricks ; they pull the thatch out, and will do in this
way an injury to the roof. Therefore old black bottles are
often placed on the thatch in order to scare them. It is
said that they pull out the straw for the stray grains left
in the ear by the thrashing-machine. This seems doubt-
ful. It appears more probable that some insect found on
the straw attracts them.

If you are walking past a feeding flock, the nearest
rook to you will often exhibit a ridiculous indecision as to
whether he shall fly or not. He stretches his neck and
leans forward as if about to spring, stops, utters a ques-
tioning ‘Cawk ?’ then watches you a moment and gives a
hop, just opens his wings, shuts them, and descends.
within a couple of feet. ‘Cawk!’ again. Finally, if you
turn from your course and make a step towards him, he
rises, flaps his wings three or four times, extends them,
and glides a dozen yards to alight once more.

Sometimes a flock will rise in the air, and silently
wheel round and round after each other, gradually ascend-
ing and drifting slowly with the current till they reach
a great height. When they soar like this it is said to
foretell fine weather. At another time a flock will go up
and wheel about in the strangest irregular manner. Every
now and then one will extend his wings, holding them
rigid, and dive downwards, in his headlong descent waver-
ing to and fro like a sheet of paper falling edge first. He
falls at a great pace, and looks as if he must be dashed to
pieces against a tree or the earth; but he rights himself
at the last moment, and glides away and up again with

Satling through the Air 225

ease. Occasionally two or three rooks may be seen doing
this at once, while the rest whirl about as if possessed ;
and those that are diving utter a gurgling sound like the
usual cawk prolonged— caw-wouk.’ These antics are be-
lieved to foretell rough winds.

The rook, like other broad-winged birds, often makes
much leeway in flying, though there be only a moderate
wind. The beak points in one direction, in which the
bird is apparently proceeding, but if observed closely it
will be found that the real course is somewhat sideways.
He is making leeway. So it is that a rook which looks as
if coming straight towards you—as if he must inevitably
go overhead—passes some distance to one side. He ap-
pears slow on the wing, as if to go fast required more
energy than he possessed, yet he travels over great dis-
tances without the least apparent exertion.

When going with the wind he sails high in the air,
only flapping his wings sufficiently to maintain balance
and steering power. But when working against the wind,
if it is a strong gale, his wings are used aapicly, and 56
comes down near the surface of the ground. He then flies
just above the grass, only high enough to escape touching
it, and follows the contour of the field, At the hedges he
has to rise, and immediately meets the full force of the
breeze. It is so powerful sometimes that he cannot over-
come it, and his efforts simply lift him in the air, like a
kite drawn against the wind. For a few moments he
appears stationary, his own impetus and the contending
wind balancing each other, and holding him suspended.
Then he rises again, but still finding the current too
strong, tacks like a ship to port or starboard, and so works
aslant into the gale. Shortly afterwards he comes down
again, if the field be a large one, and glides forward in

Q

226 =©=-*W7ld Life in a Southern County

the same manner as before, close to the surface. In cross-
ing the lake, too, against the wind, he flies within a few
feet of the water.

During such a galea rook may often be seen struggling
to get over a row of trees, and stationary, though using
his wings vigorously, suspended a little way above the
topmost branches. Frequently he has to give up the
attempt, turn back, and make a detour.

Though rooks usually go in flocks, individuals some-
times get separated, and may be seen flying alone on the
way to rejoin their friends. A flock of rooks, on rising,
oecasionally divides into two or more parties. Each
section wheels off on its own course, while sometimes a
small number of those who chance to be near the centre
of the original formation seem at a loss which company to
follow, and settle down again on the field. So a dozen or
more become separated from the crowd, and presently,
when they rise, they too divide ; three or four fly one way
to join one section, and others take another route. Indi-
viduals thus find themselves alone; but that causes them
no uneasiness, as they have their well-known places of
rendezvous, and have only to fly to certain fields to be
sure of meeting their friends, or at most to wait about
near the nesting-trees till the rest come.

It must not, therefore, be supposed that every one
flying alone is a crow. Crows are scarce in comparison
with rooks. In severe weather a rook will sometimes
venture into the courtyard of the farmstead.

Two rooks marked with white resided at the rookery
here for several years. One had sufficient white to be
distinguished at a distance; the other seemed to have but
one or two feathers, which were, however, visible enough
when near the bird. As they have not been seen lately,

Wantonly killed 559

they have probably been shot by some one who thought
it clever to destroy anything out of the ordinary. Most
large rookeries can either show a rook with white feathers,
or have well-authenticated records of their former exist-
ence; but though not rare, people naturally like to pre-
serve them when they do occur, and it is extremely
annoying to have them wantonly killed,

228 Wild Life in a Southern County

CHAPTER XV,

ROOKS RETURNING TO ROOST—VAST FLOCKS—ROOK PARLIAMENT—
THE TWO ROOK ARMIES AND THEIR ROUTES—ROOK LAWS, TRADI-
TIONS, AND ANCIENT HISTORY — THROWS’ OF TIMBER—THIEVING
JACKEDAWS,

As evening approaches, and the rooks begin to wing their
way homewards, sometimes a great number of them will
alight upon the steep ascent close under the entrenchment
on the downs which has been described, and from whence
the wood and beech trees where they sleep can be seen.
They do not seem so much in search of food, of which pro-
bably there is not a great deal to be found in the short,
dried-up herbage and hard soil, as to rest here, half-way
home from the arable fields. Sometimes they wheel and
circle in fantastic flight over the very brow of the down,
just above the rampart ; occasionally, in the raw cold days
of winter, they perch, moping in disconsolate mood, upon
the bare branches of the clumps of trees on the ridge.
After the nesting time is over and they have got back
to their old habits—which during that period are quite
reversed—it is a sight to see from hence the long black
stream in the air steadily flowing onwards to the wood
below. They stretch from here to the roosting-trees, fully
a mile and a half—literally as the crow flies; and back-
wards in the opposite direction the line reaches as tar as
the eye can see. It is safe to estimate that the aerial

Thousands upon Thousands of Wings 229

army’s line of march extends over quite five miles in one
unbroken corps. The breadth they occupy in the at-
mosphere varies—now twenty yards, now fifty, now a
hundred, on an average say fifty yards; but rooks do not
fly very close together, like starlings, and the mass, it may
be observed, fly on the same plane. Instead of three or
four layers one above the other, the greater number pass
by at the same height from the ground, side by side on a
level, as soldiers would march upon a road: not meaning,
of course, an absolute, but a relative level. This forma-
tion is more apparent from an elevation—as it were, up
among them-—than from below; and looking along their
line towards the distant wood it is like glancing under a
black canopy.

Small outlying parties straggle from the line—now on
one side, now on the other; sometimes a few descend to
alight on trees in the meadows, where doubtless their
nests were situated in the spring. For it is a habit of
theirs months after the nesting is over, and also before it
begins, to pay a flying visit to the trees in the evening,
calling en route to see that all is well and to assert pos-
session.

The rustling sound of these thousands upon thousands
of wings beating the air with slow steady stroke can hardly
be compared to anything else in its weird oppressiveness,
so to say: it is a little like falling water, but may be best
likened, perhaps, to a vast invisible broom sweeping the
sky. Every now and then a rook passes with ragged wing
—several feathers gone, so that you can see daylight
through it; sometimes the feathers are missing from the
centre, leaving a great gap, so that it looks as if the bird
had a large wing on this side and on the other two narrow
ones, There is a rough resemblance between these and

2300 («*Wild Life tn a Southern County

the torn sails of some of the old windmills which have
become dark in colour from long exposure to the weather,
and have been rent by the stormsof years. Rooks can fly
with gaps of astonishing size in their wings, and do not
seem much incommoded by the loss—caused, doubtless, by
a charge of shot in the rook-shooting, or by the small
sharp splinters of flint with which the birdkeepers
sometimes load their guns, not being allowed to use
shot.

Near their nesting-trees their black feathers may be
picked up by dozens in the grass; they beat them out
occasionally against the small boughs, and sometimes in
fighting. If seen from behind, the wings of the rook, as
he spreads them and glides, slowly descending, preparatory
to alighting, slightly turn up at the edges like the rim
of a hat, but much less curved. From a distance as he
tlies he appears to preserve a level course, neither rising nor
falling; but if observed nearer it will be seen that with
every stroke of the wings the body is lifted some inches,
and sinks as much immediately afterwards.

As the black multitude floats past overhead with
deliberate, easy flight, their trumpeters and buglemen, the
jackdaws—two or three to every company—utter their
curious chuckle ; for the jackdaw is a bird which could not
keep silence to save his life, but must talk after his fashion,
while his grave, solemn companions move slowly onwards,
rarely deigning to ‘caw’ him areply. But away yonder
at the wood, above the great beech trees, where so vast a
congregation is gathered together, there is a mighty uproar
and commotion: a seething and bubbling of the crowds, now
settling on the branches, now rising in sable clouds, each
calling to the other with all his might, the whole popula-
tion delivering its opinions at once,

wo vast expeditionary Corps 231

It is an assemblage of a hundred republics. We know
how free States indulge in speech with their parliaments
and congresses and senates, their public meetings, and so
forth: here are a hundred such nations, all with perfect
liberty of tongue, holding forth unsparingly, and in a
language which consists of two or three syllables inde-
finitely repeated. The din is wonderful—each republic as
its forces arrive adding to the noise, and for a long time
unable to settle upon their trees, but feeling compelled to
wheel around and discourse. In spring each tribe has its
special district, its own canton and city, in its own trees
away inthe meadows. Later on they all meet here in the
evening. It is a full hour or more before the orations have
all been delivered, and even then small bands rush up into
the air still dissatisfied.

This great stream of rooks passing over the hills meets
another great stream as it approaches the wood, crossing
up from the meadows. From the rampart there may be
seen, perhaps a mile and a half away, a dim black line
crossing at right angles—converging on the wood, which
itself stands on the edge of the table-land from which the
steeper downs arise. This second army is every whit as
numerous, as lengthy, and as regular in its route as the
first.

Every morning, from the beech trees where they have
slept, safe at that elevation from all the dangers of the
night, there set out these two vast expeditionary corps.
Regularly, the one flies steadily eastward over the downs ;
as regularly the other flies steadily northwards over the
vale and meadows. Doubtless in different country districts
their habits in this respect vary ; but here it is always east
and always north. If any leave the wood for the south or
the west, as probably they do, they go in small bodies and

2320 «Wild Life in a Southern County

are quickly lost sight of The two main divisions sail
towards the sunrise and towards the north star.

They preserve their ranks for at least two miles from the
wood; and then gradually first one and then another com-
pany falls out, and wheeling round, descends upon some
favourite field, till by degrees, spreading out like a fan, the
army melts away. In the evening, the various companies,
which may by that time have worked far to the right or to
the left, gradually move into line. By-and-by the van-
guard comes sweeping up, and each regiment rises from
the meadow or the hill, and takes its accustomed place in
the return journey.

So that although if you casually observe a flock of
rooks in the daytime they seem to wander hither and
thither just as fancy leads, or as they are driven by passers-
by, in reality they have all their special haunts; they
adhere to certain rules, and even act in concert, thousands
upon thousands of them at once, as if in obedience to the
word of command, and as if aware of the precise moment
at which to move. They have their laws, from which
there is no deviation: they are handed down unaltered
from generation to generation. ‘Tradition, indeed, seems
to be their main guide, as it is with savage human tribes.
They have their particular feeding grounds; and so you
may notice that, comparing ten or a dozen fields, one or
two will almost always be found to be frequented by rooks
while the rest are vacant.

Here, for instance, is a meadow close to a farmstead—
what is usually called the home-field, from its proximity to
a house—here day after day rooks alight and spend hours
in it, as much at their ease as the nag or the lambs brought
up by hand. Another field, at a distance, which to the
human eye appears so much more suitable, being retired,

Rook Tradition ao

quiet, and apparently quite as full of food, is deserted ;
they scarcely come near it. The home-field itself is not
the attraction, because other home-fields are uot so
favoured.

The tenacity with which rooks cling to localities is
often illustrated near great cities where buildings have
gradually closed in around their favourite haunts. Yet on
the small waste spots covered with cinders and dust-heaps,
barren and unlovely, the rooks still alight; and you may
see them, when driven up from such places, perching on
the telegraph wires over the very steam of the locomotives
as they puff into the station.

I think that neither considerations of food, water,
shelter, nor convenience are always the determining factors
in the choice made by birds of the spots they frequent ;
for I have seen many cases in which all of these were
evidently quite put on one side. Birds to ordinary obser-
vation seem so unfettered, to live so entirely without
rhyme or reason, that it is difficult to convey the idea that
the precise contrary is really the case.

Returning to these two great streams of rooks, which
pour every evening in converging currents from the north
and east upon the wood; why do they do this? Why not
go forth to the west, or to the south, where there are hills
and meadows and streams in equal number? Why not
scatter abroad, and return according to individual caprice ?
Why, to go still further, do rooks manceuvre in such
immense numbers, and crows fly only in pairs? The
simple truth is that birds, like men, have a history. They
are unconscious of it, but its accomplished facts affect
them still and shape the course of their existence. With-
out doubt, if we could trace that history back, there are
good and sufficient reasons why rooks prefer to fly, in this

234 Tlild Life in a Southern County

particular locality, to the east and to the north. Some-
thing may perhaps be learnt by examining the routes along
which they fly.

The second division—that which goes northwards, after
flying little more than a mile in a straight line—passes
over Wick Farm, and disperses gradually in the meadows
surrounding and extending far below it. The rooks whose
nests are placed in the elms of the Warren belong to this
division, and, as their trees are the nearest to the great
central roosting-place, they are the first to quit the line
of march in the morning, descending to feed in the fields
around their property. On the other hand, in the evening,
as the army streams homewards, they are the last to rise
and join the returning host.

So that there are often rooks in and about the Warren
later in the evening after those whose habitations are
farther away have gone by, for, having so short a distance
to fly, they put off the movement till the last moment.
Before watches became so common a possession, the
labouring people used, they say, to note the passage over-
head of the rooks in the morning in winter as one of their
signs of time, so regular was their appearance; and if the
fog hid them, the noise from a thousand black wings and
throats could not be missed.

If, from the rising ground beyond the Warren or from
the downs beyond that, the glance is allowed to travel
slowly over the vale northwards, instead of the innumer-
able meadows which are really there, it will appear to
consist of one vast forest. Of the hamlet not far distant
there is nothing visible but the white wall of a cottage,
perhaps, shining in the sun, or the pale blue smoke curling
upwards. This wooded appearance is caused by timber
trees standing in the hedgerows, in the copses at the

‘Throws’ of Timber 235

corners of the meadows, and by groups and detached trees
in the middle of the fields.

Many hedges are full of elms, some have rows of oaks;
some meadows have trees growing so thickly in all four
hedges as to seem surrounded by a timber wall; one or
two have a number of ancient spreading oaks dotted about
in the field itself, or standing in rows. But there are not
nearly so many trees as there used to be. Numerous
hedges have been grubbed to make the fields larger.

Within the last thirty years two large falls of timber
have taken place, when the elms especially were thrown
wholesale. The old men, however, recall a much greater
‘throw,’ as they term it, of timber, which occurred twice
as long ago. Then before that they have a tradition that
a still earlier ‘throw’ took place, when the timber chiefly
went to the dockyards for the building of those wooden
walls which held the world at bay. These traditions go
back, therefore, some eighty or a hundred years. One
field in particular is pointed out where stood a double row
or avenue of great oaks leading to nothing but a farm-
stead of the ordinary sort, of which there is not the
slightest record that it ever was anything but a farmhouse.
Now avenues of great oaks are not planted to lead to
farmsteads. Besides these, it is said, there were oaks in
most of the fields—oaks that have long since disappeared,
the prevalent tree being elm.

While all these ‘throws’ of timber have successively
taken place, no attempt has been made to fill up the gaps;
no planting of acorns, no shielding with rails the young
saplings from the ravages of cattle. Ifa young tree could
struggle up, it could; if not, it perished. At the last two
‘ throws,’ especially, young trees which ought to have been
saved were ruthlessly cut down. Yet even now the place

to

360 sWld Life tz a Southern County

is well timbered; so that it is easy to form some idea of
the forest-like appearance it must have presented a hundred
years ago, when rows of giant oaks led up to that farm-
house door.

Then there are archeological reasons, which it would
be out of place to mention, why in very ancient days a
forest, in all probability, stood hereabouts. It seems
reasonable to suppose that in one way or another the
regular flight of the second army of rooks passing down
into this district was originally attracted by the trees.
Three suggestions arise out of the circumstances.

The wood in which both streams of rooks roost at
night stands on the last slope of the downs; behind it to
the south extend the hills, and the open tilled upland
plains; below it northwards are the meadows. It has,
therefore, much the appearance of the last surviving
remnant of the ancient forest. There has been a wood
there time out of mind: there are references to the woods
of the locality dating from the sixteenth century. Now if
we suppose (and such seems to have been really the case)
the unenclosed woodlands below gradually cleared of trees,
thereby doubtless destroying many rookeries—the rooks
driven away would naturally take refuge in the wood re-
maining. There the enclosure protected them, and there
the trees, being seldom or never cut down, or if cut down
felled with judgment and with a view to future timber,
grew to great size and in such large groups as they prefer.
But as birds are creatures of habit, their descendants in
the fiftieth generation would still revisit the old places in
the meadows.

Secondly, although so many successive ‘throws’ of
timber thinned out the trees, yet there may still be found
more groups and rows of elms and oak in this direction

Flabits of Rooks 3"

than in any other; that is, a line drawn northwards from
the remaining wood passes through a belt of well-timbered
country. On either side of this belt there is much less
timber; so that the rooks that desired to build nests
beyond the limits of the enclosed wood still found in the
old places the best trees for their purpose. Here may be
seen far more rookeries than in any other direction.
Hardly a farmhouse lying near this belt but has got its
rookery, large or small. Once these rookeries were
established, an inducement to follow this route would
arise in the invariable habit of the birds of visiting their
nesting-trees even when the actual nesting time is
past.

Thirdly, if the inquiry be carried still farther back, it
is possible that the line taken by the rooks indicates the
line of the first clearings in very early days. The clearing
away of trees and underwood, by opening the ground and
rendering it accessible, must be very attractive to birds,
and rooks are particularly fond of following the plough.
Now although the district is at present chiefly meadow
land, numbers of these meadows were originally ploughed
fields, of which there is evidence in the surface of the fields
themselves, where the regular ‘lands’ and furrows are
distinctly visible.

One or all of these suggestions may perhaps account
for the course followed by the rooks. In any case it seems
natural to look for the reason in the trees. The same idea
applies to the other stream of rooks which leaves the wood
for the eastward every morning, flying along the downs.
In describing the hill district, evidence was given of the
existence of woods or forest land upon the downs in the
olden time. Detached copses and small woods are still to
be found; and it happens that a part of this district, in

238 Wild Life tn a Southern County

the line of the eastward flight, belonged to a ‘chase,’ of
which several written notices are extant.

The habits of rooks seem more regular in winter than
in summer. In winter the flocks going out in the morning
or returning in the evening appear to pass nearly at the
same hour day after day. But in summer they often stay
about late. This last summer [1878] I noticed a whole
flock, some hundreds in number, remaining out till late—
till quite dusk—night after night, and always in the same
place. It was an arable field, and there they stood close
together on the ground, so close that in spots it was diffi-
cult to distinguish individuals. They were silent and still,
making no apparent attempt at feeding. The only motion
I observed was when a few birds arrived and alighted
among them. Where they thus crowded together the
earth was literally black.

It was about three-quarters of a mile from their
nesting-trees, but nesting had been over for more than
two months. This particular field had recently been
ploughed by steam tackle, and was the only one for a con-
siderable distance that had been ploughed for some time.
There they stood motionless, side by side, as if roosting on
the ground; possibly certain beetles were numerous just
there (for it was noticeable that they chose the same part
of the field evening after evening), and came crawling up
out of the earth at night.

The jackdaws, which—so soon as the rooks pack after
nesting and fly in large flocks—are always with them,
may be distinguished by their smaller size and the quicker
beats of their wings, even when not uttering their well-
known cry. Jackdaws will visit the hencoops if not close
to the house, and help themselves to the food meant for
the fowls. Poultry are often kept in rickyards, a field or

Impudent Thieves 239

two distant from the homestead, and it is then amusing to
watch the impudent attempts of the jackdaws at robbery.
Four or five will perch on the post and rails, intent on the
tempting morsels: sitting with their heads a little on one
side and peering over. Suddenly one thinks he sees an op-
portunity. Down he hops, and takes a peck, but before he
has hardly seized it a hen darts across, running at him
with beak extended like lance in rest. Instantly he is up
on the rail again, and the impetus of the hen’s charge
carries her right under him.

Then, while her back is turned, down hops a second
and helps himself freely. Out rushes another hen, and up
goes the jackdaw. A pause ensues for a few minutes:
presently a third black rascal dashes right into the midst
of the fowls, picks up a morsel, and rises again before they
can attack him. The way in which the jackdaw dodges
the hens, though alighting among them, and as it were for
the moment surrounded, is very clever; and it is laughable
to see the cool impudence with which he perches again on
the rail, and looks down demurely, not a whit abashed, on
the feathered housewife he has just been doing his best
to rob,

249 0 «Wald Life in a Southerit County

CHAPTER XVI.

NOTES ON BIRDS—NIGHTINGALES—CHAFFINCHES—MIGRATION—PACK=
ING — INTERMARRIAGE — PEEWITS — CROWS — CUCK008 — GOLDEN=
ORESTED WREN.

THE nightingale is one of the birds whose habit of return-
ing every year to the same spot can hardly be overlooked
by any one. Hawthorn and hazel are supposed to attract
them: I doubt it strongly. If there is a hawthorn bush near
their favourite resting-place they will frequent it by choice,
but of itself it will not bring nightingales. They seem to fix
upon localities in the most capricious manner. In this
particular district they are moderately plentiful ; yet in the
whole of a large parish (some five miles across) they are
only found in one place, The wood, whichis the roosting-
place of all the rooks, large as it is, has but one haunt of
the nightingale. Just in one special spot they may be
heard, and nowhere else. But having selected a locality,
they come back to it as regularly as the swallows.

In another county in the same latitude there is a small
copse of birch which borders a much-frequented road.
Here the stream of vehicles and passengers is nearly con-
tinuous; and the birch copse abounds with nightingales in
the spring. On one fine morning I counted eight birds
singing at once. The young birds seemed afterwards as
numerous as the sparrows. Never, in the wildest district
I have ever visited, have I seen so many. They had be-

Liming Chaffinches 241

come so accustomed to passers-by that they took no notice
unless purposely disturbed. Several times I stood under
an oak bough that projected across the sward by the road-
side, with a nightingale perched on it overhead straining
his throat. The bough was some twelve feet high, and in
full view of every one. This road was constructed about a
hundred years ago; and it would be interesting to learnif
a country lane preceded it, well sheltered on both sides by
thick hedges. Birds are fond of such places, and, having
once formed the habit of coming there, would continue to
do so after the highway was laid down.

It has been stated that the flocks of chaffinches which
may be seen in winter consist entirely of females. Male
chaffinches are rarely seen: they have migrated, or in
some other manner disappeared. Yet so soon as the spring
comes on the males make their presence known by calling
their defiant notes from every elm along the road. Last
spring [1878] I fell into conversation with a fowler. He
had a cock chaffinch in a cage covered with a black cloth,
except on one side. The cage was placed on the sward
beside the road, and near it a stuffed cock bird stood on the
grass. Two pieces of whalebone smeared with birdlime
formed a pointed arch over the stuffed chaffinch. The live
decoy bird in the cage from time to time uttered a few
notes, which were immediately answered by a wild bird in
the elms overhead. These notes are a challenge; and the
bird in the tree supposes them to proceed from the stuffed
bird in the grass, and descends to fight him, when, as the
deceived bird alights, his wings or feet come in contact
with the whalebone—sometimes he perches on it—and the
lime holds him fast.

At that season (March) the cock birds have an irresis-
tible inclination to do battle ; they are ceaselessly challeng-

B

242 TVild Life in a Southern County

ing each other, and the fowler takes advantage of it to
snare them. Now this man said that these chaffinches
sold for 6s. the dozen, and that when the birds were ‘ on,’
as he called it, he could catch five dozen a day. In a walk
of four or five miles I passed half-a-dozen such fellows,
with cages and stuffed chaffinches. This alone proves that
cock chaffinches are very numerous in spring. Where,
then, are they in winter, if the flocks of chaffinches at that
period consist almost exclusively of female birds? Pro-
bably they fly in small bodies of three or four, or singly,
and so escape observation. But this division of the sexes
presents a curious resemblance to the social customs dis-
covered amongst certain savages. During the winter the
birds separate, and the females ‘ pack.’ In the spring the
males appear, and, after a period of fighting for the mastery,
pair, and the nests are built. After the young are reared,
song ceases, and the old haunts are deserted. This summer
I was much struck with this partial migration, perhaps
the more so because observed in a fresh locality.

During the spring and summer I daily followed a road
for some three miles which I had found to pass through a
district much frequented by birds. The birch coppice so
favoured by nightingales was that way; and, by the bye,
the wrynecks were almost equally numerous; and the
question has occurred to me whether these birds are com-
panions, in a sense, of the nightingale, having noticed
them in other places tobe much together. All spring and
summer the hedges, coppices, brakes, thickets, furze lands,
and cornfields abounded with bird life, About the middle
of August there was a notable decrease. Early in Septem-
ber the places previously so populous seemed almost de-
serted ; by the middle of the month quite deserted.

There were no chaffinches in the elms or in the road,

Migration of Finches 243

and scarcely a sparrow; not a yellowhammer on the hedge
by the cornfield ; only a very few greenfinches ; not a single
bullfinch or goldfinch. Blackbirds, thrushes, and robins
alone remained. The way to find what birds are about is
to watch one of their favourite drinking and bathing-
places; then it is easy to see which are absent. Where
had all these birds gone to? In the middle of the fields
of stubble there were flocks of sparrows—almost innumer-
able sparrows—and some finches, but not, apparently,
enough to account for all that had left the hedges and
trees. That may be explained by their being scattered
over so many broad acres—miles of arable land being open
to them.

But the migration from the hedgerows was very marked.
They became quite empty and silent about the middle of
September. This state of things continued for little more
than a week—meaning the absolute silence—then a bird
or two appeared in places at long intervals. They now
came back rapidly, till, on the 28th, the ‘ fink, chink’ of
the finches sounded almost as merrily as before. The
greenfinches flew from tree to tree in parties of four, six,
or more, calling to each other in their happy confidential
way. On that day the trees and hedges seemed to become
quite populous again with finches. The sparrows, too,
were busy in the roads once more. For a week previously
every now and then a single lark might be heard singing
for a few minutes: they had been silent before. On the
28th half a dozen could be heard singing at once, and now
and then a couple might be seen chasing each other as if
full of gaiety. It was indeed almost like a second spring:
at the same time a few buttercups bloomed, to add to the
illusion.

This migration of the finches from the hedgerows ott

r 2

244 WVild Life in a Southern County

into the fields, and their coming back, is very striking.
It may possibly be connected with the phenomenon of
‘packing’; for they seem to go away by twos and threes,
to disappear gradually, but to return almost all at once,
and in parties or flocks. The number in the flocks varies
a great deal: it is a common opinion that it depends on
the weather, and that in hard winters, when the cold is
severe and prolonged, the flocks are much larger. Wood-
pigeons are seldom, it is said, seen in great flocks till the
winter is advanced.

Has the date of the harvest any influence upon the
migration of birds? The harvest in some counties is, of
course, much earlier than in others—a fact of which the
itinerant labourer takes advantage, following the wave of
ripening grass and corn. By the time they have mown
the grass or reaped the wheat, as the case may be, in one
county, the crops are ripe in another, to which they then
wend their way.

One of the very earliest counties, perhaps, is Surrey.
The white bloom of the blackthorn seems to show there a
full fortnight earlier than it does on the same line of lati-
tude not many miles farther west. The almond trees ex-
hibit their lovely pink blossom ; the pears bloom, and pre-
sently the hawthorn comes out into full leaf, when a degree
of longitude to the west the hedges are bare and only just
showing a bud. Various causes probably contribute to this
—difference of elevation, difference of soil, and so forth.
Now the spring visitors—as the cuckoo, the swallow, and
wryneck—appear in Surrey considerably sooner than they
do farther west. The cuckoo is sometimes a full week
earlier. It would seem natural to suppose that the more
forward state of vegetation in that county has something
to do with the earlier appearance of the bird. But I

The Redwing’s Song 245

should hesitate to attribute it entirely to that cause, for it
sometimes happens that birds act in direct opposition to
what we should consider the most eligible course.

For instance, the redwing is one of our most prominent
winter visitors. Flocks of redwings and fieldfares are
commonly seen during the end of the season. They come
as winter approaches, they leave as it begins to grow
warm. In every sense they are birds of passage: any
ploughboy will tell you so. (By the bye, the ploughboys
call the fieldfares ‘velts.’ Is not ‘velt’ a Northern word
for field?) But one spring—it was rapidly verging on
summer—I was struck day after day by hearing a loud,
sweet, but unfamiliar note in a certain field. Fancying
that most bird notes were known to me, this new song
naturally arrested my attention. In a little while I suc-
ceeded in tracing it to an oak tree. I got under the
oak tree, and there on a bough was a redwing singing
with all his might. It should be remarked that neither
redwing nor fieldfare sings during the winter; they of
course have their ‘call’ and cry of alarm, but by no
stretch of courtesy could it be called a song. But this
redwing was singing—sweet and very loud, far louder
than the old familiar notes of the thrush. The note rang
out clear and high, and somehow sounded strangely un-
familiar among English meadows and English oaks.

Then, looking farther and watching about the hedges
‘there, I soon found that the bird was not alone—there
were three or four pairs of redwings in close neighbour-
hood, all evidently bent upon remaining to breed. To
make quite sure, I shot one. Afterwards I found a nest,
and had the pleasure of seeing the young birds come to
maturity and fly.

Nothing could be more thoroughly opposed to the

246 Wild Life tn « Southern County

usual habits of the bird. There may be other instances
recorded, but what one sees oneself leaves so much deeper
an impression. The summer that followed was a very fine
one. It is instances like this that make one hesitate to
dogmatise too much as to the why and wherefore of bird-
ways. Yet it is just the speculation as to that why and
wherefore which increases the pleasure of observing them.

Then there is the corn-crake, of whose curious tricks
in the mowing-grass I have already written. The crake’s
rules of migration are not easily reconciled with any
theory I have ever heard of. In the particular locality
which has been described the crakes come early, they
enter the mowing-grass and remain there till after it is
cut; immediately afterwards they are heard in the corn.
Presently they are silent and supposed to be gone; but I
have heard of their being shot in the opening of the
shooting season on the uplands. The cry of the crake in
that locality is so common and so continuous as to form
one of the most striking features of the spring: the
farmers listen for them, and note their first arrival, just as
for the cuckoo—which, it may be observed in passing,
even in England keeps time with the young figs.

But when I had occasion to pass a spring in Surrey
the first thing I noticed was the rarity of the crakes; I
heard one or two at most, and that only for a short time.
Long before the grass was mown they were gone—
doubtless northwards, having only called in passing. I am
told they call again in coming back, and are occasionally
shot in September. But the next spring, chancing again
to be in Surrey at that season, though constantly about
out of doors, I never heard a crake but once—one single
call—and even then was not quite sure of it. I am told,
again, that there are parts of the county where they are

Packing of Birds 247

more nnmerous: they were certainly scarce those two
seasons in that locality. Now here we have an instance
in direct contradiction to the suggestion that the early
state of vegetation is attractive to our spring visitors.
The crakes appeared to come earlier, in larger numbers,
and to be more contented and make a longer stay in the
colder county than in the warm one.

The packing of birds is very interesting, and nv
thoroughly satisfactory explanation of it, that I am aware
of, has ever been discovered. It is one of the most pro-
minent facts in their history. It is not for warmth,
because they pack long before it is cold. This summer I
saw large flocks of starlings flying to their favourite firs to
roost on the evening of the 19th of June. The cuckoo
was singing on the 17th, two days before.

It would be interesting to know, too, whether birds
are really as free in the choice of their mates in spring as
at first sight appears. They return to the same places,
the same favourite hedge, and even the same tree. Now,
when the flocks split up into sections as the spring draws
near, each section or party seems to revisit the hedge
from which they departed last autumn. Do they, then,
intermarry year after year? and is that the reason why
they return to the same locality? The fact of a pair
building by chance in a certain hedge is hardly enough
to account for the yearly return of birds to the spot. It
seems more like the return of a tribe or gens to its own
special locality. The members of such a gens must in
that case be closely related. As it is not possible to
identify individual birds, the difficulty of arriving at a
clear understanding is great.

Why, again, do not robins pack? Why do not black-
birds, and thrushes, go in flocks? They never merge

248 9 Wild Life tn a Southern County

their individuality all the year round. Kyen herons,
though they fish separately, are gregarious in building,
and also often in a sense pack during the day, standing
together on a spit or sandbank. Rooks, starlings, wood-
pigeons, fieldfares, and redwings, may be seen in winter
all feeding in the same field, and all in large flocks.

Some evidence of a supposed tendency to intermarry
among birds may perhaps be deduced from the practice of
the long-tailed titmouse. This species builds a nest
exactly like a hut, roof included, and in it several birds
lay their eggs: as many as twenty eges are sometimes
found; fourteen is a common number. Here there is not
only the closest relationship, but a system of community.
This tit has a way sonctimes of pufling up its feathers—
they are fluffy, and in that state look hke fur—and utter-
ing a curious sound much resembling the squeak of a
mouse; hence, perhaps, the affix ‘mouse’ to its name.

The tomtit also packs, and flies in small parties almost
all the year round. They remain in such parties until the
very time of nesting. On March 24 last, while watching
the approach of a snowstorm, I noticed that a tall birch
tree—whose long, slender, weeping branches showed dis-
tinctly against the dark cloud—seemed to have fruit
hanging at the end of several of the boughs. On going
near I counted six tomtits, as busy as they could be,
pendent from as many tiny drooping boughs, as if at tho
end of a string, and swinging to and fro as the rudo blast
struck the tree. The six in a few minutes increased to
cight, then to nine, then to twelve, and at last there were
fourteen together, all dependent from the very tiniest:
drooping boughs, all swinging to and fro as the snow-
flakes came silently floating by, and all chuckling and
calling to each other. ‘The ruder the blast and the more

Peewits or Lapwings 249

they swung—heads downwards—the merrier they seemed,
busily picking away at the young buds. Some of them
remained in the tree more than an hour.

Peewits or lapwings not only pack in the winter, but
may almost be said to pass the nesting-time together.
There are two favourite localities in the district, which has
been more particularly described, much frequented by
these birds. One is among some water-meadows, where
the grass is long earlier in the spring than elsewhere:
there the first bennet pushes up its green staff—country
people always note the appearance of the first bennet—
and the first cuckoo-flower opens. Several nests are made
here on the ground, in comparatively close contiguity.

Upon approaching, the old bird flies up, circles round,
and comes so near as almost to be within reach, whistling
‘ pee-wit, pee-wit, over your head. He seems to tumble
in the air as if wounded and scarcely able to fly; and those
who are not aware of his intention may be tempted to
pursue, thinking to catch him. But so soon as you are
leaving the nest behind he mounts higher, and wheels off
to a distant corner of the field, uttering an ironical ‘ pee-
wit’ as he goes. If you neglect his invitation to catch
him if you can, and search for the nest or stand still, he
gets greatly excited and comes much closer, and in a few
minutes is joined by his mate, who also circles round;
while several of their friends fly at a safer distance, whis-
tling in sympathy.

Then you have a good opportunity of observing the
peculiar motion of their wings, which seem to strike
simply downwards and not also backwards, as with other
birds; it is a quick jerking movement, the wing giving
the impression of pausing the tenth of a second at the
finish of the stroke before it is lifted again. If you pass

250 8 6VWald Life zx a Southern County

on a short distance and make no effort to find the nest,
they recover confidence and descend. When the peewit
alights he runs along a few yards rapidly, asif carried by the
impetus. He isa handsome bird, with a well-marked crest.

The other locality to which I have referred was a wide
open field full of ant-hills. There must have been eight
or ten acres of these hills. They rose about eighteen
inches or two feet, of a conical shape, and overgrown by
turf, like thousands of miniature extinct volcanoes. They
were so near together that it was easy to pass twenty or
thirty yards, without once touching the proper surface of
the ground, by springing from one ant-hill to the other.
Thick bunches of rushes grew between, and innumerable
thistles flourished, and here and there scattered hawthorn
bushes stood. It was a favourite place with the finches;
the hawthorn bushes always had nests in them. Thyme
grew luxuriantly on the ground between the nests and on
the ant-hills. Wild thyme and ants are often found
together, as on the Downs. How many millions of ants
must have been needed to raise these hillocks! and what
still more incalculable numbers must have lived in them!
A wilder spot could scarcely have been imagined, though
situate between rich meadow and ploughed lands.

There was always a covey of partridges about the field,
but they could not have had such a feast of eggs as would
naturally be supposed, because in the course of time a
crust of turf had grown over the ant-hills. The temporary
hills of loose earth thrown up every summer by the sides
of the fields, where they can lay bare a whole nest with
two or three scratches, must afford much more food. Had
it been otherwise all the partridges in the neighbourhood
would have gathered together here; but there never
seemed more than one or two coveys about.

flaunts of the Peewrt 251

The peewits had nests year after year in this place, and
even when the nesting-time was over a few might often be
seen. The land for agricultural purposes was almost
valueless, there being so little herbage upon which cattle
could graze, and no possibility of mowing any; so in the
end gangs of labourers were set to work and the ant-hills
levelled, and, indeed, bodily removed. Thus this last piece
of waste land was brought into use.

Upon the downs there is a place haunted by some few
peewits. In the colder months they assemble in flocks,
and visit the arable land where it is of a poor character, or
where there are signs of peat in the soil. By the shores
of the lake they may, too, be often seen. I have counted
sixty in one flock, and have seen flocks so numerous as to
be unable to count them accurately; that, of course, was
exceptional, but they are by no means uncommon birds in
this district. In others it seems quite a rare thing to see
a lapwing.

They often appear to fly for a length of time together
for the mere pleasure of flying. They rise without the
slightest cause of alarm, and sail about to and fro over the
same field for half an hour, then settle and feed again, and
presently take wing and repeat the whirling about over-
head. Solitary peewits will do the same thing ; you would
imagine they were going off at a great pace, instead of
which back they come in a minute ortwo. Other birds fly
for a purpose: the peewit seems to find enjoyment beating
to and fro in the air.

Crows frequently build in oaks, and unless they are
driven away by shot will return to the same neighbour-
hood the following year. They appear to prefer places
near water, and long after the nesting-time is past will
visit the spot. Srnall birds will sometimes angrily pursue

B58 Wild Life in a Southern County

them through the air, as they will hawks. As autumn
approaches the swallows congregate on warm afternoons
on church steeples; they may be seen whirling round and
round in large flocks, and presently settling. I saw a
crow go past a steeple a short time since where there was
a crowd of swallows, when immediately the whole flock
took wing, and circled about the crow, following him for
some distance. He made an awkward attempt once to get
at some of them, but their swiftness of wing took them far
out of his reach. Crows make no friends; rooks, on the
contrary, make many, and are often accompanied by several
other species of birds. A certain friendliness, too, seems
to exist between sparrows, chaffinches, and greenfinches,
which are often found together.

Some fields are divided into two by a long line of posts
and rails, which in time become grey from the lichen
growing on the wood. The cuckoos in spring seem to like
resting on such rails better than the hedges; and when
they are courting, two, or even three, may be sometimes
seen on them together. Presently they fly, and are lost
sight of behind the trees: but one or other is nearly sure
to come back to the rails again after awhile. Cuckoos
perch frequently, too, on those solitary upright stones
which here and there stand in the midst of the fields.
This habit of theirs is quoted by some of the old folks as
an additional proof that the cuckoo is only a hawk changed
for the time, and unable to forget his old habits, hawks
(and owls) perching often on poles, or anything upright
and detached.

The cuckoo flies so much like the hawk, and so re-
sembles it, as at the first glance to be barely distinguish-
able; but on watching more closely it will be seen that the
cuckoo flies straight and level, with a gentle fluttering of

Pecultarities of Various Birds 353

she wings, which never seem to come forward, so that in
outline he resembles a crescent, the convex side in front.
His tail appears longer in proportion, and more pointed ;
his fight is like that of a very large swallow flying straight.
The cuckoo’s cry can perhaps be heard farther than the
eall of any other bird. The heron’s power of voice comes
nearest: he sails at a great height, and his ‘ quaaack,’
drawn out into a harsh screech, may be heard at a long
distance. But then he has the advantage of elevation ; the
cuckoo never rises above the tops of the elms.

Yellowhammers have a habit of sitting on a rail or
bough with their shoulders humped, so that they seem to
have no neck. In that attitude they will remain a long
time, uttering their monotonous chant; most other birds
stretch themselves and stand upright to sing. The great
docks that grow beside the ditches are visited by the tom-
tits, who perch on them—the stalk of the dock is strong
and supports so light a weight easily. Sparrows may
sometimes be seen in July hawking in the air just above
the sward by the roadside—hovering like the kestrel, a
foot or so high, and then suddenly dropping like stones:
they are then so absorbed that they will scarcely fly away
on your approach. At the same time a rather long red fly
is abundant in the grass, and may be the attraction. The
swift’s long narrow wings shut behind him as if with a
sharp snip, cutting the air like shears; and then, holding
them extended, he glides like a quoit.

In old days men used to be on the watch about the
time of the great race-meetings, in order to shoot at every
pigeon that went past, in hope of finding a message attached
to the bird, and so getting the advantage of early intelli-
gence. In one such case I heard of, the pigeon had the
name of the winncr, and was shot on a tree where it had

254 Weld Life tu a Southern County

alighted, weary from want of food or uncertain as to its
course.

The golden-crested wren—smallest of the birds—
scarcely ever leaves the shelter of the hedges and trees.
The crest or top-knot is not exactly golden, but rather
orange; and as the body of the tiny creature is dusky in
hue, the bright colour on its head shines like flame in con-
trast. By this ruddy lamp upon its head the wren may
be discovered hidden deep in the intricate mazes of the
thorn bushes, where otherwise it would be difficult to find
jt. These wrens are usually in pairs; I have seldom seen
one by itself. They are not rare, and yet are compara-
tively little seen, and must I think travel a good deal.
All the same, they have their favourite places ; there was
one hedge where, if the bird was anywhere in the neigh-
bourhood, I could feel sure of finding him. It was very
thick, and entirely of hawthorn and blackthorn, and divided
two water-meadows,

first Signs of Spring 255

CHAPTER XVIL

NOTES ON THE YEAR—THE TWO NATURAL ERAS—SPIDERS—THE SEA
SONS REPRESENTED TOGETHER—A MURDEROUS WASP—FENG-SHUI—
THE BIRDS’ WHITE ELEPHANT—HEDGE MEMORANDA,

THERE are few hedges so thick but that in January it is
possible to see through them, frost and wind having
brought down the leaves. The nettles, however, and
coarse grasses, dry brown stems of dead plants, rushes,
and moss, still in some sense cover the earth of the mound,
and among them the rabbits sit out in their forms.
Looking for these with gun and spaniel, when the damp
mist of the morning has cleared, one sign—one promise—
of the warm days to come may chance to be found.
Though the sky be gloomy, the hedge bare, and the trees
gaunt, yet among the bushes a solitary green leaf has
already put forth. It is on the stalk of the woodbine
which climbs up the hawthorn, and is the first in the new
year—in the very darkest and blackest days—to show that
life is stirring. As it is the first to show a leaf, so, too, it
is one of the latest to yield to the advancing cold, and
even then its bright red berries leave a speck of colour;
and its bloom, in beauty of form, hue, and fragrance, is not
easily surpassed.

While the hedges are so bare the rabbits are unmerci-
fully ferreted, for they will before long begin to breed.
On the milder mornings the thrushes are singing sweetly.

258 Wild Life in a Southern County

Clouds of tiny gnats circle in the sheltered places near
houses or thatch. In February ‘fill-ditch,’ as the old folk
call it, on account of the rains, although nominally in the
midst of the winter quarter, there is a distinct step for-
ward. Ifthe clouds break and the wind is still, the beams
of the sun on the southern side of the wall become plea-
santly genial. In the third week they bring forth the
yellow butterfly, fluttering gaily over the furze; while the
Jarks on a sunny day, chasing each other over the ploughed
fields, make even the brown clods of earth seem instinct
with awakening life. The pairing off of the birds is now
apparent in every hedge, and at the same time on the
mounds, and under sheltering bushes and trees a deeper
green begins to show as the plants push up.

The blackthorn is perhaps the first conspicuous flower ;
but in date it seems to vary much. On the 22nd of Feb-
ruary, 1877, there were boughs of blackthorn in full bloom
in Surrey, and elder trees in leaf; nearly three weeks
before that, at the beginning of the month, there were
hawthorn branches in full leaf in a sheltered nook in Kent.
A degree further west, on the contrary, the hawthorn did
not show a leaf for some time after the blackthorn had
bloomed in Surrey. The farmers say that the grass which
comes on rapidly in the latter days of February and early
days of March, ‘many weathers’ (in their phrase), often
‘goes back’ later in the season, and loses its former pro-
gress.

Lady-day (old style) forms with Michaelmas the two
eras, as it were, of the year. The first marks the departure
of the winter birds and the coming of the spring visitors ;
the second, in reverse order, marks the departure of the
summer birds and the appearance of the vanguard of the
winter ones. In the ten days or fortnight succeeding

Dates of Arrival and Departure of Birds 257

Lady-day (old style)—say from the 6th of April to the
20th—great changes take place in the fauna and flora;
or, rather, those changes which have long been slowly
maturing become visible. The nightingales arrive and sing,
and with them the white butterfly appears. The swallow
comes, and the wind-anemone blooms in the copse.
Finally the cuckoo cries, and at the same time the pale
lilac cuckoo-flower shows in the moist places of the mead.
The exact dates, of course, vary with the character of
the season and the locality; but, speaking generally, you
should begin to keep a keen look-out for these signs of
spring about old Lady-day. In the spring of last year, in
a warm district, the nightingale sang on the 12th of April,
a swallow appeared on the 13th, and the note of the
cuckoo was heard on the 15th. No great reliance should
be put upon precise dates, because in the first place they
vary annually, and in the next an observer can, in astro-
nomical language, only sweep a limited area, and that but
imperfectly ; so that it is very likely some ploughboy
who thinks nothing of it—except to immediately imitate
it—hears the cuckoo forty-eight hours before those wha
have been listening most carefully. So that these dates
are not given because they are of any intrinsic value, but
simply for illustration, On the 14th of April (the same
3pring) the fieldfares and redwings were passing over swiftly
in small parties—or, rather, in a long flock scattered by the
march—towards the North Sea and their summer home in
Norway. The winter birds, and the distinctly spring and
summer birds, as it were, crossed each other and were visible
together, their times of arrival and departure overlapping.
As the sap rises in plants and trees, so a new life seenis
to flow through the veins of bird and animal. The flood
tide of life rises to its height, and after remaining there
Ss

258 IW%7d Life in a Southern County

some time, gradually ebbs. Early in August the leaves of
the limes begin to fade, and a few shortly afterwards fall ;
the silver birch had spots of a pale lemon among its foliage
this year on August 13. The brake fern, soon after it has
attained its full growth, begins to turn yellow in places,
There is a silence in the hedges and copses, and an appa-
rent absence of birds. But about Michaelmas (between the
new and old styles) there is a marked change. It is not
that anything particular happens upon any precise day,
but it is a date around which, just before and after, events
seem to group themselves.

Towards the latter part of September the geometrical
spiders become conspicuous, spinning their webs on every
bush. Some of these attain an enormous size, and, being
so large, it is easier to watch their mode of procedure.
When a fly becomes entangled, the spider seizes it by the
poll, at the back of the head, and holds it for a short time
till it dies. Then he rapidly puts a small quantity of web
round it, and next carries it to the centre of the web.
There, taking the dead fly on his feet—much as a juggler
plays with a ball upon his toes—the spider rolls it round
and round, enveloping it in a cocoon of web, and finally
hangs up his game head uppermost, and resumes his own
position head downwards. Another spider wraps his prey
in a cocoon by spinning himself and the fly together round
and round. At the end of September or beginning of
October acres of furze may be seen covered with web in
the morning, when the dew deposited upon it renders it
visible. As thesun dries up the dew the web is no longer
seen.

On September 21 of last year the rooks were soaring
and diving; they continued to do this several days in
suecessiun. I should like to say again that I attach no

Leepresentalive Features of the Seasons 259

importance to these dates, but give them for illustration ;
these, too, were taken ina warm district. Rooks usually
soar a good deal about the time of the equinox. On Sep-
tember 29 the heaths and furze were white with the spiders’
webs alluded to above. September 27, larks singing
joyously. October 2, a few grasshoppers still calling in
the grass—heard one or two three or four days later.
October 4, the ivy in full flower. October 7, the thrushes
singing again inthe morning. October 6 and 7, pheasants
roaming in the hedges for acorns. October 13, a dragon-
fly—large and green—hawking to and fro on the sunny side
of hedge. October 15, the first redwing. During latter
part of September and beginning of October, frogs croaking
in the ivy.

Now, these dates would vary greatly in different
localities, but they show, clearer than a mere assertion,
that about that time there is a movement in nature. The
croaking of frogs, the singing of larks and thrushes, are
distinctly suggestive of spring (the weather, too, was warm
and showery, with intervals of bright sunshine); the grass-
hopper and dragon-fly were characteristic of summer, and
there were a few swallows still flying about; the pheasants
and the acorns, and the puff balls, full of minute powder
rising in clouds if struck, spoke of autumn; and, finally,
the first redwing indicated winter; so that all the seasons
were represented together in about the space of a fortnight.
I do not know any other period of the year which exhibits
so remarkable an assemblage of the representative features
of the four quarters; an artist might design an emblematic
study upon it, say for a tesselated pavement.

In the early summer the lime-trees flower, and are then
visited by busy swarms of bees, causing a hum in the air
overhead. So, in like manner, on October 16, I passed

62

260 ©6Wild Life in a Southern County

under an old oak almost hidden by ivy, and paused to listen
to the loud hum made by the insects that came to the ivy
blossom. They were principally bees, wasps, large black
flies, and tiny gnats. Suddenly a wasp attacked one of
the largest of the flies, and the two fell down on a bush,
where they brought up on a leaf.

The fly was very large, of a square build, and wrestled
with its assailant vigorously. But in a few seconds, the
wasp, getting the mastery, brought his tail round, and
stung the fly twice, thrice, in rapid succession in the abdo-
men, and then held tight. Almost immediately the fly
grew feeble; then the wasp snipped off its proboscis, and
next the legs. Then he seized the fly just behind the head,
and bit off pieces of the wings; these, the proboscis, and
the legs dropped to the ground. The fell purpose of the
wasp is not easily described ; he stung and snipped and bit
and reduced his prey to utter helplessness, without the
pause of a second.

So eager was he that while cutting the wings to pieces
he fell off the leaf, but clung tight to the fly, and although
it was nearly as big as himself, carried it easily to another
leaf. There he rolled the fly round, snipped off the head,
which dropped, and devoured the internal part ; but slipped
again and recovered himself on a third leaf, and as it were
picked the remaining small portion. What had been a
great insect had almost disappeared in a few minutes.

After the arrival of the fieldfares the days seem to
rapidly shorten, till towards the end of December the cocks,
reversing their usual practice, crow in the evening, hours
before midnight. The cockcrow is usually associated with
the dawn, and the change of habit just when the nights are
longest is interesting.

Birds have a Feng-shui of their own—an unwritten

Where Birds build 261

and occult science of the healthy and unhealthy places of
residence—and seem to select localities in accordance with
the laws of this magical interpretation of nature. The
sparrows, by preference, choose the southern side of a
house for their nests. This is very noticeable on old
thatched houses, where one slope of the roof happens to
face the north, and another the south. On the north side
the thatch has been known to last thirty years without
renewal—it decays so slowly. The moss, however, grows
thickly on that side, and if not removed would completely
coverit. Moss prefers the shade; and so in the woodlands
the meadows on the north or shady side of the copses are
often quite overgrown with moss, which is pleasant to walk
on, but destroys the herbage. But on the south side of
the roof, the rain coming from that quarter, the wind and
sun cause the thatch to rapidly deteriorate, so that it re-
quires to be constantly repaired.

Now, instead of working their holes into the northern
slope, sheltered from wind and rain, nine out of ten of the
sparrows make their nests on the south, and, of course, by
pulling out the straw still further assist the decay of the
thatch there. The influence of light seems to be traceable
in this; and it does occur whether other birds that use
trees and bushes for their nests may not really be guided
in their selection by some similar rule. The trees and
bushes they select to us look much the same as others ; but
the birds may none the less have some reasons of their
own. And as certain localities, as previously observed,
are great favourites with them and others are deserted,
possibly Feng-shui may have something to do with that
also.

The nomadic tribes that live in tents, and wander over
thousands of miles in the East, at first sight seem to roam

262 ‘IWild Life m a Southern County

aimlessly, or to be determined simply by considerations of
water and pasture. But those who have lived with and
studied them say that, though they have no maps, each
tribe, and even each particular family, has its own special
route and special camping-ground. Could these routes be
mapped out, they would present an interlaced pattern of
lines crossing and recrossing without any appreciable
order ; yet one family never interferes with another family.
This statement seems to me to be most interesting if com-
pared with the habits of birds that roam hither and thither
apparently without order or method, that come back in the
spring to particular places, and depart again after their
young are reared. Though to us they wander aimlessly,
it is possible that from their point of view they may be
following strictly prescribed routes sanctioned by imme-
morial custom.

And so itinerant labourers move about. In the parti-
cular district which has been described their motions are
roughly these :—In the early spring they go up on the
uplands, where there are many thousand acres of arable
land, for the hoeing. Then comes a short space of employ-
ment—haymaking in the water-meadows that follow the
course of the rivers there, and which are cut very early.
Next, they return down into the vale, where the hay-
making has then commenced. Just before it begins the
Irish arrive in small parties, coming all the way from their
native land to gather the high wages paid during the
English harvest-time. They show a pleasing attachment
to the employer who has once given them work and treated
them with a little kindness. To him they go first; and
thus it often happens that the same band of Irish return
to the same farm year after year as regularly as the cuckoo.
They lodge in an open shed, making a fire in the corner of

Dexterity of Birds 263

the hedge where it is sheltered. They are industrious,
work well, drink little, and bear generally a good character.

After the haymaking in the vale is finished, the itine-
rant families turn towards the lighter soils, where the corn
crops are fast ripening, and soon leave the scene of their
former labours fifty miles behind them. A few perhaps
straggle back in time to assist in the latter part of the corn
harvest on the heavy lands, if it has been delayed by the
weather. The physicians say that change of air is essen-
tial to health : the migration of birds may not be without
its effect upon their lives, quite apart from the search for
food alone.

The dry walls which sometimes enclose corn fields
(built of flat stones) are favourite places with many birds.
The yellowhammers often alight on them, so do the finches
and larks; for the coarse mortar laid on the top decays
and is overgrown with mosses, so that it loses the hard
appearance of a wall. When the sparrow who has waited
till you are close to him suddenly starts, his wings, beating
the air, make a sound like the string of a bow pulled and
released—to try it without an arrow.

The dexterous way in which a bird helps itself to thistle-
down is interesting to watch. The thistle has no branch
on which he can perch; he must take it on the wing. He
flies straight to the head of the thistle, stoops as it were,
seizes the down, and passes on with it in the bill to the
nearest bough—much in the same way as some tribes of
horsemen are related to pick up a lance from the ground
whilst going at full speed.

Many birds twirl their ‘r’s’; others lisp, as the
nightingale, and instead of ‘sweet’ say ‘ thweet, thweet.’
The finches call to each other, ‘ Kywee, kywee—tweo—
thweet,’ which, whatever may be its true translation, has a

264 Wild Life in a Southern County

peculiarly soothing effect on the ear. Swifts usually fly
ata great height, and, being scattered in the atmosphere,
do not appear numerous; but sometimes during a stiff
gale they descend and concentrate over an open field, there
wheeling round and to and fro only just above the grass.
Then the ground looks quite black with them as they dart
over it: they exhibit no fear, but if you stand in the midst
come all round you so close that they might be knocked
down with a walking-stick if used quick enough. In the
air they do not look large, but when so near as this they
are seen to be of considerable size. The appearance of
hundreds of these jet black, long-winged birds, flying with
marvellous rapidity, and threading an inextricable maze
almost, as it were, under foot, is very striking.

The proverbial present of a white elephant is paralleled
in bird life by the gift of the cuckoo’sege. The bird whose
nest is chosen never deserts the strange changeling, but
seems to feel feeding the young cuckoo to be a sacred duty,
and sees its own young ejected and perishing without
apparent concern. My attention was called one spring to
a robin’s nest made in a stubble rick ; there chanced to be
a slight hollow in the side of the rick, and this had been
enlarged. A cuckoo laid her egg in the nest, and ay it
happened to be near some cowsheds it was found and
watched. When the young bird began to get fledged
some sticks were inserted in the rick so as to form a cage,
that it might not escape, and there the cuckoo grew to
maturity and to full feather.

All the while the labour undergone by the robins in
supplying the wide throat of the cuckoo with food was
something incredible. It was only necessary to wait a
very few minutes before one or other came, but the
voracious creature seemed never satisfied; he was bigger

The Cuckoo's Foster-Parent 265

than both his foster-parents put together, and they waited
on him like slaves. It was really distressing to see their
unrewarded toil. Now, no argument will ever convince
me that the robin or the wagtail, or any other bird in whose
nest the cuckoo lays its egg, can ever confound the intrnd-
ing progeny with its own offspring. Irrespective of size,
the plumage is so different ; and there is another reason
why they must know the two apart: the cuckoo as he
grows larger begins to resemble the hawk, of which all
birds are well known to feel the greatest terror. They will
pursue a cuckoo exactly as they will a hawk.

I will not say that that is because they mistake it for
a hawk, for the longer I observe the more I am convinced
that birds and animals often act from causes quite distinct
from those which at first sight appear sufficient to account
for their motions. But about the fact of the lesser birds
chasing the cuckoo there is no doubt. Are they endea-
vouring to drive her away that she may not lay her egg in
either of their nests? In any case it is clear that birds
do recognise the cuckoo as something distinct from them-
selves, and therefore I will never believe that the foster-
parent for a moment supposes the young cuckoo to be its
own offspring.

To our eyes one young robin (meaning out of the nest
—on the hedge) is almost identical with another young
robin; to our ears the querulous cry of one for food is con-
fusingly like that of another: yet the various parent birds
easily distinguish, recognise, and feed their own young.
Then to suppose that, with such powers of observation—
with the keenness of vision that can detect an insect or a
worm moving in the grass from a branch twenty feet or
more above it, and detect it while to all appearance engaged
in watching your approach—to suppose that the robin does

266 Wild Life in a Southern County

not know that the cuckoo is not of its order is past credit.
The robin is much too intelligent. Why, then, does he
feed the intruder? ‘There is something here approaching
to the sentiment of humanity, as we should call it, towards
the fellow-creature.

The cuckoo remained in the cage for some time after
it had attained sufficient size to shift for itself, but the
robins did not desert it: they clearly understood that while
thus confined it had no power of obtaining food and must
starve. Unfortunately, a cat at last discovered the cuckoo,
which was found on the ground dead but not eaten. The
robins came to the spot afterwards—not with food, but as
if they missed their charge.

The easy explanation of a blind instinct ig not satis-
factory to me. On the other hand, the doctrine of here-
dity hardly explains the facts, because how few birds’
ancestors can have had experience in cuckoo-rearing ?
There is no analogy with the cases of goats and other
animals suckling strange species ; because in those instances
there is the motive—at all events in the beginning—of
relief from the painful pressure of the milk. But the
robins had no such interested motive: all their interests
were to get rid of their visitor. May we not suppose,
then, that what was begun through the operation of here-
ditary instinct, i.e. the feeding of the cuckoo, while still
small and before the young robins had been ejected, was
continued from an affection that gradually grew up for the
helpless intruder? Higher sentiments than those usually
attributed to the birds and beasts of the field may, I think,
be traced in some of their actions.

To the number of those birds whose call is more or less
apparently ventriloquial the partridge may be added; for
when they are assembling in the evening at the roosting-

Influence of Modern Agriculture on Birds 267

place their calls in the stubble often sound some way to
the right or left of the real position of the bird, which
presently appears emerging from the turnips ten or fifteen
yards farther up than was judged by the ear. It is not
really ventriloquial, but caused by the rapid movements
and by the circumstance of the bird being out of sight.

We constantly hear that the area of pasture in England
is extending, and gradually overlapping arable lands; and
the question suggests itself whether this, if it continues,
will not have some effect upon bird and animal life by
favouring those that like grass lands and diminishing those
that prefer the ploughed. On and near ploughed lands
modern agriculture endeavours to cut down trees and covers
and grub up hedges, not only on account of their shade
and the injury done by their roots, but because they are
supposed to shelter sparrows and other birds. But pasture
and meadow are favourable to hedges, trees, and covers:
wherever there is much grass there is generally plenty of
wood; and this again—if hedges and small covers extend
in a corresponding degree with pasture—may affect bird
life.

A young dog may be taught to hunt almost anything.
Young pointers will point birds’ nests in hedges or trees,
and discover them quicker than any lad. If a dog is pro-
perly trained, of course this is not allowed; but if not
trained, after accompanying boys nesting once or twice
they will enter into the search with the greatest eagerness.
Labourers occasionally make caps of dog-skin, preserved
with the hair on. Cats not uncommonly put a paw into
the gins set for rabbits or rats. The sharp teeth break the
bone of the leg, but if the cat is found and let out she will
often recover—running about on three legs till the injured
fore-foot drops off at the joint, when the stump heals up.

268 Ihild Life in a Southern County

Foxes are sometimes seen running on three legs and a
stump, having met with a similar disaster. Cats contrive
to climb some way up the perpendicular sides of wheat
ricks after the mice.

The sparrows are the best of gleaners: they leave very
little grain in the stubble. The women who go gleaning
now make up their bundles in a clumsy way. Now, the
old gleaners used to tie up their bundles in a clever manner,
doubling the straw in so that it bound itself and enabled
them to carry a larger quantity. Even in so trifling a
matter there are two ways of doing it, but the ancient
traditionary workmanship is dying out. The sheaves of
corn, when set up in the field leaning against each other,
bear a certain likeness to hands folded in prayer. By the
side of corn-fields the wild parsnip sometimes grows in
great profusion. If dug up for curiosity the root has a
strong odour, like the cultivated vegetable, but is small
and woody. Every one who has gathered the beautiful
scarlet poppies must have noticed the perfect Maltese cross
formed inside the broad petals by the black markings.

Beetles fly in the evening with such carelessness as to
strike against people—they come against the face with
quite a smart blow. Miserable beetles may sometimes be
seen eaten almost hollow within by innumerable parasites,
The labourers call those hairy caterpillars which curl in a
circle ‘ Devil’s rings’—a remnant of the old superstition
that attributed everything that looked strange to demo-
niacal agency.

There is a tendency to variation even in the common
buttercup. Notlong since I saw one with a double flower;
the petals of each were complete and distinct, the two
flowers being set back to back on the top of the stalk. The
stem of one of the bryonies withers up so completely that

Stray Notes 269

the shrinkage, aided by a little wind, snaps it. Then a
bunch of red berries may be seen hanging from the lower
boughs of a tree—a part of the stem, twined round, re-
maining there—the berries look as if belonging to the tree
itself, the other part of the stem having fallen to the ground.

In clay soils the ivy does not attain any large size ;
but where there is some admixture of loam, or sand, it
flourishes ; I have seen ivy whose main stem growing up
the side of an oak was five inches in diameter, and had
some pretensions to be called timber. The bulrush, which
is usually associated with water, does not grow in a great
many brooks and ponds; in some districts it is even rare,
and it requires a considerable search to find a group of
these handsome rushes. Water-lilies are equally absent
from certain districts. Elms do not seem to flourish near
water ; they do not reach any size, and a white, unhealthy-
looking sap exudes from the trunk. Water seems, too, to
check the growth of ash after it has reached a moderate
size. Does the may bloom, which is almost proverbial for
its sweetness, occasionally turn sour, as it were, before a
thunderstorm? Bushes covered with this flower certainly
emit an unpleasant smell sometimes quite distinct from
the usual odour of the may.

The hedge is so intensely English and so mixed up in
all popular ideas that it is no wonder it forms the basis of
many proverbs and sayings—such as, ‘The sun does not
shine on both sides of the hedge at once,’ ‘rough as a
hedge,’ the verb ‘to hedge,’ and so on. Has any attempt
ever been made to cultivate the earth-nut, pig-nut, or
ground-nut, as it is variously called, which the ploughboys
search for and dig up with their clasp-knives? It is found
by the small slender stalk it sends up, and insignificant
white flower, and lies a few inches below the surface: the

270 = sSWtld Life in a Southern County

ploughboys think much of it, and it seems just possible
that cultivation might improve it.

Rare birds do not afford much information as a rule—
seen for a short time only, it is difficult to discover much
about them. I followed one of the rarer woodpeckers one
morning for a long time, but notwithstanding all my care
and trouble could not learn much of its ways.

Even among cows there are some rudiments of govern-
ment. ‘l'hose who tend them say that each cow in a herd
has her master (or rather mistress), whom she is obliged
to yield precedence to, as in passing through a gateway.
If she shows any symptoms of rebellion the other attacks
her with her horns until she flies. A strange cow turned
in among a herd is at once attacked and beaten till she
gets her proper place—finds her level—when she is left
in peace. The two cows, however, when they have ascer-
tained which is strongest, become good friends, and fre-
quently lick each other with their rough tongues, which
seems to give them much satisfaction.

Dogs running carelessly along beside the road fre-
quently go sideways: one shoulder somewhat in front of
the other, which gives the animal the appearance of being
ever on the point of altering his course. The longer axis
of the body is not parallel to the course he is following.
Is this adopted for ease? Because, the moment the dog
hears his master whistle, and rushes forward hastily, the
sidelong attitude disappears.

Snake [aunts 271

CHAPTER XVIII.

SNAKE-LORE—SNAKES SWALLOWING FROGS—SWIMMING—FOND OF
MILK—TRAPPING SNAKES—FROGS CLIMBING—TOADS IN TREES—
THE BROOK—THE HATCH—KINGFISHERS’ HAUNTS,

THERE are three kinds of snakes, according to the cottage
people—namely, water snakes, grass snakes, and black
snakes. The first frequent the brooks, ponds, and withy-
beds; the second live in the mounds and hedges, and go
out into the grass to find their prey; the third are so
distinguished because of a darker colour. The cottage
people should know, as they see so many during the
summer; but they have simply given the same snake a
different name because they notice it in different places.
The common snake is, in fact, partial to the water, and
takes to it readily. It does, however, seem to be correct
that some individuals are of a blacker hue than the rest,
and so have been supposed to constitute a distinct kind.
These creatures, like every other, have their favourite
localities; and, while you may search whole fields in vain,
along one single dry sandy bank you may sometimes find
half a dozen, and they haunt the same spot year after year.
So soon as the violets push up and open their sweet-scented
flowers under the first warm gleams of the spring sunshine,
the snake ventures forth from his hole to bask on the south
side of the bank. In looking for violets it is not unusual
to hear a rustling of the dead leaves that still strew the

i753 Held Life tn a Southern County

ground, and to see the pointed tail of a snake being
dragged after him under cover.

In February there are sometimes a few days of warm
weather (about the last week), and a solitary snake may
perhaps chance to crawl forth; but they are not generally
visible till later, and, if it be a cold spring, remain torpid
till the wind changes. When the hedges have grown
green, and the sun, rising higher in the sky, raises the
temperature, even though clouds be passing over, the
snakes appear regularly, but even then not till the sun
has been up some hours. Later on they may occasionally
be found coiled up in a circle two together on the bank.

In the summer some of them appear of great thickness
—almost as big round as the wrist. These are the females,
and are about to deposit their eggs. They may usually
be noticed close to cow-yards. The cattle in summer graze
in the fields and the sheds are empty ; but there are large
manure heaps overgrown with weeds, and in these the
snakes’ eggs are left. Rabbits are fond of visiting these
cow-yards—many of which are at a distance from the
farmstead—and sometimes bring forth a litter there.

When the mowers have laid the tall grass in swathes
snakes are often found on them or under them by the
haymakers, whose prongs or forks throw the grass about
to expose a large surface to the sun. The haymakers kill
them without mercy, and numbers thus meet with their
fate. They vary very much in size—from eighteen inches to
three feet in length. I have seen specimens which could
not have been less than four feet long, and as thick as a
rake-handle, That would be an exceptional case, but not
altogether rare. The labourers will tell you of much larger
suakes, but I never saw one.

There is no subject, indeed, upon which they make

Leaping Snakes a7

such extraordinary statements, evidently believing what
they say, as about snakes. A man told me once that he
had been pursued by a snake, which rushed after him at
such a speed that he could barely escape; the snake not
only glided but actually leaped over the ground. Now this
must have been pure imagination: he fancied he saw an
adder, and fled, and in his terror thought himself pursued.
They constantly state that they have seen adders; but I
am confident that no viper exists in this district, nor for
some milesround. That they do elsewhere of course is well
known, but not here; neither is the slow-worm ever seen.

The belief that snakes can jump—or coil themselves
up and spring—is, however, very prevalent. They all
tell you that a snake can leap across a ditch. ‘This is not
true. A snake, if alarmed, will make for the hedge; and
he glides much faster than would be supposed. On reach-
ing the ‘shore’ or edge of the ditch he projects his head
over it, and some six or eight inches of the neck, while
the rest of the body slides down the slope. If it happens
to be a steep-sided ditch he often loses his balance and
rolls to the bottom; and that is what has been mistaken
for leaping. As he rises up the mound he follows a zig-zag
course, and presently enters some small hole or a cavity
in a decaying stole. After creeping in some distance he
often meets with an obstruction, and has to remain half in
and half out till he can force his way. He usually takes
possession of a mouse-hole, and does not seem to be able
to enlarge it for additional convenience. If you put your
stick on his head as he slips through the grass his body
rolls and twists, and almost ties itself in a knot.

I have never been able to find a snake in the actual
process of divesting his body of the old skin, but have
several times disturbed them from a bunch of grass and

T

274. Wild Life in a Southern County

found the slough in it. There was an old wall, very low
and somewhat ruinous, much overgrown with barley-like
grasses, where I found a slough several times in succession,
as if it had been a favourite resort for the purpose. The
slough is a pale colour—there is no trace on it of the
snake’s natural hue, and it has when fresh an appearance as
if varnished—meaning not the brown colour of varnish, but
the smoothness. A thin transparent film represents the eyes,
so that the country folk say the snake skins his own eyes.

A forked stick is the best thing to catch a snake with ;
the fork pins the head to the ground without doing any
injury. If held up by the tail—that is the way the
country lads carry them—the snake will not let its head
hang down, but holds it up as far as possible : he does not,
however, seem able to crawl up himself, so to say; he is
helpless in that position. If he is allowed to touch the
arm he immediately coils round it. A snake is sometimes
found on the roofs of cottages. The roof in such cases is
low, and connected by a mass of ivy with the ground,
overgrown too with moss and weeds.

The mowers, who sleep a good deal under the hedges,
have a tradition that a snake will sometimes crawl down a
man’s throat if he sleeps on the ground with his mouth
open. There is also a superstition among the haymakers
of snakes having been bred in the stomachs of human
beings, from drinking out of ponds or streams frequented
by water snakes. Such snakes—green, and in every re-
spect like the field snake—have, according to them, been
vomited by the unfortunate persons afflicted with this
strange calamity. It is curious to note in connection with
this superstition the ignorance of the real habits of these
creatures exhibited by people whose whole lives are spent
in the fields and by the hedges.

Snake bolting a Frog 275

Now and then a peculiar squealing sound may be
heard proceeding from the grass; on looking about it is
found to be made by a frog in the extremity of mortal terror.
A snake has seized one of his hind legs and has already
swallowed a large part of it. The frog struggles and squeals,
but it is in vain; the snake, if once he takes hold, will
gradually get him down. I have several times released
frogs from this horrible position ; they hop off apparently
unhurt if only the leg has been swallowed. But on one
occasion I found a frog quite half gone down the throat of
its dread persecutor : I compelled the snake to disgorge it,
but the frog died soon afterwards. The frog being a broad
creature, wide across the back—at least twice the width of
the snake—it appears surprising how the snake can absorb
so large a thing.

In the nesting season snakes are the terror of those
birds that build in low bushes. I have never seen a snake
in a tree (though I have heard of their getting up trees),
but I have seen them in hawthorn bushes several feet
from the ground, and apparently proceeding along the
boughs with ease. J once found one ina bird’s nest: the
nest was empty—the snake had doubtless had a feast, and
was enjoying deglutition. In some places where snakes
are numerous, boys when bird’s-nesting always give the
nest a gentle thrust with a stick first before putting the
hand in, lest they should grasp a snake instead of eggs.
The snake is also accused of breaking and sucking eggs—
some say it is the hardset-eges he prefers; whether that
be so or no, eggs are certainly often found broken and the
yolk gone. When the young fledglings fall out of the
nest on to the ground they run great risk from snakes.

When sitting in a punt in summer, moored a hundred
yards or more from shore, I have often watched a snake

T2

276 Wild Life in a Southern County

—»

swim across the lake, in that place about 300 yards wide.
In the distance all that is visible is a small black spot
moving steadily over the water. This is the snake’s head,
which he holds above the surface, and which vibrates a
little from side to side with the exertions of the muscular
body. As he comes nearer a slight swell undulates on
each side, marking his progress, Snakes never seem to
venture so far from shore except when it is perfectly calm.
The movement of the body is exactly the same as on land
—the snake glides over the surface, the bends of its body
seeming to act like a screw. They goat a good pace, and
with the greatest apparent ease. In walking beside the
meadow brooks, not everywhere, but in localities where
these reptiles are common, every now and then you may
see a snake strike off from the shore and swim across,
twining in and out the stems of the green flags till he
reaches the aquatic grass on the mud and disappears
among it.

One warm summer’s day I sat down on the sward
under an oak, and leaned my gun against it, intending to
watch the movements of a pair of woodpeckers who had
young close by. But the drowsy warmth induced slumber,
and on waking—probably after the lapse of some time—I
found a snake coiled on the grass under one of my legs. I
kept perfectly still, being curious to see what the snake
woulddo. He watched me with his keen eyes as closely as
{ watched him. So long as there was absolute stillness
he remained; the moment I moved, out shot his forked
black tongue, and away he went into the ditch as rapidly
as possible.

Some country people say they can ascertain if a hedge
is frequented by snakes, by a peculiar smell: it is certain
that if one is killed, especially if worried by a deg, there

Snake's Fondness for Milk 277

is an unpleasant odour. That they lie torpid during the
winter is generally understood ; but though I have kept an
eye on the grubbing of many hedges for the purpose of
observing what was found, I never saw a snake disturbed
from his winter sleep. But that may be accounted for by
their taking alarm at the jar and vibration of the earth
under the strokes of the axe at the tough roots of thorn
stoles and ash, and so getting away. Besides which it is
likely enough that these particular hedges may not have
been favourite localities with them. They are said to eat
mice, and to enter dairies sometimes for the milk spilt on
the flagstones of the floor.' They may often be found in
the furrows in the meadows, which act as surface drains
and are damp.

Frogs have some power of climbing. I have found
them on the roofs of outhouses which were covered with
ivy; they must have got up the ivy. Their toes are,
indeed, to a certain degree prehensile, and they can cling
with them. They sometimes make a low sound while in
the ivy on such roofs; to my ear it sounds like a hoarse

1 An extraordinary instance of this has been very kindly communi-
cated to me by the writer of the following letter :—

‘Kingston Vicarage. Wareham, Dorset, October 27, 1878,

‘Dear Sir—A propos of your reference to the notion that snakes drink
milk, I think it may interest you to hear of a curious instance of this
which occurred near here about three months ago. At Kingswood, the
home farm of Rempston (Mr. J. H. Caleraft’s place, near Corfe Castle),
the dairyman noticed that something seemed to enter the dairy through
a hole in the wall and take the milk, Thinking it was a mouse or rat,
he set a common gin at the hole, and caught a snake every day until he
had caught seventeen! Mr. Calcraft would corroborate this. My in-
formant is Mr. Bankes, rector of Corfe Castle, who heard it from the
dairyman himself,

‘ Faithfully yours,
‘§. C. SPENCER SMITH,’

278 =Wild Life in a Southern County

‘coo.’ Cats occasionally catch frogs by the leg, and
torment them, letting the creature go only to seize it
again, and finally devouring it. The wretched creature
squeals with pain and terror exactly as when caught by a
snake.

No surer sign of coming rain than the appearance of
the toad on the garden paths is known. Many cottage
folk will still tell you that the hundreds and hundreds of
tiny frogs which may sometimes be seen quite covering
the ground fall from the sky, notwithstanding the fact
that they do not appear during the rain, but a short time
afterwards. And there are certain places where such
crowds of these creatures may be oftener found than else-
where. I knew one such place; it was a gateway where
the clayey soil for some way round the approach had been
trampled firm by the horses and cattle. This gateway was
close to a slowly running brook, so slow as to be all but
stagnant. Here I have seen legions of them on several
occasions, all crowding on the ground worn bare of grass,
as if they preferred that to the herbage.

Newts seem to prefer stagnant or nearly stagnant
ponds, and are rarely seen in running water. Claypits
from whence clay has been dug for brickmaking, and
which are now full of water, are often frequented by them,
as also by frogs in almost innumerable numbers in spring,
when their croaking can be heard fifty yards away when it
is still.

Labourers say that sometimes in grubbing out the but
of an old tree—previously sawn down—they have found
a toad in a cavity of the solid wood, and look upon it as a
great wonder. But such old trees are often hollow at the
bottom, and the hollows communicate with the ditch, so
that the toad probably had no difficulty of access, The

Favourite Resort of Kingfishers 279

belief in the venom of the toad is still current, and some
will tell you that they have had sore places on their hands
from having accidentally touched one.

They say, too, that an irritated snake, if it cannot
escape, will strike at the hand and bite, though harmless.
Snakes will, indeed, twist round a threatening stick; and,
as it is evidently a motion induced by anger, the question
arises whether they have some power of constriction. If
80, it is slight. In summer a few snakes may always be
found by the stream that runs through the fields near
Wick Farm.

This brook, like many others, in its downward course
is checked at irregular intervals by hatches, built for the
purpose of forcing water out into the meadows, or up to
ponds at some distance from the stream at which the
cattle in the sheds drink. fometimes the water is thus
led up to a farmstead; sometimes the farmstead is situate
on the very banks of the brook, and the hatch is within a
few yards. Besides the movable hatches, the stream in
many places is crossed by bays (formed of piles and clay),
which either irrigate adjacent meads or keep the water in
ponds at a convenient level.

A lonely moss-grown hatch, which stands in a quiet
shady corner not far from the lake, is a favourite resort of
the kingfishers. Though these brilliantly coloured birds
may often be seen skimming across the surface of the
mere, they seem to obtain more food from the brooks and
ponds than from the broader expanse of water above. In
the brooks they find overhanging branches upon which to
perch and watch for their prey, and without which they
can do nothing. In the lake the only places where such
boughs can be found are the shallow stretches where the
bottom is entirely mud, and where the water is almost

280) «Wild Life in a Southern County

hidden by weeds. Willows grow there in great quanti-
ties. and some of their branches may be available; but
then the water is hidden by weeds, and, being muddy at
bottom, is not frequented by those shoals of roach the
kingfisher delights to watch. So that the best places to
look for this bird are on the streams which feed the mere
(especially just where they enter it, for there the fish often
assemble), and the streams that issue forth, not far from
the main water.

This old hatch—it is so old and rotten that it is a
little dangerous to cross it—is situate in the latter posi-
tion, on the effluent, and is almost hidden among trees
and bushes. Several hedges there meet, and form a small
cover, in the midst of which flows the dark brook; but do
not go near carelessly, for the bank is undermined by the
water itself and by the water-rats, while the real edge is
concealed by long coarse grasses. These water-rats are
for ever endangering the bay: they bore their holes at
the side through the bank from above and emerge below
the hatch. Out of one such hole the water is now rush-
ing, and if it is not soon stopped will wear away the soil
and escape in such quantities as to lower the level behind
the hatch. These little beaver-like creatures are not,
therefore, welcome near hatches and dams.

If you approach the cover quietly and step over the
decared pole that has been placed to close a gap. by care-
fully parting the bushes. the kingfisher may be seen in his
favourite position. The old pole must not be pressed in
vetting over it, or the willow ‘bonds’ or withes with
which it is fastened to a tree each side of the gap will
creak, and the pole itself may crack, and so alarm the
bird. The kingfisher perches on the narrow rail that
crosses the hatch about two feet above the water.

Kingfishers and ther Prey 281

Another perch to which he removes now and then is
formed by a branch, dead and leafless, which projects
across a corner of the bubbling pool below. He prefers a
rail or a dead branch, because it gives him a clearer view
and better facilities for diving and snatching up his prey
as it swims underneath him. His azure back and wings
and ruddy breast are not equalled in beauty of colour by
any bird native to this country. The long pointed beak
looks half as long as the whole bird: his shape is some-
what wedge-like, enlarging gradually from the point of
the beak backwards. The cock bird has the brightest
tints.

In this pool scooped out by the falling water swim
roach, perch, and sticklebacks, and sometimes a jack; but
the jack usually abides near the edge out of the swirl.
Roach are here the kingfisher’s most common prey. He
chooses those about four inches long by preference, and
‘daps’ on them the moment they come near enough to
the surface. But he will occasionally land a much larger
fish, perhaps almost twice the size, and will carry it to
some distance, being remarkably powerful on the wing for
so small a bird. The fish is held across the beak, but in
flying it sometimes seems to be held almost vertically ;
and if that is really the case, and not an illusion caused
by the swiftness of the flight, the bird must carry its head
then a little on one side. If he is only fishing for his
own eating, he does not carry his prey farther than a clear
place on the bank. A terrace made by the runs of the
water-rat is a common table for him, or the path leading
to the hatch where it is worn smovth and bare by foot-
steps. But he prefers to devour his fish either close to
the water or in a somewhat open place, and not too near
bushes ; because while thus on the ground he is not safe.

282 8=6VWild Life in a Southern County

When feeding his young he will carry a fish apparently as
long as himself a considerable distance.

One summer I went several days in succession to a
hedge two fields distant from the nearest brook, and hid
on the mound with a gun. I had not been there long
before a kingfisher flew past, keeping just clear of the
hedge, but low down and close under the boughs of the
trees, and going in a direction which would not lead to a
brook or pond. This seemed curious; but presently he
came back again, uttering the long whistle which is his
peculiar note. About an hour, perhaps less, elapsed when
he returned again, this time carrying something in his
beak that gleamed white and silvery in the sun—a fish.
The next day it was the same, and the next. The king-
fisher, or rather two of them, went continually to and fro,
and it was astonishing what a number of fish they took.
Never more than an hour, often less, elapsed without one
or other going by. The fish varied much in size, some-
times being very small.

They had a nest, of course, somewhere; but, being
under the idea that they always built near brooks or in the
high banks often seen at the back of ponds, it was diffi-
cult for me to imagine where the nest could be. To all
appearance they flew straight through a small opening in
another hedge, at the corner of the two in fact, about two
hundred yards distant. Presently it occurred to me that
this might be an illusion, that the birds did not really
pass through the hedge, but had a nest somewhere in that
corner.

Just in the very angle was an old disused sawpit,
formed by enlarging the ditch, and made some years be-
fore for the temporary convenience of sawing up a few
heavy ‘sticks’ of timber that were thrown thereabouts.

Where the Kingfisher builds 283

The sawpit, to prevent accidents to cattle, was roughly
covered over with slabs of wood, which practically roofed
it in, and of course darkened the interior. It was in this
sawpit that the kingfishers had their nest, in what appeared
to be a hole partly excavated by a rabbit. The distance
from the hatch and brook was about 400 yards, so that
the parent birds had to carry the fish they captured nearly
a quarter of a mile. The sawpit, too, was close to a lane
used a good deal, though sheltered by a thick hedge from
the observation of those who passed.

In another case I knew of, the kingfishers built in a
mound overhanging a small stagnant and muddy pond, in
which there were no fish, and which was within twenty
paces of a farmhouse. The house was situate on a hill
about three hundred yards from the nearest running
stream. This little pond was full in wet weather only,
and was constantly used by the horses, the cattle in the
field that came almost up to the door, and by the tame
ducks. Beside the pond was a wood pile, and persons
were constantly passing it to and fro. Yet the kingfishers
built there and reared their young; and this not only for
one season, but for several years in succession. They had
to bring all the fish they captured up from the brook, over
the garden, and to pass close to the house. Why they
should choose such a place is not easily explained, seeing
that so many apparently more suitable localities were open
to them along the course of the stream.

One summer I found a family of four young kingfishers
perched in a row on a dead branch crossing a brook which
ran for some distance beside a double-mound hedge.
There was a hatch just there too, forcing the water into
two ponds, one each side of the mound. The brook had
worn itself a deep channel, and so required a hatch to

284 Weld Life in a Southern County

bring it up to a level convenient for cattle. I had known
for some time that there was a nest in that mound from
the continued presence of the two old birds; but could
not find it. But when the young could fly a little they
appeared on this branch projecting almost over the falling
water, and there they took up their station day after day.
Every now and then the parents came with small fish,
which they caught farther down the brook, for just in that
place there were only a few perch and perhaps a tench or
two. The colours are much less brilliant on the young
birds, and they do not obtain the deep rich hues of their
parents until the following spring. I have shot many
young birds in the winter; they are by that time much
improved in colour, but may be distinguished without
dificulty from the full-grown bird.

Though so swift, the kingfisher is comparatively easy to
shoot, because he flies as straight as an arrow; and if you
can get clear of bushes or willow-pollards he may be
dropped without trouble. When disturbed the kingfisher
almost invariably flies off in one favourite direction; and
this habit has often proved fatal to him, because the sports-
man knows exactly which way to look, and carries his gun
prepared. Wherever the kingfisher’s haunt may be, he
will be found upon observation to leave it nearly always in
the same direction day after day. He is, indeed, a bird
with fixed habits, though apparently wandering aimlessly
along the streams. I soon found it possible to predict
beforehand in which haunt a kingfisher would be discovered
at any time.

By noting the places frequented by these birds you
know where the shoals of small fish lie, and may supply
yourself with bait for larger fish. Often one of those great
hawthorn bushes that hang over a brook is a favourite

A cunning Moorhen 285

spot. The roots of trees and bushes loosen the soil, and
deeper holes are often found under them than elsewhere, to
which the fish resort. These hawthorn bushes, though
thick and impenetrable above, are more open below just
over the water; and there the kingfisher perches, and has
also the advantage of being completely hidden from obser-
vation: if he only remained still in such places he would
escape notice altogether. When passing such a bush on
the qui vive for snipe, how many times have I seen a
brilliant streak of azure shoot out from the lower branches
and watched a kingfisher skim across the meadow, rising
with a piping whistle over the distant hedge! Near mill-
ponds is a favourite place with these birds.

To that hatch which stands on the effluent brook not
far from the mere a coot or two comes now and then at
night orin the early morning. These birds, being accused
of devouring the young fry, are killed whenever they are
met, and their eggs taken in order to prevent their in-
crease ; that is, of course, where the water is carefully
preserved. Here they are not so persistently hunted. I
have seen coots, and moorhens too, venture some distance
up the dark arch of a culvert. Moorhens are fond of
bridges and frequently feed under them. When alarmed,
after diving, the moorhen does not always come right up
to the surface, but merely protrudes its head to breathe.

One day I startled a moorhen in a shallow pond;
instantly the bird dived, and I watched to see where it
would come up, knowing that the moorhen cannot stay
long under water, while there chanced to be scarcely any
bushes or coverround the edge. After waiting some time,
and wondering what had become of the bird, I fancied
I saw some duckweed slightly agitated. Looking more
carefully, it seemed as if there was something very small

236 = «Wald Life in a Southern County

moving now and then just there—the spot was not more
than fifteen yards distant. It was as if the beak of a bird,
the body and most of the head quite hidden and under
water, were picking or feeding among the duckweed. This
continued for some few minutes, when I shot at the spot,
and immediately a moorhen rose to the surface. As the
pond was very shallow the bird must have stood on the
bottom, and so resumed its feeding with the beak just
above the surface,

Favourite Bathing-place of Birds 287

CHAPTER XIX.

COURSE OF THE BROOK—THE BIRDS’ BATHING-PLACE—ROAOH—JACK
ON THEIR JOURNEYS—THE STICKLEBACK’S NEST—WOODCOCK—THB
LAKE—HERONS—MUSSELS—REIGN OF TERROR IN THE LAKE,

A piace where the bank of the brook has been dug away
so as to form a sloping approach to the water, in order
that cattle may drink without difficulty, is much visited by
birds insummer. Some cartloads of small stones originally
thrown down to make a firm floor to the drinking-place
have in process of time become worn into sand, which the
rain has washed into the water. This has helped to form
a more than usually sandy bottom to the water just there.
Then a bank of mud, or little eyot in the centre of the
stream, thickly overgrown with flags, divides the current
in two, and the swiftest section passes by the drinking-
place and brings with it more sand washed out from the
mud ; so that just at the edge there is a floor of fine sand
covered with water, which six inches from shore is hardly
an inch deep. This is just the bathing-place in which
birds delight, and here they come, accordingly, all the
summer through, day after day.

Sparrows, starlings, finches (including the beautiful
goldfinches), blackbirds, and so on, are constantly to and
fro. Often several of different species are bathing together.
The wagtails, of course, are there. The wagtail wades
into the water and stands there, Sometimes he has the

288 = TWild Life tu a Southern County

appearance of scraping the bottom with his feet, as if to
find food. Blackbirds are especially fond of this spot,
and may be seen coming to it from the adjacent hedges.
They like water, and frequently feed near it; a blackbird
may often be found under the great hawthorn bushes which
overhang the stream. Hawks may be seen occasionally
following the course of the brook or perched on the trees
that grow near; they are doubtless aware of the partiality
for water shown by so many birds.

The fish have their own favourite places as the birds in
the hedge, and after leaving the hatch there are none for
some distance. Then the brook suddenly curves and forms
a loop returning almost upon itself something like the letter
Q. The tongue of land thus enclosed is broad atthe top, and
but two or three yards across at the bottom. There the
current on either side is for ever endeavouring to eat away
the narrow neck, and forms two deep pools. Some few
piles have been driven in on one side to check the process of
disintegration, and a willow-tree overhangs the pool there.
By lying on the grass and quietly looking over the brink,
the roach may be seen swimming in the deeper part, and
where it shallows up stream is a perch waiting for what
may come down. Where the water runs slowly on account
of a little bay, there, in semi-darkness under the banks on
the mud, are a few tench.

There are several jacks not far off; but, though they
prey on the roach, it is noticeable that, unless driven by
some one passing by, they rarely go into these deep holes.
The jack lies in shallower water and keeps close to the
shore under shelter of the flags, or concealed behind the
weeds. It is as if he understood that every now and then
the shoal of roach will pass round the curve—going from
one pool to the other—when they have to swim through

Jack leaping a Bay 289

the shallower water. Sometimes a solitary fish will shift
quarters like this, and must go by the jack lying in ambush.

At the top of the tongue of land (which is planted with
withy) another brook joins the first: this brook is very
deep, and all but stagnant. In the quiet back-water here
—close to and yet out of the swifter stream—is ancther
haunt of the jack.

If alarmed, he does not swim straight up or down the
centre of the current, but darts half-a-dozen yards in a
slanting direction across the stream and hides under
another floating weed. Then, if started afresh, he makes
another zig-zag, and conceals himself once more. At first
he remains till you could touch him, if you tried, with a
long stick; but at every remove he grows more suspicious,
til at last as you approach he is off immediately.

Jacks lie a great deal in the still deep ponds that open
off the brook or are connected with it by a deep ditch;
they have been known to find their way up to a pond from
the brook through a subterranean pipe which supplied it
with water. Those that remain in the ponds are usually
much larger than those found in the stream: these are
often small—say, a pound to two pounds in weight. In
the spawning season, however, they come out from the
ponds and go up the brook in pairs or trios. They keep
close together side by side—the largest in the centre when
there are three. The brook at that time seems full of
jacks; and to any one who has been accustomed to stroll
along it is surprising where they all come from.

Although the jacks lie in the quiet ponds most of the
time, yet some of them travel about a great deal, especially
the smaller ones ranging from one to two pounds. These
will leap a bay or dam if it interrupts their voyaging down
the stream. I have seen a young jack, about a foot long,

U

290 Wild Life in a Southern County

leap over a bay, and fall three or four feet on to the stony floor
below, the stones scarcely covered with water. The jack
shot himself perhaps two feet, and fell on his side on the
stones; there he lay quietly a minute or so, and then gave
a bound up, and, lighting in the current, went down with
it. A small jack like this will sometimes go out into the
irrigated meadows, following the water-carriers for a long
distance.

In quiet, sheltered places, where the water is clear but
does not run too swiftly, the ‘ minnie,’ as the stickleback
is locally called, makes its nest beside the bank. A small
hole in the sand is excavated, and in this are laid a number
of tiny fibres such as are carried along by the stream,
resembling a miniature faggot. On these fibres the ova
are deposited, and they are then either purposely partly
covered with sand by the minnie, or else the particles that
are brought down by the current gather over the bundle
of fibres and conceal it, excepting one small spot. There
several of the slender roots seem to slightly project, and
they are kept clear of mud or sand so as to answer the
purpose of a doorway. I have watched these operations
many times, but never saw the minnie attempt to enter
the nest; indeed, he could not have done so, the opening
not being large enough.

When the nest has reached this stage of completion it
is easy to discover, because the stickleback keeps watch
before it, and at that season his breast is of a bright
crimson hue. He guards the nest with the greatest care,
and if he is tempted away for a minute by some morsel of
food he is back again immediately. Ifa tiny twig or fibre
comes along and threatens to catch against the nest, he
removes it in his mouth, carrying it out into the stream
that it may be swept away. He also removes the sand

*Stwun Loach’ 291

whenever it begins to accumulate overmuch. It would
seem as if a current of fresh water were essential to the
ova, and that that is why the opening of the nest is so
carefully kept from becoming choked up. After a while
the fry come forth—the most minute creatures imagin-
wble, mere lines about half the length of the finger-nail.
They play round the opening, and will retreat within if
alarmed.

Where the brook passes under a bridge of some size
the current divides to go through several small arches.
There is here some fall, and the stream is swift and bright,
chafing reund and bubbling over stones. Here the
‘miller’s thumbs’ are numerous—a bottom fish growing
to about four inches in length, and with a head enormously
broad and large in proportion to its body. They rarely
rise from the mud or sand; they hide behind stones, their
heads buried in the sand, but their tails in sight. Every
now and then they change positions, swimming swiftly over
the bottom to another spot. Their voracity is very great,
and they often disappoint the angler by taking his bait.
The cottage people are said to eat them.

The ‘stwun loach’—stone loach, as the lads call it—
hides also behind and under stones, and may be caught by
hand. These loach are apparently capricious in their
habits; certain spots abound with them, in others you
may search the stream in vain for a long distance. So,
too, with the gudgeon: I noticed in one brook I frequently
passed that they never came up beyond one particular
bend, though there was no apparent difference in the soil
or in the stream itself. In the brook the jack do not seem
to care much about them; but in the lake above there are
no gudgeon, and there a gudgeon is a fatal bait. Nothing
is so certain to take; the gudgeon will tempt the pike

u 2

292 *IWVild Life in a Southern County

there when an ordinary roach may be displayed before him
without the slightest effect.

A flood which brings down a large quantity of sus-
pended mud and sand discolouring the water attracts the
fish: they are looking for food. But too much mud com-
pels them to shift their quarters. This is well known to
those who net the stream. They stretch the net across
the brook a few yards below a bridge or short culvert—
places much haunted by fish. Then the bottom of the
stream above the culvert is thoroughly stirred up with a
pole till the water is thick with mud, and this, passing
through the culvert (where the pole cannot be used and
the fish would otherwise be safe), forces them to descend
the stream and enter the net. Probably they attempt to
swim up stream first, but are deterred by the pole thrust
under the water, and then go down. It is said that even
eels, who like mud, will move if the volume of mud sent
through is thick enough and continued sufficiently long.

The fact that a little stirring of the bottom attracts
fish is made use of along the Thames to attract bait for
those night-lines which are the detestation of the true
angler. The bait catcher has a long pole, at the end of
which are iron teeth like arake. With this he rakes up
the mud, waits a few seconds, and then casts a net, which
generally brings some minnows or other small fish to shore.
These fish are then placed in a bucket, and finally go on
the night-lines.

The ditches as they open on the brook are the favourite
resorts of all aquatic life, and there most of the insects,
beetles, &c., that live in the water may be discovered.
They form, too, one of the last resorts of the reeds; these
beautiful plants have been much diminished in quantity
by the progress of agriculture. One or two great mounds

Making Pens of Reeds 293

by the brook can show a small bed still, and here and
there a group grows at the mouth of these deep ditches,
on the little delta formed of the sand, mud, and decaying
twigs brought down. I have cut them fifteen feet in
length. Some people, attracted by the beauty of the
feathery heads of these reeds, come a considerable distance
to get them. I have made pens of them: it is possible to
write with such pens, and they are softer than quills, but
on account of that softness quickly wear out.

A woodcock may occasionally be flushed from such a
ditch in winter. Woodcocks are fond of those ditches
down which there always trickles a tiny thread of water—
hardly so much as would be understood by the term
streamlet—coming from a little spring which even in
severe frosts is never frozen. Even when the running
brook is frozen such little springs are free of ice, and so,
too, is the streamlet for some distance.

From the bed of the brook proper the reeds are gone—
they have taken refuge in nooks and corners. This is
probably accounted for by the periodical cleaning out of
the brook—not annually, but every now and then, in order
to prevent the flooding which would be caused by the
accumulation of mud and sand. ‘The roots of the flags
seem to withstand this rude treatment; but many other
water plants cannot, and are consequently only found in
places which have not been disturbed for many years.

There is as much difference in ponds as in hedges, so
far as inhabitants are concerned. Many fields and hedges
seem comparatively deserted, while others are full of birds;
and so of several ponds which do not apparently vary
much—one is a favourite haunt of fish, and another has
not got a single fish in it. One pond particularly used to
attract my attention, because it seemed devoid of any kind

294 Wild Life in a Southern County

of life: not even a stickleback could be found in it, though
they will live in the smallest ditches, and this pond was
fed by a brook in which there were fish. Not even a newt
lived in it—it was a miniature Dead Sea. Another pond
was remarkable for innumerable water-snails. When the
wind blew hard they sometimes lined the lee-shore to
which they had drifted.

The herons are at the same time the largest and most
regular visitors to the mere out of which the brook flows.
One or more may generally be found there at some time
of the day all the year round; but there is a remarkable
diminution in their numbers during the nesting season.
The nearest heronry must be about thirty miles distant,
which probably explains their absence at that time. It
also happens that just before the summer begins the mere
is usually at its greatest height; the water is deep almost
everywhere, and there are fewer places where the herons
could fish with success.

They fly at a great height in the air, and a single stroke
of the huge wings seems to propel the bird a long distance ;
so that though at first sight they appear to move very
slowly, the eye being deceived by the slow stroke of the
wings, they really go at a good pace. They do not seem
to have any regular hours of visiting the lake—though
more seem to arrive in the afternoon—but they have
distinct lines of flight along which they may be expected
to come. In winter, however, they show more regularity,
going down from the lake to the water-meadows in the
evening, and returning in the early morning—that is,
supposing the lake to be open and free from ice. If the
shores are frozen a heron or two may be found in the
water-meadows all day.

In the autumn, after a dry summer, is the best time

The Heron in Flight 205

~_—

to watch them. ‘The water is then low; numerous small
islands appear, and long narrow sandbanks run out fifty
or sixty yards, with shoals on either side. After a very
dry season the level of the water is so much reduced that
in the broadest (and shallowest) part the actual strand
where the water begins is a hundred yards or more from
the nearest hedge. This is just what the heron likes, be-
cause no one can approach him over that flat expanse of
dried mud without being immediately detected. I have
seen as many as eight herons standing together in a row
on one such narrow sandbank in the daytime, in regular
order like soldiers: there were six more on adjacent
islands. They were not feedinz—simply standing motion-
less. As soon as it grew dark they dispersed, and ventured
then down the lake to those places near which footpaths
passed.

But although the night seems the heron’s principal
feeding time, he frequently fishes in the day. Generally,
his long neck enables him to see danger, but not always.
Several times I have come right on a heron, when the
banks of the brook were high and the bushes thick, before
he has seen me, so as to be for the moment within five
yards. His clumsy terror is quite ludicrous: try how he
will he cannot fly fast at starting ; he requires fifty yards
to get properly under way.

What a contrast with the swift snipe, that darts off at
thirty miles an hour from under your feet! The long
hanging lees, the stretched-out neck, the wide wings and
body, seem to offer a mark which no one could possibly
miss: yet, with an ordinary gun and snipe-shot, I have
had a heron get away safely like this more than once.
You can hear the shot rattle up against him, and he utters
a strange, harsh, screeching ‘ quaack,’ and works his wings

296 = Wald Life i a Southern County

in mortal fright, but presently gets half way up to the
clouds and sails away in calm security. His neck then
seems to drop down in a bend, the head being brought
back as he settles to his flight, so that the country people
say the heron often carries a snake.

The mark he offers to shot is much less than would be
supposed; he is all length and no breadth; the body is
very much smaller than it looks. But if you can stalk him
in the brook till within thirty or forty yards, and can draw
‘a bead’ on his head as he lifts it up every now and then
to glance over the banks, then you have him easily; a
very small knock in the head being sufficient to stop him.

The tenacity of life exhibited by the heron is something
wonderful : though shot in the head, and hung up as dead,
a heron will sometimes raise his neck several hours after-
wards. To wring the neck is impossible—it is like leather
or a strong spiral spring: you cannot break it, so that the
only way to put the creature out of pain is to cut the
artery ; and even then there are signs of muscular con-
traction for some time. A labourer once asked me for a
heron that I had shot; I gave it to him, and he cooked it.
He said he boiled it eight hours, and that it was not
so very fishy! But even he could not manage the neck
part.

This bird must have a wonderful power of sight to
catch its prey at night, and out of some depth of water.
In severe winter weather, when the lake is frozen, herons
evidently suffer much. Most of them leave, probably for
the rivers which do not freeze till the last; but one or two
linger about the water-meadows till they seem to despair
of catching anything, and will alight in the centre of a
large pasture field where there is no water, and stand there
for hours disconsolate. I suspect that the herons in winter.

Mussels in the Lake 297

time that come to the ponds do so for the fish which lie
at the bottom on the mud packed close together, that
is, when the water is not deep. It is said that when ice
protects the fish herons eat the frogs in the water-meadows ;
but they can scarcely find many, for though I have been
over the water-meadows day after day for snipe, I seldom
saw a frog about them here.

When the level of the mere, after a peculiarly dry
season, is very low, is also a good time to observe the
habits of many other creatures. There are always one or
more crows about the neighbourhood of the lake; but at
such times a dozen or so may be seen busily at work along
the shore. They prey on the mussels, of which there are
great numbers in the lake. Any one passing by the water
when it is so shallow can hardly fail to notice long narrow
grooves in the sand of the bottom. These grooves begin
near the edge—perhaps within a foot of it—and then run
out into the deeper part. By following these with the
eye, the mussel may often be seen in a foot or two of
water—sometimes open, but more generally closed. The
groove in the sand is caused by the keel of the shell as the
creature moves.

There are hundreds of these tracks; the majority
appear to run from shallow to deep water, but there are
others crossing and showing where the mussel has tra-
velled. One may occasionally be seen in the act of moving
itself, and making the groove in the sand. But they seem
as a rule to move most at night, and to approach the shore
closest in the darkness. In the deep water they are safe ;
but near the edge the crows pounce on them and may be
seen peering about almost all day long.

Besides those that are eaten on the shore, numbers of
mussels are carried up on the rising ground where the

298 Wild Life in a Southern County

turf is short and the earth hard. Until stepped on and
broken, the two halves of the shell are usually complete,
and generally still attached, showing that the crow has
split the shell open skilfully. They range from two or
three to nine inches in length. The largest are much less
common ; those of five or six inches are numerous. Some
of the old-fashioned housewives use a nine-inch mussel-
shell, well-cleaned, as a ladle for their sugar jars.

Now and then, at long intervals, an exceptionally dry
season so lowers the level of the mere that all the shallower
parts become land, and are even passable on foot, though
in places quicksands and deep fine mud must be carefully
avoided. The fish that previously could enjoy a swim of
some three-quarters of a mile are then forced to retire to
one deep hole only a few acres in extent. Now commences
a reign of terror, of which it is difficult to convey an
adequate idea.

These waters have not been netted for years, and con-
sequently both pike and perch have increased to an extra-
ordinary degree, and many of them have attained huge
proportions. Pike of six pounds are commonly caught;
eight, ten, twelve, and fourteen pound fish have often
been landed. There was a tradition of a pike that weighed
a quarter of a hundredweight, but one day the tradition
was put into the shade by the capture of a pike that scaled
a little over thirty pounds. There are supposed to be
several more such monsters of the deep, since every now
and then some labourer passing by on a sunny day, when
jack approach the shore and bask near the surface, declares
that he has seen one as big as a man’s leg. But about
the vast number of ordinary-sized jack there can be no
doubt at all; since any one may see them who will stroll
by the water’s edge on a bright warm day, taking care toe

Pante-stricken Fish 299

walk slowly and not to jar the ground or let his shadow
fall on the water before he can glance round the willows
and bushes. Jack may then be seen basking by the
weeds.

When an exceptionally long continuance of dry
weather forces all the fish to retire to the few acres of
water that remain, then these voracious brutes do as they
please with the other fish, and the roach especially suffer.
Every two or three minutes the fry may be seen leaping
into the air in the effort to escape, twenty or thirty at a
time, and falling with a splash. The rush of hundreds
and hundreds of roach causes a wave upon the surface
which shows the course they take. This wave never
ceases : as soon as it sinks here it rises yonder, and so on
through the twenty-four hours, day and night.

The miserable fish, flying for their lives, speed towards
the shallow water, and often, unable to stop themselves,
are carried by their impetus out on the mud and lie there
on the land for a few seconds till they leap back again.
Even the jack will sometimes run himself aground in the
eagerness of his pursuit. Looking over the pool, the
splash of the falling fish as they descend after the leap into
the air may be heard in several directions at once, and the
glint of their silvery sides in the sunshine is at the same
time visible. At night it is clear the same thing is going
forward, for the splashing continues, though the wave
raised by the panic-stricken crowds cannot be distin-
guished in the darkness.

It is curious to notice how the solitary disposition of
the jack shows itself almost as soon as he comes to life.
While the fry of most other fish swim in shoals, sometimes
in countless numbers, the tiny jack, hardly so long as one’s
little finger, lurks all alone behind a stone which forms a

300 =Wild Life in a Southern County

miniature harbour. On a warm day almost every such
place has its youthful pirate. Notwithstanding the terror
of the roach when pursued, they will play about apparently
without the slightest fear when the pike is basking in the
sun with his back all but on a level with the surface—that
is, when the lake is at its ordinary height. It is as if they
knew their tyrant was enjoying his siesta.

These roach literally swarm. At their spawning time
that part of the lake the shore of which is stony is posi-
tively black with them. For a distance of some hundred
and fifty yards the water for seven or eight feet from shore
is simply a moving mass of roach. They crowd up against
the stones, get underneath them and behind them, enter
every little creek and interstice, and are so jammed by
their own numbers that they may easily be caught by
hand. In their anxiety to secure a place they crush
against each other and splash up the water. This impulse
only lasts a day or two in its full vigour, when the multi-
tude gradually retires into deeper water.

When thus spawning the roach are preyed on by rats
—not the water-rat, but the house or drain rat. There
are always a few of these about the lake, and they grow
to an enormous size. They destroy the roach in great
numbers. I have seen the sand strewn with dead fish
opposite and leading up to their holes; for they catch and
kill many more than they can eat, or even have time to
carry away. I have shot at these great rascals when they
have been swimming fifty yards from shore, and I strongly
suspect them of visiting the nests of moorhens and other
waterfowl with felonious purposes. They catch fish at any
time they see a chance, but are most destructive during
the spawning season, because then the roach come within
reach, Such rats, too, haunt the ditches and mounds, and

Favourite Haunts of Fish 301

are as dangerous to all kinds of game as any weasel, crow,
or hawk.

Tench lie in the deep muddy holes. With the excep-
tion of the tench, the greater number of the fish in this
mere haunt the sandy and stony shores. When the lake
is full there are broad stretches of water which are shallow
and where the bottom is mud. You may look here in
vain for fish: of course there are some; but as you glide
over noiselessly in a punt, gazing down into the water as
you drift before the gentle summer breeze, you will not
see any of those shoals that frequent the other shores
where the bottom is clearer. Other favourite places are
where the brooks run in and where there are sudden
shallows in the midst of deep water. The contour and
character of the bottom seem to affect the habits of fish to
a large extent ; consequently those who are aware of the
form of the bottom are usually much more successful as
fishermen.

302 «=Wild Life in a Southern County

CHAPTER XX.

WILDFOWL OF THE LAKE—8EA BIRDS——DBRIFT WOOD—FORCES OF
NATURE AT WORK—WAVES—EVAPORATION—-AN EAGLE—FROST AND
SNOW—EFFECT ON BIRDS AND ANIMALS-——-WATER-MEADOWS—SHOOT-
ING STARS—PHOSPHORESCENCE-— WATERSPOUT——NOISES ‘IN THE AIR.’

THE ‘summer snipe,’ or sandpiper, comes to the lake
regularly year after year, and remains during the warm
months. About a dozen visit the shallow sandy reaches
running along the edge of the water, when disturbed
flying off just above the surface with a plaintive piping
cry. They describe a semi-circle, and come back to the
shore a hundred yards farther on; and will do this as
many times as you like to put them up. Sometimes they
feed in little parties of two or three: sometimes alone.
No other place for some distance is visited by the sand-
piper: none of the ponds or brooks; only the lake.

In summer but a few species of birds remain on this
piece of water. Only two or three wild ducks stay to
breed: their nests are not found on the mere itself, but in
the ponds adjacent. One small pond fed by the lake and
communicating with it—dug where the muddy shore would
otherwise prevent cattle approaching the shallow water—
a quiet spot alzost surrounded by bushes, is a favourite
nesting-place. The brooks that run in are occasionally
used by ducks in the same way, and one of the large
ditches which ig full of fags and rushes and well sheltered

The supposed Otter 303

is now and then selected. But the ducks do not breed in
any number, though they used to do so within living
memory.

The coots cannot be overlooked in spring; they chase
each other to and fro over the surface in the liveliest
manner, and their nests are common. Moorhens, of
course, are here in numbers. Why is it that they never
seem to learn wisdom in placing their nests? Whether
in the lake, in the ponds, or brooks, they exhibit the same
lack of foresight as to changes of level in the water; so
that frequently their nests are quite drowned out. Occa-
sionally in the brooks the nest is floated bodily down the
stream by a sudden rise. These mishaps they might easily
avoid by placing them a little higher up the bank.

In the lake there are several acres of withy bushes
which when the water is low are on dry land, but in spring
and early summer stand five or six feet deep. This is a
favourite nesting-place with the coots: and they show the
same neglect of the teachings of experience; for their
nests are placed almost on the water, and if it rises, as it
often does, they are flooded.

It is said that otters used to come to the mere many
years ago; but they have never done so lately, though
stories of their having been seen are frequent. One
summer the story was so positive and so often repeated
that I made a thorough search, and found that it origin-
ated in the motions of a large diving bird. This bird
swam under water with wonderful rapidity, and often close
to the surface, so that it raised a wave and could be traced
by it. This was the supposed otter. The bird was after-
wards shot, but its exact species does not seem to have been
satisfactorily ascertained. Several kinds of divers, however,
have without doubt been killed. Grebes are often shot.

304. Wild Life in a Southern County

Occasionally sea-birds come—particularly a species
locally called the ‘ sea-swallow,’ which frequently appears
after rough winds and remains flying about over the water
for a week or more. Six or eight of these are sometimes
seen at once. The common gull comes at irregular in-
tervals, generally in the winter or spring; it is said to
foretell rough weather. Occasionally a gull will stay some
time, and I have seen them also in the water-meadows.
Considering the distance from the sea, the gull cannot be
called an uncommon bird here.

Towards winter the wild ducks return ; and during all
the cold months a flock of them, varying in number, re-
mains. They are careful to swim during the day in the
centre of the very widest part of the lake, far out of gun-
shot ; at night they land, or feed along the shore. Teal,
and sometimes widgeon also, visit the place. Once now
and then wildfowl come in countless numbers: it is said
to be when they are driven south by severe weather. On
one occasion I saw the lake literally black—they almost
covered it for a length of half a mile and a breadth of
about a quarter. It was a sight not to be quickly for-
gotten; and the noise of their wings as vast parties every
now and then rose and wheeled around was something
astonishing. They only stayed a few days.

How many times I have endeavoured to trace the V
said to be formed by duck while flying, and failed to detect
it! They fly, it is true, in some sort of order, but those
that come to the mere here travel rather in a row, or line,
slanting forwards, something like what military men call
in echelon. The teal seem much bolder than the wild
duck: they are often shot as they rise out of the brooks;
but the ducks very rarely go to the brooks at all, and can
still more rarely be approached when they do. They swim

Where the Mare's-tail fourishes 335

in the water-carriers in the great irrigated meadows, but
are careful to remain far out of range; so that the only
war to shoot them by day is for two or more sportsmen
to post themselves behind the hedges in different places
while a third drives them up.

The first snipes are seen generally in the arab!e lands,
afterwards round the lake—the muddy shores by choice—
and finally in the brooks. As the winter advance: they
seem to quit the lake in great part and go down to the
brooks. A streamiet that runs through a peaty field is a
favourite spot. The little jack-snipe frequent the water-
carriers in the irrigated meadows, and the wet fzrrows.
When the lake is frozen over the wild duck stand on the
ice in the daytime for hours together, leaving the marks of
their feet on it.

In walking along the shore lines of drift may be noticed.
marking the height to which the waves driven by the wind
have carried the floating twigs, weeds. and leaves: just as
along the sea the beach is formed into terraces by the
changing height of the tides. The shallower parts of the
lake are so thickly grown in summer with aqnatic weeds
that a boat can only be forced through them with the utmost
difficulty. Some of these growin as muchas eight or even
ten feet of water. Onihe shore, where it is marshy. the
mare’s-tail flourishes over some acres: there is often a
slight marshy odour here, which increases as the foot presses
the yielding mud.

When the water is low in autumn these are mown,
and, with the aquatic grasses at the edge and the rushes,
made into the roughest kind of hay imaginable. The
coarser parts are used as litter; the best is mixed with
fodder and eaten by cattle. “Many waggon loads are thua
taken awar, but as many more remain; and in walking

x

306 Mild Life ti a Southern County

over the spongy ground a smart ‘pop’ is continually
heard: it is caused by the sudden compression of air under
the foot in the mare’s-tails lying about ; for their stems are
hollow, and have knots at regular intervals.

After a continuance of the wind in one quarter for a
few days—south or south-west—the opposite shores are
lined with such weeds carried across, together with great
quantities of dead branches fallen from the trees and wil-
lows. So that on a small scale the same thing happens as
with the drift wood of the ocean ; and, indeed, by studying
the action of natural forces as exhibited in our own pools
and brooks, it becomes much easier to comprehend the
gigantic operations by which the surface of the earth is
altered.

For instance, the north-eastern edge of the water is
continually encroaching on the land, eating away the sandy
soil, showing that the prevalent winds are south and west.
The waves, thrown against the shore with the force they
have acquired in rolling six or seven hundred yards, wash
away the earth and undermine the bank, forming a minia-
ture cliff or precipice, the face of which is always concave,
projecting a little at the foot and also at the top. So much
is this the case that an unwary person walking too near
the edge may feel the sward suddenly yield and find it
necessary to scramble off before a few hundredweights of
earth subside into the water.

In this process the loamy part of the earth is dissipated,
or rather held in suspension, while the small stones and
ultimately the heavier sand fall to the bottom and form the
sandy floor preferred by the fish. The loam discolours the
water during a storm for several yards out to sea, so to say ;
so that in a boat passing by you know by the hue of the
waves when you are approaching the dangers of the cliffs.

Wave-marks under old Churches 867

This continuous eating away of the earth proceeds so fast
that an old hollow oak tree now stands—at what may be
called the high tide of summer—so far from the strand that
a boat may pass between.

Like a wooden island the old oak rears itself up in the
midst ; the waves break against it, and when there is but a
ripple the sunlight glancing on the water is reflected back,
and plays upon the rugged trunk, illuminating it with a
moving design as the wavelets roll in. The water is so
shallow at the edge that the shadows of the ridges of the
waves follow each other over the sandy floor. They reflect
the bright rays upon the tree-trunk, where they weave a
beautiful lace-like pattern—beneath, their own shadows
glide along the sand. That sand, too, is arranged by the
ripple in slightly curved lines. These wave-marks, though
so slight that with the hand you may level fifty at a sweep,
have yet sometimes proved durable enough to tell the stu-
dent after many centuries where water once has been.
Under the foundations of some of the oldest churches—the
monks loved to build near water—the wave-mark has been
found on the original soil.

In a hollow of the old oak starlings have made their
nest and reared their young in safety for several seasons.
They seem to understand that the water gives them pro-
tection, for their nest would not be out of reach were the
tree on land.

Just as at the seashore the wave curls over in an arch
as it comes in before dissolving in surf and spray, so here
when a gale is blowing, these lesser waves, as they reach the
shelving strand, also curl over. In the early morning, as
the sun begins to acquire some strength, the white mists
sweep over the surface and visibly melt and disappear.
One hot summer, when the lake was full, and kept so

308 Wd Life tn a Southern County

artificially by the hatches and dams, I found by observation
that its level sank nearly half an inch every day. This
was the more striking heeause there was at the same time
an influx more than cnough to repair the loss from leakage.
Now the evaporation of half an inch of water over such
width of surface meant the ascension into the atmosphere
of many thousands of gallons; and thus even this insigni-
ficant pool might form a cloud of some magnitude in a few
days. What immense vapours may thon arise from the
surface of the ocean !

Sometimes a winter’s morning is, I think, almost as
beautiful as summer, when the ice is thick with the sharp
frost, and the sun shines in a blue sky frco from clouds.
One such morning, while putting on my skates, [ happened
to look up, and was surprised to see a bird of unusual
appearance, and large size, soaring slowly overhead. I
immediately recognised an eagl:; and that was the soli-
tary occasion on which I ever saw one here. The bird
remained in sight some time, and finally left, going south-
east towards the sun,

On the afternoon of the day before the beginning of
the frost the wind gradually sinks, and the dead leaves
which have been blown to and fro settle in corners and
sheltered places. As the sun scts all is still, and there is
a sense of freshness in the air, Then the logs of wood
thrown on the fire burn bright and clear—the gurface of a
burning log breaks up into small irregular squares; and
the old folk shake their heads and say, ‘It will freeze,’
As the evening advances the hoofs of horses passing by on
the road give out a sharp sound—a sign that the mud is
rapidly hardening. The grass crunches under foot, and in
the morning the elms are white with rime; icicles hang
from the thatch, and the ponds are frozen,

Sharp Frosts 309

But there is nothing so uncertain as frost: it may thaw,
and even rain, within a few hours; and, on the other hand,
even after raining in the afternoon, it may clear up about
midnight, and next morning the ice will be a quarter of
an inch thick. Sometimes it will begin in so faint-hearted
a fashion that the ground in the centre of the fields is still
soft, and will ‘ poach’ under the hoofs of cattle, while by
the hedge it is hard. But by slow degrees the cold
increases, and ice begins to form. Again, it will freeze
for a week and yet you will find very little ice, because all
the while there has been a rough wind, and the wares on
the lake cannot freeze while in motion. So that a long
frost 1s extremely difficult to foresee.

But it comes at last, Two really sharp frosts will cause
ice thick enough to bear a lad at the edge of the lake;
three will bear a man a few yards out; four, and it is safe
to cross; in a week the ice is between three and four
inches thick, and would carry a wagzon. The character
of ice varies; if some sleet has been falling—or snow,
which facilitates freezing—it is thick in colour; if the
wind was still, it is dark, sleek, perfectly transparent. It
varies, however, in different places, in some having a faint
yellowish hue. There are always several places where the
ice does not freeze till the last—breathing-holes in which
the ducks swim; and where a brook enters it is never
quite safe.

The snipes come now to the brook and water-meadows.
Following the course of the stream, fieldfares and redwings
rise in numbers from every hawthorn bush, where they
have been feeding on the peggles. Blackbirds start ont
from under the bushes, where there is perhaps a little
moist earth still. The foam where there is a slight fall is
frozen, and the current runs under a roof of ice; the white

310 = Wald Life in a Southern County

bubbles travel along beneath it. The moorhens cannot
get at the water; neither can the herons or kingfishers.
The latter suffer greatly, and a fortnight of such severe
weather is fatal to them.

I recollect walking by a brook like this, and seeing the
blue plumage of a kingtisher perched on abush. I swung
my gun round ready to shoot as soon as he should fly, but
the bird sat still and took no notice of my approach.
Astonished at this—for the kingfisher sat in such a position
as easily to see any one coming; and these birds generally
start immediately they perceive a person—I walked swiftly
up opposite the bush, The bird remained on the bough.
I put out the barrel of my gun and touched his ruddy
breast with the muzzle; he fell on the ice below. Hehad
been frozen on his perch during the night, and probably
died more from starvation than from cold, since it was im-
possible for him to get at any fish.

More than once afterwards the same winter J found
kingtishers dead on the ice under bushes, lying on their
backs wit: their contracted claws uppermost, having
fallen dead from roost. Possibly the one found on the
branch may have been partly supported by some small
twig.

That winter snow afterwards fell and became a few
inches thick, drifting in places to several feet. Then it
was the turn of the other birds and animals to feel the pain
of starvation. In the meadows the tracks of rabbits
crossed and recrossed till the idea of following their course
had to be abandoned. At first sight it seemed as if the
snow had suddenly revealed the presence of a legion of
‘rabbits where previously no one had suspected the exist-
ence of more than a dozen. But in fact a couple of rabbits
only will so run to and fro on the snow as to cover a meadow

Famuishing Rabbits and Hares 31%

with the imprints of their feet—looking everywhere for a
green blade.

Yet they only occasionally scratch away the snow and
so get at the grass. Though the natural instinct of rabbits
is to dig, and though here and there a place may be seen
where they appear to have searched for a favourite morse],
yet they do not seem to acquire the sense of systematically
clearing snow away. They then bark ash—and, indeed,
nearly any young sapling or tree—and visit gardens in the
night, as the hares do also. They creep about along the
mounds, being driven by hunger to search for food all day
instead of remaining part of the time in the buries.

As to the hares, little more than a week of deep snow
cripples their strength : they will run but twenty or thirty
yards, and may be killed occasionally with a stick or
captured alive. They are even more helpless than rabbits,
because the latter still have holes to take refuge in from
danger; but the hare while the snow lasts is a wretched
creature, and knows not where to turn. Birds resort to
the cattle-sheds to roost ; among them the blackbirds, who
usually roost in the hedges. Birds come to the houses
and gardens in numbers because the snow is there cleared
away along the paths.

During severe weather the water-meadows are the most
frequented places. They are rarely altogether frozen. If
in the early morning there are sheets of ice, by noonday a
great part will be flooded an inch or two deep, the water
rising over the ice, and forced by it to spread farther,
softening the ground at the sides. ‘The water-carriers are
long before they freeze. Thrushes and blackbirds come to
the hedges surrounding these meadows; the fieldfares and
redwings are there by hundreds, and fly up to the trees if
alarmed.

312 Wild Life im a Southern County

The old folks say that the irrigated meadows (and
other open waters) do not freeze in the evening till the
moon rises; a bright clear moon is credited with causing
the water to ‘catch’—that is, the slender, thread-like
spicules form on the surface, and, joining together, finally
cover it. It is, of course, because the water-meadows are
long before altogether frozen that the duck and teal come
down to them. When the brooks are frozen is almost the
only time when the dabchick can be got to rise: at other
times this bird will dive and redive, and double about in
the water, and rather be caught by the spaniels than take
wing. But when the ice prevents this they will fly.
Wood-pigeons go to the few places that remain moist, and
also frequent the hawthorn bushes with the fieldfares.
They seem fond of trees that are overgrown with ivy, pro-
bably for the berries.

The fish are supposed to go down upon the mud;
but the jacks certainly do the reverse: they may be seen
lying just beneath the ice, and apparently touching it
with their backs. They seem partly torpid. In open
winters, such as we have had of recent years, the hedge
fruit remains comparatively untouched by birds: from
which it would appear that it is not altogether a favourite
food.

The country folk, who are much about at night and
naturally pay great heed to the weather, are persuaded
that on rainy nights more shooting stars are seen than
when it is bright and clear. The kind of weather they
meap is when scudding clouds with frequent breaks pass
over, now obscuring and now leaving part of the sky visible,
and with occasional showers. These shooting stars, they
say, are but just above the clouds, and are mere streaks of
light: by which they mean to convey that they have no

Wood Pile aglow with Phosphorescence 313

apparent nucleus and are different from the great meteors
which are sometimes seen.

I have myself been often much interested in the re-
markable difference of the degree of darkness when there
has been no moon. There are nights when, although the
sky be clear of visible cloud and the stars are shining, it
is, in familiar phrase, ‘as black as pitch.’ The sky itself
is black between the stars, and they do not seem to give
the slightest illumination. On the other hand, there are
nights without a moon when it is (though winter time)
quite light. Hedges and trees are plainly visible; the
road is light, and anything approaching can be seen at
some distance, and this occasionally happens though the
sky be partly clouded. So that the character of the night
does not seem to depend entirely upon the moon or stars.
The shepherds on the hills say that now and then there
comes an intense blackness at night which frightens the
sheep and makes them leap the hurdles.

When logs of timber are split for firewood they are
commonly stacked ‘four square,’ and occasionally such a
stack, four or five feet high, may be seen all aglow with
phosphorescence. Each individual split piece of wood is
distinctly visible-—a pale faintly yellow light seems to be
emitted from its surface. At the same time the ends of
the faggot sticks projecting from the adjacent stack of
faggots also glow as if touched with fire. So vivid is the
light that at the first glance it is quite startling—as if the
whole collection of wood were just on the point of bursting
into flame. In passing old hollow trees sometimes they
appear illuminated from within: the light proceeds from
the decaying ‘touchwood.’ Old willow trees are some-
times streaked with such light from the top to the foot of
the trunk. As this phosphorescence is only occasional,

Y

314 Wild Life tu a Southern County

it would seem to depend on the condition of the
atmosphere.

I once noticed what looked like a glowworm on a
window-blind at night, but there was no glowworm there ;
the light was of a pale greenish hue. In the morning an
examination showed that the linen was decayed and almost
rotten just in that particular spot, and it had slightly
turned colour. Glowworms are uncommon in the district
which has been more particularly described.

The ignis fatuus is almost extinct; so much so that
Jack-o’-the-Lantern has died ont of the village folk-lore.
On one occasion, however, I saw what at a distance seemed
a bright light shining in a ditch where two hedges met.
Thinking some mischief was going on, I went to the spot,
when the light disappeared; but on retiring, after a search
which proved that no one was about, it came into view
again. A second time I approached, and a second time
the light died ont. <A few nights afterwards it was there
again, and must clearly have been some kind of iynis
yutuus. There was a small quantity of stagnant water in
the ditch, and a good deal of rotting wood—branches
fallen from trees.

One of the most interesting phenomena in connection
with the weather seems to me to be the radiation of clouds.
It appears to be more commonly visible in the evening,
and, when fully developed, there is a low bank on the
horizon, roughly arched, from which streamers of cloud
trail right across the sky, through the zenith and down to
the horizon opposite. Near each horizon these streamers
or lines almost touch; overhead they are wider apart—an
effect of perspective, I suppose. Often the lines do not
stretch so far, hardly to the zenith, where they spread ont
like a fan. If the sun has gone down, and the cloud

Almost a Waterspout 315

chances to be white, these lines greatly resemble the aurora
borealis, which takes the same form, and, when pale, can
scarcely be distinguished from them, except for the
streamers shooting—now extending, now withdrawing—
while the cloud streamers only drift slowly. Sometimes
there is but one line of cloud, a single streamer stretching
right across the sky. So far as I have been able to observe,
this radiation is usually followed by wind blowing in a
direction parallel to the course of the streamers.

Once while walking in winter I was overtaken by a
storm of rain, and took shelter behind a tree, which for
some time kept me perfectly dry. But suddenly there
came an increase of darkness, and, glancing round, I saw
a black cloud advancing in the teeth of the wind, and
close to the earth. The trees it passed were instantly
blotted out, and as it approached I could see that in the
centre it bulged and hung down—or rather slightly slant-
ing forward—in the shape of an inverted cone with the
apex cut off. This bulging part was of a slaty black, and
the end travelled over the earth not higher than half the
elevation of an ordinary elm. It came up with great
speed, and in a moment I was completely drenched, and
the field was flooded. It did not seem so much to rain as
to descend in a solid sheet of water; this lasted a very
short time, and immediately afterwards the storm began
to clear. Though not a perfect waterspout, it was some-
thing very near it. The tree behind which I had taken
shelter stood near a large pond, or mere; and I thought
at the time that that might have attracted the cloud. The
field quite ran with water, as if suddenly irrigated, but
the space thus flooded was of small area—about an acre.

The haymikers sometimes talk of mysterious noises
heard in the very finest weather, when it is still and calm,

316 = FVald Life in a Southern County

resembling extremely distant thunder. They were con-
vinced it was something ‘in the air;’ but I feel certain
it was the guns of the fleet exercising at sea. In that
case the sound of the explosion must have travelled cver
fifty miles in a direct line—supposing it to come from
the neighbourhood of the nearest naval station. I have
found by observation that thunder cannot be heard nearly
so far as the sound of cannon. I doubt whether it is often
heard more than ten miles. Some of the old cottage folk
are still positive that it is not the lightning but the thunder
that splits the trees; they ask if a great noise does not
make the windows rattle, and want to know whether a
still greater one may not rive an oak. They allow, how-
ever, that the mischief is sometimes done by a thunder-
bolt.

PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON

yen

Wivaraanvanicnesoeees S
CSOT ATT

Sy

\ AA
WAY

DMC

N

N

\
var & OVA
.