GIFT OF 
 A. P. Morrison 
 
THE 
 
 WOODLAND LIFE 
 
A HAUNT OF PEACE. 
 
THE 
 
 OODLAND 
 LIFE 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD THOMAS 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 MDCCCXCVI I 
 
 All Rights reserved 
 

 
INSCRIBED TO 
 
 THE MEMORY OF 
 
 JAMES ASHCROFT NOBLE 
 
 M956G9 
 
Author's thanks are due, and are 
 respectfully tendered, to the proprietors 
 of the ' Speaker,' the ' New Age,' and the 
 ' Globe,' for permission to reprint some of 
 the following articles. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE SWEET O 5 THE YEAR .... I 
 
 LYDIARD TREGOSE ... 3 1 
 
 A WILTSHIRE MOLECATCHER .... 45 
 
 MAY SONG 59 
 
 WILD FRUITS 73 
 
 IN AUTUMN WOODS . . . -83 
 
 WINDS OF WINTER 95 
 
 A TOUCH OF WINTER I7 
 
 WINTER IN RICHMOND PARK . . . .119 
 
 A PINE-WOOD NEAR LONDON . . I3 1 
 
 A SURREY WOODLAND . . . . 145 
 
 A DIARY IN ENGLISH FIELDS AND WOODS . 1 57 
 
THE 
 SWEET O' THE YEAR 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 ARK furrowed boughs of elm- 
 trees in line dip like 
 a bank of galley oars 
 towards the meadow, 
 where the slight end- 
 most twigs mingle their 
 young foliage with a 
 thicket of varied grasses and blossoming 
 plants. A myriad stars of stitch wort and 
 purple spires of orchis join hands, as it 
 were, over the elm - branches swathed 
 deep in the lush growths of spring. 
 Shadowing the spangled blossoms rise 
 the lofty columnar boles of the elm-trees, 
 with the black nest of a crow swinging 
 on the topmost boughs the nest already 
 
The 
 
 i , 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 tattered by the farmer's vindictive shot. 
 There, in the middle days of March, 
 sang the early chiffchaff, first visitor to 
 these Wiltshire meadows from the warm 
 southern lands of ever brilliant noon. 
 When the silent avenue was startled by 
 his soft singing cry, the budding thorns 
 still lingered ere they burst, and the 
 violets had not long opened. With a 
 fluttering flight he followed the long line 
 of elms among their topmost boughs, 
 crying as he flew. It seemed as though 
 he had no care no task but to sing, sing 
 in the sunlight ; and though his song, 
 the two syllables repeated half-a-dozen 
 times in leisurely succession, was some- 
 times broken off short from some un- 
 apparent cause, that voice on which the 
 ear dwelt intently was hardly ever hushed 
 through the long March day. Moving 
 among the boughs of the broad oaks, he 
 varied his song with a gentle inward 
 chirruping. His frail form, of finely 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 chiselled grace, moved everywhere along 
 the lane, and, the bird being far from shy, 
 his sprightly motions might be watched 
 as he searched the crevices between the 
 buds; and you might note the pleasing 
 hues of his plumage apparently brown 
 on the back, but with a tinge of olive, 
 for which a match must be sought among 
 the chestnut-leaves of autumn, and pale 
 on the breast. This chiffchaff in the 
 lane was solitary, but, farther on, each 
 double hedge and wayside coppice gave 
 shelter to at least one of them. 
 
 On the morrow, a day of brilliant heat, 
 the chiffchaffs flooded the lane with their 
 showers of song, now lost in rivalry with 
 the shrill louder wren, but, from its per- 
 sistence, always at last triumphant. The 
 sun in its waxing strength seemed to ex- 
 tract a fragrance from the earth, and there 
 was a peculiar richness in the atmosphere. 
 Heat, too, had brought into the light 
 a crowd of new-born insects, a brilliant 
 
 The 
 
 Sweet o' 
 the Year. 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 The 
 
 Sweet <? 
 the Year. 
 
 host that filled the grass, creeping up 
 and around the blades and sunning them- 
 selves on the warm bank. Small flies and 
 beetles, in shining mail of emerald and 
 sable, and with silken folded wings, met 
 the eye at every turn. To one listening 
 silent a while in the coppice, an undertone 
 of the insect-song of summer grew upon 
 the ear : it was the hum of innumerable 
 gauzy wings fanning the light air, through 
 the less insistent music of the gnats 
 weaving an airy dance overhead, and 
 came from the willows by the brook. 
 An almost countless band of bees hovered 
 around the " palms," turned golden in a 
 single bright morning, with a burring of 
 their lightly-beating wings. Some buried 
 their amber -barred bodies in the gold 
 dust, and the soft winds playing among 
 the boughs did not dislodge them they 
 swung with the branches ; others paused 
 but a moment on their quivering fans. 
 With them richly-marked flies mingled, 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 but rarely visited the catkins ; like the 
 creatures of sunlight that they are, they 
 merely crawled along the warm boughs 
 in the faint almond-like odour they seem 
 to love. When they did approach the 
 " palms," it was but to flutter round, 
 careless and fickle, amid this wealth of 
 microscopic grain. Bees with curving 
 bodies were so intent upon the gold that 
 three or four of them clung to the same 
 catkin, hiding the golden treasure which 
 they fast cleared, and then took their 
 way heavily laden for their distant nests. 
 All the willow-boughs curved up towards 
 the tip and made a graceful line from the 
 trunk to their finest twigs. The catkins 
 were mostly at the end, and particularly 
 those full-blown of brightest yellow. 
 
 Days of grateful warmth follow, and 
 the nine-angled coltsfoot leaves shoot up 
 beside their drooping blossoms. Already 
 the chifTchaff s song has lost its singu- 
 larity, and goes to swell the spring 
 
 The 
 
 Sweet o' 
 the Year. 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 The 
 
 Sweet o 1 
 the Year. 
 
 chorus, now almost "grown full quire." 
 Another voice has in a day been added, 
 one easily passed by and of small note. 
 The black-headed bunting, as he keeps 
 just ahead along the hedgerow, sings 
 from the topmost sprays, where his black 
 top-knot gives him some distinction, the 
 simplest and weakest of all songs a few 
 plaintive notes jerkily ejaculated at in- 
 tervals, and less melodious even than the 
 yellow -ammer's. Hardly less simple is 
 the handsome great tit's " 'tis sweet, 'tis 
 sweet," as he flits among the bare grey 
 ash - poles. High up in the boundless 
 ether larks sing and in their joy leap in 
 the very air. Descending and singing 
 the while, they pause a yard above the 
 grass and the song dies with a sweet 
 gentle "hear it hear it hear it." These 
 same syllables, tenderest of all, form also 
 the culminating notes in the lark's finest 
 ecstasy aloft. Yonder across the brook 
 the hillside gorse flames in the sun with 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 innumerable golden tongues that flicker 
 in the least wind's breath. 
 
 On the green mound lies a dead oak- 
 leaf, sober brown and nothing more to 
 the first glance. Through the winter it 
 has lain there, while some of its fellows 
 yet cling wizened and wan about the 
 saplings. Its scalloped edge has kept 
 intact in spite of wind and rain and 
 frost. With the process of the months 
 it has darkened and curled, till now it 
 is a semi - cylinder of the hue of old 
 leather ; but underneath the plain brown 
 surface shows a beautiful variety of shades 
 amber streaks, strange mottlings of 
 chestnut, red and tawny, and, breaking 
 through all, a bloom of faint gold. Each 
 different tinge glows richly as the sun- 
 beams light up the glossy curving surface. 
 It is a last remnant of winter and of the 
 bygone year, pillowed among the tender 
 growths of early spring sere brown set 
 in the midst of youthful verdure. In the 
 
 The 
 
 Sweet o' 
 the Year. 
 
10 
 
 The 
 
 Sweet o' 
 the Year. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 ditch below the water has become swift 
 and deep ; and through the dense flag- 
 thicket it makes a sound as of splintering 
 ice. Another ditch close by, broad but 
 stagnant, is choked with weeds and frog- 
 spawn the latter showing black where 
 it rises above the water. While the frogs 
 were still spawning, and on the approach 
 of an intruder, numbers of them hurried 
 with all possible despatch to sheltering 
 weeds at the bottom ; as they did so, a 
 great commotion disturbed the water, and 
 here a leg, there a yellow-mottled back, 
 was thrust above the surface. 
 
 A peculiar dull warmth broods in the 
 meadows, which become as basins, engirt 
 by tall hedgerows, within which the at- 
 mosphere is motionless and sweltering. 
 It is this fleeting sultriness, dispersed in 
 a moment by a rain - shower, that the 
 chaffinch loves; and under such a sky, 
 where the blue is often veiled by strag- 
 gling clouds, dark and swollen, he sings 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 his song, according well with the drowsi- 
 ness around. While the grasses hardly 
 stir, and the osiers do but nod, the chaf- 
 finch is master of the field oak, elm, 
 and hedgerow ring to his lay. There are 
 few leaves as yet to give sound to the 
 downpour, and, save for a faint hissing 
 on the placid brook, the rain falls between 
 the grass and the bare trees in silence. 
 In the shower the chaffinch is hushed, 
 and a shadow rests on the dim far hills, 
 rolling their curves away to the eastern 
 horizon. At length the singing of the 
 raindrops against the water ceases, as 
 the sun once more lights up the downs 
 and shows the last paling clouds between 
 the trees. Overhead the peerless azure 
 sky, veined with snowy films of vapour, 
 is dazzling to the sight ; anon dark 
 masses roll over, and the landscape is 
 thrown in shadow. 
 
 Sunbeams dancing through the willows 
 light up the surface of the brook, and 
 
 ii 
 
 The 
 
 Sweet o 1 
 the Year. 
 
12 
 
 The 
 
 Sweet o' 
 the Year. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 penetrate to its depths. A shoal of min- 
 nows move against the stream, looking 
 like long - drawn - out wedges, dull save 
 when a silvery side is turned over with an 
 answering flash from the sunlight. Their 
 taper bodies quiver as they progress, and 
 sometimes a fin dimples the surface or a 
 maze of circles forms as together the 
 minnows dart affrighted from a shadow. 
 On the water the first " skater " insect 
 floats at rest, his legs making him appear 
 like a boat with outriggers ; but when 
 going forward, breaking the surface with 
 rapidly-dissolving ripples, he suggests a 
 sculler progressing with an occasional 
 stroke, content thus to take the sunlight 
 with the least exertion and to rest on 
 his oars. Sometimes the " skater " is 
 stranded among the flags, and the in- 
 sect that is boat and oarsman all in one 
 disappears. So swiftly that the eye can- 
 not guess its shape or colour, a large 
 insect blunders along and plunges sud- 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 denly into the brook, leaving no ripple 
 behind and seeming not to reappear : 
 like a stone flung in, he passes out of 
 sight. Now almost touching the waters, 
 and now high above the willow-boughs, 
 the gnats sing with a finer and lighter 
 note than the bees. Most brilliant of all 
 the early insects, a tortoiseshell butterfly 
 wanders over, throwing a likeness of his 
 angled wings in the brook's mirror. He 
 seeks the coltsfoot blossoms at the shore, 
 and passes from flower to flower with a 
 frolic in the sun which this morning un- 
 furled his jewelled wings. With the nod- 
 ding blossom he sways ; while he moves 
 up and down, his fans rise and lower, 
 open and shut, as fancy pleases the gay 
 sun-drinker. Though not a flower is ne- 
 glected as yet, he will not venture among 
 the petals put carefully to tempt him 
 between the leaves of a book. Parted 
 from their roots, they are no longer a 
 lure for him, though a bee would follow 
 
 The 
 
 Sweet o" 
 the Year. 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 The 
 
 Sweet o 1 
 the Year, 
 
 a fragrant posy right within doors. Only 
 for a second a chiffchaff leaves his song, 
 and tumbles playfully from an upper ash- 
 bough, twisting with quick wings as he 
 descends twirling like a shuttlecock to 
 the ground. 
 
 At the rookery in the elms by yonder 
 farmhouse twice as many pairs of rooks 
 as there were nests laid claim to the 
 settlement. After days of noisy strife, 
 in which there was little done to mend 
 the tattered nests, building has begun 
 anew in many trees. But the heat has 
 lulled even the noisy rooks, who cry with 
 a sleepy languor far more gently than 
 usual. So busy are they that the short- 
 est ways are taken, and they sweep home- 
 wards close to the ground without waiting 
 for one another. Sometimes a string of 
 them follow in quick succession, their 
 bluish plumage flashing as they strain in 
 flight, uttering an inward sound that 
 suggests their youngsters in mid - May. 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Oaks and elms have been thrown in the 
 lane, and the rooks come hither for the 
 thickly lying twigs snapped off in the 
 falling of the trees. Where the cattle 
 seek the slender shade still left, pied wag- 
 tails of sharply contrasting black and 
 white in dashes come to feed among the 
 legs of the slow - grazing creatures. If 
 there is little shadow here, there is none 
 for the sheep far away on the downs, now 
 vivid with noonday brilliance. Cropping 
 steadily, at such a great distance the 
 sheep seem quite motionless except when 
 long watched. 
 
 Rooks and peewits feed together in the 
 meadows, but not in contented company. 
 One of the former continually makes a 
 vicious rush at his gaily-plumaged neigh- 
 bour, who eludes his clumsy attack with an 
 easy flap of his rounded wings and a laugh- 
 ing cry as he dives and settles close by. 
 As the peewit alights he closes his wings 
 slowly with a conscious display of their 
 
 The 
 
 Sweet o" 
 the Year. 
 
i6 
 
 The 
 
 Sweet J 
 the Year. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 pied plumes. Presently the rooks leave 
 the meadow, and the peewits are alone; 
 but they cannot remain long still, and soon 
 they start quarrelling among themselves. 
 It is a beautiful sight to watch their facile 
 turns of flight as each strives to surmount 
 his rival. Now a couple seem as one 
 bird, and again they part to soar and 
 twist in opposite directions. As they 
 race the sun gleams on their crests and 
 greenish bars, and the peewit swings in 
 the air with his prowess of flight. In a 
 straight steady motion, rare indeed with 
 a peewit, their wings are soundless, but in 
 the whirling dashes from side to side in 
 combat or amorous display a strange 
 wind-like rush is made as if their joints 
 were stiff. Under a strong sun, when it 
 is dazzling to look up, this rushing sound 
 betrays the bird as it passes overhead. 
 Though less loud and decided, it strongly 
 resembles the bleating of snipe, and can 
 be heard at some height, though the turns 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 which cause it are usually made near the 
 ground. Peewits only visit this meadow 
 for play and food ; the ploughland is their 
 home in spring, where they nest among 
 the furrows. As they sweep by, striking 
 the ear with their strong swift pinions, 
 they give a cry less like " pee-wit " than 
 "whip-poor-will." The peewits often 
 come close enough to be marked in 
 detail; but the golden plover, haunting 
 for a while the same land, rarely approach 
 within gunshot, and, should they do so, 
 their course is altered with a swish and 
 a glimmer as the sun lights up a hundred 
 pale breasts at once. With a carefully 
 marshalled advance the plover rise, un- 
 seen almost, as their dark backs are upper- 
 most, and climb swiftly to a dim height 
 among the clouds. Their whistling, shrill 
 and penetrating, and also somewhat like 
 "whip-poor-will," reaches the ear from 
 an immense distance when the birds them- 
 selves are scarcely in sight. As they 
 
 The 
 
 Sweet d* 
 the Year. 
 
i8 
 
 The 
 
 Sweet o' 
 the Year. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 drift overhead, their wedge formation is 
 clear against the sky ; even when they are 
 split up, by wind or varying strength in 
 the long swift rush with which they leave 
 the earth, the wedge is kept, and some- 
 times three such shapes appear in line. 
 When the plover swerve or turn high in 
 air, their ranks alter to a bow-like curve, 
 gradually returning to the former shape 
 as they settle to their course. Once, in 
 a fierce wind, the plover were seen to rise 
 in a long dark line, like an ascending 
 rocket, above the hills, and when scarcely 
 visible broke up and stooped low down, 
 still further suggesting the rocket's scat- 
 tering sparks. An hour goes by, as in 
 powerful flight they range high and low, 
 fading among clouds, and anon appearing 
 themselves as a fine summer cloud over 
 the ridge of downs. 
 
 Broad periwinkle blossoms, of a rich 
 though not brilliant purple, press close 
 against the grey stone wall of the keeper's 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 cottage, and are half - hidden by the 
 rounded glossy leaves that cling about 
 the crevices. The narrow hillside path, 
 dipping here to a fir coombe that 
 shelters the cottage, winds near to the 
 old wall, fringed with plumes of tall 
 young grass growing in bunches. At the 
 base, where crumbling lichened stones 
 hide food for the early thrushes, pale 
 flowers of wood -sorrel swing beneath 
 their canopies of graceful leaves, which 
 droop in threes against the stock sup- 
 porting them, and suggest a beech - nut 
 by their combined shape. As yet wind 
 and rain have left the tangled grasses 
 of last summer still standing, and the 
 fresh shoots creeping slowly among them 
 scarcely catch the eye; but one solitary 
 stalk, shaped like a long streamer, flutters 
 above the rest, and as it waves strikes 
 its stiff withered neighbours. Like the 
 snow incrusted boughs of winter, the 
 pear - tree branches of the orchard seem 
 
 The 
 
 Sweet 0' 
 the Year. 
 
20 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 The 
 
 Sweet 6 1 
 the Year. 
 
 almost to bow beneath the weight and 
 wealth of hoary blossom, sunlit and flash- 
 ing from the dew beads that rim the faint 
 petals. In the wind, warm and caressing 
 from the bright sun, the crisp blossomed 
 boughs bend and rise with a languid 
 dreamy motion, for the odour and beauty 
 of the million petals seem inconsistent 
 with brisk movement. The orchard, one 
 heaving mass of bloom, looks from afar 
 like the foam-line that seethes and scat- 
 ters spray along the sea -shore, though 
 the wind in its frolics does not yet fling 
 showers of petal-flakes to rise and drop 
 twirling to the sward below among the 
 daffodils. Beyond the pear-bloom, only 
 a narrow band seen thus at a distance, 
 stretches the wide sea of moaning firs, 
 whose dense array is rudely broken here 
 and there by the broad reach of an oak 
 its leafless branches making a pale gap in 
 the dark evergreen summit of the wood- 
 land. Among the firs the pheasant cries 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 21 
 
 loud and weirdly, as if asserting that here 
 he is sole master and rightful occupant ; 
 and his claim rests unchallenged till the 
 artillery crash of the battue, except by 
 the hearty storm -cock's song. The 
 missel-thrush sings in the wood or on its 
 borders; but he is at home among the 
 orchard trees, where his nest was open 
 to the view of all before the blossom 
 came. Pheasant-covers being inviolable 
 by virtue of their countless dangers to 
 feathered marauders, by gin and gun, 
 and finally the gallows of the keeper's 
 shed, the storm - cock at the edge has 
 little fear from the jay or magpie, whose 
 vindictiveness and cold cunning so often 
 outwit his own bravery against his supe- 
 riors in size. 
 
 Low hazel-hedges and the threat of 
 spring-guns confine the wayfarer to the 
 path and the steep banks dappled with 
 anemones since middle March ; but the 
 woodland galleries, with their trains of 
 
 The 
 
 Sweet 6" 
 the Year. 
 
22 
 
 The 
 
 Sweet o 1 
 the Year. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 song-birds and fir-loving squirrels, their 
 innumerable primroses among the trunks, 
 and the glimpse every now and then of 
 an emerald and ruby woodpecker, or at 
 least the sound of his loud hilarity, are 
 a perpetual delight even to the outsider. 
 It is an eerie pleasure, in a humming 
 summer night, to walk among the nut- 
 bushes, where not ten yards distant the 
 night -jar rattles liquidly in the gloom, 
 or, with a swishing sound, dives into 
 the dark silence of the wood. But now 
 at the same hour, or when day breaks 
 amid fallen rain, there is scarce a sound, 
 unless it be a skylark from the far - off 
 ridge, and the pilewort flowers in the 
 dim light are as sunflecks on the grass 
 at noon among the trees. Already a 
 change has come over the willows, which 
 lean this way and that across the rillet 
 draining the wood; for the bees, in a 
 few days of busy groping among the 
 golden catkins, which hide them as 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 wheat hides the reaper, have turned 
 the palms to a pale silken hue, and the 
 sunbeams dance now through silver in- 
 stead of gold. Under the willows, in 
 their thin shadows, burdock leaves flap 
 almost ceaselessly in the wind that creeps 
 thither along the stream ; and in the same 
 way broad concave ivy leaves flapping 
 in the breeze hit the oak -bark with a 
 sound which almost deceives the ear by 
 its resemblance to the tap-tapping of a 
 woodpecker. 
 
 As the firs are grouped more densely 
 the primroses become scarcer, till, in the 
 depths of perpetual shadow, not one of 
 them brightens the dull mat of needles. 
 Now ash - poles succeed the firs, and 
 flowers again prank the sward finest 
 where rabbits nibble. Frailest mos- 
 chatel, with its green knob of petals 
 hardly noticed as a flower, mingles with 
 the common blooms of early spring with 
 a forward bunch of red-robin, and with 
 
 The 
 
 Sweet o" 
 the Year. 
 
2 4 
 
 The 
 
 Sweet o' 
 the Year. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 cowslip, cuckoo-flower, and marsh mari- 
 gold ; while the first bluebell is roofed 
 low down by fleecy clouds of blackthorn- 
 bloom. At times the statue -like form of 
 an old ash, spared by the billhook that 
 has pollarded the rest, rises from among 
 the clustering poles, as a tall ship rises 
 out of the maze of lesser craft. Bunches 
 of dull red flowers are crowded on the 
 sweeping limbs of the ash-trees, but, so 
 spare is the texture of the interlacing 
 branches, the blossom, which in the elm 
 gives a suggestion of purple mist, does 
 not colour the tree's outline. Couples of 
 cole tits, faring hither and thither, dash 
 out sulphurous clouds of pollen-dust from 
 the ash bloom as they alight on the finest 
 twigs. From the whole, especially where 
 a flower -laden bough dips earthward, 
 comes a faint fragrance as of peeling bark. 
 A shadow seems to have fallen over the 
 almond blossom yonder in the garden, 
 and it is wan with the coming fall. 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Long rows of lime-trees, washed with 
 grey, as it were, by lichen, advance to 
 the edge of the woodland from the manor 
 on the hill. Their glistening buds have 
 burst and the soft red light is no more 
 around them ; in its place are innumer- 
 able opening leaves, which, on slender 
 branches, seem like a shower of emerald 
 flakes stayed in their fall. The young 
 leaves, newly burst, hang down as yet, 
 and, when in pairs that do not overlap, 
 are placed gracefully like the curved 
 wings of a peewit drooping in flight. 
 At intervals, past the limes, follow black 
 poplars with rugged contorted trunks, 
 and loftier elms whose boles are dappled 
 low down with fresh-opened leaves. On 
 the poplars, the ruddy wealth of catkins 
 becomes suddenly lit up as the sun flashes 
 a moment through a rift of cloud; but 
 in a moment the glow is gone, and, at a 
 little distance, the paling catkins remain 
 unnoticed. 
 
 The 
 
 Sweet o 1 
 the Year. 
 
20 
 
 The 
 
 Sweet o' 
 the Year. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Steep banks sloping away from the 
 hazel hedges imitate a mountain -side in 
 many details. Here and there is a yawn- 
 ing crevice where the mould has slipped 
 away a cavern in miniature; while the 
 overhanging moss clothes the rugged 
 slope as with woodland. Among these 
 cliff -like banks, in their clefts, the red 
 wood - mice hide as a strange tread 
 sounds near by : or the slow, patient 
 humble-bees creep humming in and out : 
 while now and again the weasel slips 
 through the portcullis of drooping moss 
 and roots to avoid a passing foe. Most 
 frequently the moss adorns the furrowed 
 roots of some dead or dying tree, drawing 
 its latest sustenance many yards away ; 
 again it is the butt of an old tree, long 
 lost to sight, that is wrapped in mosses ; 
 oftentimes, too, a stone from the ha-ha, 
 lain there since the hunt scattered the 
 topmost layers of the wall, is hidden be- 
 low the surface. From out the dark moss 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 27 
 
 a frail starry growth lifts aloft whorls of 
 crystal -clear leaves. And here a thrush 
 has left, with sadly battered sides, a beau- 
 tiful snail-shell, orange-striped and deli- 
 cate. Purplish ivy leaves climb the grey 
 stone-like stem of a young ash, lightly 
 encircling it as the ivy or vine entwined 
 the thyrsus of old time. This seems a 
 finer ivy-wreath than common, and the 
 angled leaves, pressing against the smooth 
 bark, look as though chiselled from the 
 wood itself; only the tender green vein- 
 ing suggests the life within. 
 
 Larches, whose grey contour is still 
 hardly brightened by budding leaves, 
 form a belt in the wood beyond the 
 evergreen spruces. Tender red blossom 
 adorns the hanging chain - like larch- 
 boughs, and by them the earliest leaves 
 are opening out. The chain is composed 
 of links now grey, now red, and oftenest 
 of all pale green. In these outer firs that 
 overlook the path vast numbers of field- 
 
 The 
 
 Sweet d 1 
 the Year. 
 
28 
 
 The 
 
 Sweet o' 
 the Year. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 fares have gathered, and, in the brilliant 
 sun anticipating, perhaps, their coming 
 journey north-eastward to other firs than 
 these, they fill the air with a ceaseless 
 racket of rival cries. The sound of many 
 wings, as they restlessly change from 
 bough to bough or hurry ahead of the 
 intruder, is drowned by their harsh 
 chorus. All through the bright warm 
 noon their tactics are unchanged ; racket 
 and whirr of wings come continually 
 through and across the trees. Deeper 
 in the wood, where the spruces give shel- 
 ter impenetrable to the gaze, the plaint 
 of the wood-pigeon, hidden among over- 
 arching boughs, gurgles far and near; 
 or, hurtling with eager flight, one goes 
 swiftly over and droops among the trees. 
 As with starlings, so, in a less degree, is it 
 with wood-pigeons ; and at nearly all times 
 of the year they may be seen foraging in 
 bands. When they rise from the sward 
 or from the furrows the sun gleams on 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 their white -barred plumage; nodding as 
 they walk among the boles, there is a 
 brighter changing in the hues that linger 
 about their necks, coloured like shot silk. 
 Though in smaller numbers than when 
 they throng the lawns strewn with mellow 
 acorns, the clattering of their hard quills 
 rouses the whole woodland crew as they 
 wheel high and low above the oaks, revel- 
 ling under the sunlight in their pride of 
 wing. 
 
 29 
 
 The 
 
 Sweet o 1 
 the Year. 
 
LYDIARD TREGOSE 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 33 
 
 meadow - path, edged 
 with a faint white line 
 of daisies, whose un- 
 opened cups are crimson 
 at the brim, runs with a 
 twisting course athwart 
 broad fields of grass, 
 studded at their margins by the brilliant 
 gold blossoms of celandine. Elms, misty- 
 purple or rust -red with expanded buds, 
 stand out in the midst of the grass, and 
 near where the path leaves the roadway, 
 seven vast trees are set in a circle the 
 pillars of a temple domed in summer by 
 thick foliage penetrable only to the sun- 
 light, and floored with level grass inlaid 
 c 
 
34 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Lydiard 
 Tregose. 
 
 with pearly eyebright. Near a rude stile 
 of impeded elm it skirts a tiny pond 
 almost hidden by withered flags and the 
 broad leaning trunk of a dead willow. The 
 soft mud at the pool's margin is thickly 
 marked with the broad -arrow prints of 
 moorhens' feet ; but in the course of an 
 hour, when the winds of morning have 
 risen, the rippling waters will erase all 
 traces of the birds that fed around them 
 in the dim light of dawn. 
 
 Beyond the pool is a steep chalky slope 
 crowned with branching burdocks that 
 have weathered wind and storm, their 
 dark burrs still adhering. Amidst the 
 scanty grass which clothes the bank, 
 several early blossoms of the ivy-leaved 
 speedwell have peeped out, their faintest 
 blue marked by cerulean veins. They 
 might easily be overlooked, being mere 
 tiny spots of colour deep in the grass, but 
 the lemon -coloured flowers of coltsfoot 
 make a flaunting show all about the slope. 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Blooming before its leaves begin to ap- 
 pear, the coltsfoot is, next to the lesser 
 celandine, at .once the commonest and 
 most brilliant flower of early spring. 
 There must be thousands of the yellow 
 discs scattered over the chalk ; those 
 which are over-blown have changed at 
 last to a deep orange as they faded. A 
 few white violets, palest and loveliest 
 wildings of the season, are hidden by 
 their own broad leaves, beneath which 
 they nod and scatter fragrance on the 
 passing wind-breaths. 
 
 A little hazel-cover lies somewhat away 
 from the path, screened from the common 
 gaze by a thick-set hedge of blackthorn. 
 The only gaps are where the rabbits have 
 broken through, but a way can be found 
 to enter by an old squat pollard -oak 
 which stretches a friendly arm out over 
 the mound. Within, among the smooth 
 wands, each lissom and straight as an 
 arrow -shaft, mazes of crowded bluebell 
 
 35 
 
 Lydiard 
 Tregose. 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Lydiard 
 Tregose. 
 
 leaves spring from the damp earth. 
 These dark green sword -like blades, as 
 of some strong grass, curve gracefully 
 with their own weight, and by their 
 multitude fully conceal all other vegeta- 
 tion. Slowly, in early April days, the 
 green changes to blue, and the leaves 
 in turn are veiled by the blossom ; a 
 thousand bells are swinging like dainty 
 censers in the wind ; the deeper purple of 
 the early orchis, of which a few freckled 
 leaves are showing lower down, does not 
 so much as tone the bluebell host. Prim- 
 roses here and there are couched among 
 the leaves out of sight from without the 
 coppice ; but the gay daffodils dance 
 where all may see. Soon their yellow 
 cups are beaten down to earth by rain, 
 and the dewy nectar pours from them ; 
 but by slow degrees the sunlight lifts 
 them again, and at midday, after a kindly 
 touch, they are as erect as ever. It was 
 on the mound near by that the first 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 violets opened when March broke upon 
 us with wind and rain : weeks passed ere 
 another put forth, and now the same spot 
 is pied with purple and pink ; the scent- 
 less ground -ivy flowers, shading from 
 heliotrope to deep blue, show on the 
 same bank, mocking the hues of their 
 sweet neighbours. 
 
 An old ash, whose cavernous interior is 
 blocked by a huge dark bloated fungus, 
 marks the middle of a meadow across 
 which the path leads towards the woods. 
 Oaken palings bound the latter where the 
 footway touches it, but a few trees lie 
 outside the fence. High up on one of 
 these a board, weathered green and per- 
 forated, may be, by shot what time the 
 lead-shower of the battue pelted fiercest, 
 warns one and all from the sacred silence 
 of the wood. The notice itself is gone, 
 but its significance survives and is in part 
 respected. Keepers' paths, narrow and 
 blackened by dead leaves, tempt the 
 
 37 
 
 Lydiard 
 Tregose. 
 
Lydiard 
 Tregose. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 wayfarer, leading as they do among 
 vistas of nut-bushes and lofty trees. Some 
 yards farther on, the old grey - towered 
 church fills a gap in the woodland, its 
 hoary and massive stonework harmon- 
 ising perfectly with the solemn grandeur 
 of the gnarled boles amid which it is set. 
 Noticeable grooves have been worn in the 
 low wall that surrounds the yew-shadowed 
 churchyard by the constant passing of 
 rabbits to and fro, there being burrows 
 actually among the graves and under the 
 shattered headstones. This woodland, 
 beginning at the very verge of the church 
 precincts, is the haunt of all those birds 
 which are most inseparable from trees 
 and forest stillness. The wildest hawks, 
 swift wood-pigeon, crow, and magpie, are 
 all to be met with in the open meads or 
 moorland as often as in the forest, but the 
 woodpeckers are almost exclusively birds 
 of the woodland. Every now and then 
 the loud -laughing shout of the green 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 woodpecker or " hicwall " rings through 
 and through the chestnut aisles, echo- 
 ing among the hollow -sounding trunks. 
 Hardly has his cry died away than an- 
 other and yet another, loud and long, 
 startle all within hearing. " Tap, tap ! " 
 like a drill at work, with inconceivable 
 rapidity his beak rattles on the bark or 
 powdering touchwood, and leaves behind 
 a smooth, deep hollow in token of the 
 bird's vigorous strokes. His brilliantly- 
 contrasted plumage of green and red and 
 yellow is startling as he dives boldly 
 through the wood. Most of the trees 
 here are chestnut, lofty, and with scarce 
 one lateral limb swaying in the wind 
 from knotty base to topmost bough ; with 
 them mingle smooth beeches and the 
 dark firs which hide the hawk's nest. 
 The old trunks are strangely rock-like in 
 their drapings of shaggy moss, and lichen, 
 and weird shapes of jagged fungi ; but 
 while proclaiming old age and decay, 
 
 39 
 
 Lydiard 
 7regose. 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Lydiard 
 Tregose. 
 
 they give a rugged splendour of antiquity 
 to the wood. So thick is the moss- 
 coating, that the little tree - creeper is 
 hardly to be distinguished half way up 
 the stem as he climbs round and round 
 with silent persistence. For a moment 
 he is plain to the eye, as a flash from the 
 sun shows him up against a bare spot on 
 the bark : then his slender downward- 
 curved bill and brown markings, fading 
 almost to white on the breast, may be 
 noted, and his adroitness in searching 
 the crevices admired. Near him the 
 larger nuthatch, with a sweet reiterated 
 "pip -pip pip," climbs a leaning ash, 
 missed as soon as seen in his winding 
 course up the trunk. 
 
 Elms are not true forest trees, but 
 yonder, through the depths, a whole row 
 of them seems to break the rule. A 
 drive, grass - grown except in the ruts, 
 accounts for the elms, and a noble avenue 
 shadows it for a space. Their majesty is 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 retained in spite of a great limb gone 
 here and there, a proud head lopped off 
 or thrown down by storm. Sometimes, 
 when hollow and broken off short, they 
 appear like jagged-edged chimneys, with 
 starlings instead of swallows entering 
 them. Places bare of bark are riddled 
 by the woodpecker's borings, and the 
 many cracks and knot-holes and crevices 
 behind the bark provide him and his kin 
 with an endless choice of nesting sites. 
 A delicate translucent fungus adorns the 
 end of a dead bough, in shape like a ball 
 deeply indented, and of a soft gelatinous 
 substance : its outer side is brown and 
 somewhat velvety, and pleasant to the 
 touch. On a lower branch, his chosen 
 post, a missel-thrush sings his powerful 
 short tune, loudest of all our woodland 
 lyrics, seeming by its strength to defy the 
 wind and rain that rage about him. But 
 his short period of song is nearly over, 
 and he must needs be silent when the 
 
 Lydiard 
 Tregose. 
 
Lydiard 
 Tregose. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 red-freckled eggs in a cleft of the apple- 
 tree are hatched. Like the woodpecker's, 
 his voice rings along the wind and echoes 
 loud. The endmost trees of the avenue, 
 where the carriage-drive cuts a strip of 
 unenclosed sward in twain, are an oak 
 and an elm on either side. Among their 
 vast roots, and in the hollow trunk, is 
 the abode of a colony of rabbits, whose 
 runs intersect over the short greensward 
 in every direction. When pressed by 
 dogs or ferrets, they will rush up the 
 almost perpendicular side of a tree, and 
 are reputed sometimes to use the broad 
 top of a pollard -willow as a couch for 
 their young. The oak is dead and quite 
 stripped of bark, yet its gaunt grey arms 
 stretch far out over the turf on every 
 side ; while the bark of the elm, near its 
 roots, has been nibbled by the rabbits, 
 revealing the red fibre within the dark 
 wrinkled covering. 
 
 Goose-grass climbs apace on the hedge- 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 mounds. It mounts daily higher among 
 the thorns and briers, rank on rank close 
 together of its pale whorled spires of 
 leaves mingle with the bare lowermost 
 branches. All other plants are dwarfed 
 in its presence ; only the withered docks 
 and hemlocks surmount such an ambi- 
 tious growth. The herbs which will for 
 a space outgrow it are as yet low down, 
 but they quickly rise, and garlic mustard 
 with palest green leaves, and, much later 
 in the year, the vetches, will in turn climb 
 above the goose-grass : autumn finds it 
 among the highest in the hedge, with 
 bittersweet and the bryonies. Finest of 
 all, though at its full height, is the frail 
 moschatel, its fivefold green flower, open- 
 ing bit by bit, scarce noticed among its 
 own foliage. Pinkish buds are fast burst- 
 ing on the blackthorns, whose dark 
 boughs will soon be dappled as with 
 snowflakes from the countless white 
 flowers coming before the foliage. Weeks 
 
 43 
 
 Lydiard 
 Tregosc. 
 
44 
 
 Lydiard 
 Tregose. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 earlier than usual early in March green 
 leaves burst on the hawthorns, and the 
 elders were green even before the middle 
 of February. But the foliage of the 
 hedgerows, scanty as yet, fades out of 
 view at dusk as the last starlings hurry 
 to the elms. Under a blackening sky a 
 solitary heron goes over in silence, rock- 
 ing somewhat from head to tail in his 
 flight. As he goes onward, with swift 
 yet easy motion, his great wings droop 
 low and belly out like the curving sails 
 of a ship before the breeze. Gently he 
 slopes in his course, and dips out of 
 sight into a gloom of oaks. 
 
A WILTSHIRE MOLECATCHER 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 47 
 
 N fresh clear air of the white 
 
 dawn the grey mass of the 
 
 QTlore* 
 
 distant hills rises out of the 
 plain like a headland from 
 the sea, and its outline is 
 pencilled against the check- 
 ered sky, where fleecy clouds, 
 red-tipped and flushed with pink, roll their 
 fantastic shapes along the ridge. Black 
 firs in a shattered group look blacker still 
 in the brilliant white light. Peewits that 
 were up ere the night gloom was broken 
 by the first rays creeping over the hill, 
 flap with an easy grace of wing from our 
 path, and with a whirl of gay pinions 
 begin an aerial dance, delighting in their 
 
A Wilt- 
 shire 
 Mole- 
 catcher. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 unsurpassed nimbleness of flight. One 
 tiny form, looming faintly as yet in the 
 distance, darkens the grey slope. The 
 molecatcher, nearing the end of his early 
 round, descends to the valley now where 
 his remotest traps are set. A grey-com- 
 plexioned, silent man he is, with a curious 
 lingering gait, ever looking downward as 
 he goes. On these wide open hills there 
 is hardly a man without woodcraft enough 
 to know the ways of his fellow-denizens 
 of the waste, and, if need be, the way to 
 set up a wire. The molecatcher is no 
 exception, and long use compels him to 
 watch the sward at his feet. Dark grizzled 
 curls hang about his low, deeply-furrowed 
 brow, while his neck, freckled and hard, 
 is open to the wind. His back is bent 
 rather from constant stooping than from 
 age, and there is power in him yet, as 
 you may note when he climbs the hill. 
 
 Of all the molecatcher's odd attire 
 thirdhand velveteen jacket, torn loose 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 gaiters, and stained corduroys his hat 
 is the most curious. Made of soft felt, 
 it was once white, but is now weathered 
 to lichen-grey, and with darker streaks 
 winding here and there ; the broad brim 
 curves downward and overhangs his 
 forehead, shadowing all his face. Save 
 when he looks up, half of his shaggy 
 visage is hidden, and this concealment 
 adds to the mystery that clings to a man 
 of his decaying profession. By the bent 
 brim of his hat, his curls of growing 
 years, and by his dense eyebrows, his 
 eyes are half hidden, as are the mole's 
 by its protecting fur. Unperceived, the 
 keen small eyes are ever fixed upon you ; 
 and the stranger shrinks on becoming 
 conscious of their piercing glance through 
 the shadow hanging about his face. 
 Rarely, even in conversation, is the veil 
 of mystery removed. It may be that 
 he carries secrets which shall die with 
 him ; so, at least, his morose reserve 
 D 
 
 49 
 
 A Wilt- 
 
 catcher. 
 
A Wilt- 
 shire 
 Mole- 
 catcher. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 suggests. Not without a natural dignity, 
 in spite of his lowly occupation, he goes 
 through his day of silent solitary toil, 
 or holds short pithy snatches of talk 
 with those who care to visit him. Seated 
 in the mound, between high double 
 hedges, at noon over his " dinner," 
 luxuriously pillowed among lush grass 
 and golden pilewort, with his back lean- 
 ing against an elm, he will converse in- 
 telligently on subjects that might have 
 been deemed beyond his care, with a 
 sharpness of sense and economy of words 
 that bespeak a healthy mind cleansed by 
 the pure hillside air. 
 
 Far up on the plain that undulates 
 beyond this ridge of Wiltshire downland, 
 acres of pasture are brown with the mole's 
 crowded earthworks. Amid this desola- 
 tion not even the thistle flourishes, and 
 the crows, playing bo-peep among the 
 heaps, must find only scanty fare. But 
 it is in the lowland meadows, rather than 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 on the bleak bare hills, that the mole- 
 catcher finds his hunting-ground. There 
 he can sit, when the early thaw winds 
 set the moles at work by loosening the 
 iron grip of the frost, and can watch the 
 trap spring as the creature is silently 
 crushed or garotted. On the hill, even 
 when the mild winds are blowing, it is 
 cold work enough, and rarely do the 
 traps spring soon after they are set. 
 Generally the moles are busiest at night, 
 and it is then that the wholesale captures 
 are made which threaten to exterminate 
 the velvety burrower. Constant passing 
 through the earth seems rather to sleek 
 the fur than to coarsen it, but in almost 
 every case the mole is infested with 
 minute insects which disappear when the 
 body is removed from the trap. The 
 old-fashioned noose, tightened by the 
 springing of a lissom wand stuck in the 
 ground, has been generally superseded 
 by an iron trap, having two pairs of jaws 
 
 A Will- 
 shire 
 Mole- 
 catcher. 
 
A Wilt- 
 shire 
 Mole- 
 catcher. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 which close, one or the other, round the 
 creature's body as he attempts to force 
 a way through a hole not large enough 
 to admit him. 
 
 The level green of the meadow is 
 ruffled with the brown of many mole- 
 heaps, scattered like miniature mountain 
 chains and groups here and there in dis- 
 array. Of these some are old, as may 
 be guessed from their smoothness, and 
 the newly - springing growth of butter- 
 cup or grass which has risen through 
 the mould. Those that are new show 
 the colour of the fresh-turned soil, and 
 are bare of vegetation. But beside the 
 little mounds "wont 'yeps " or "oont 
 heaves," the molecatcher calls them 
 the moles, like all wild creatures, have 
 their regular runs, by which their journey- 
 ings can be traced. Frequently these 
 runs are close beneath the surface, and 
 the earth is turned up throughout their 
 length, so that, by removing the broken 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 sods, the tunnel may be revealed, rounded, 
 and large enough to admit the hand for 
 some distance. At times, indeed, they 
 may be tracked for a short space over 
 the grass without any disturbance of the 
 soil. As the runs always range from 
 heap to heap the latter being the result 
 of the pushing out of the borings even 
 where they do not cut up the ground, 
 they can be discovered by probing with 
 a stick, unless unusually deep. The 
 molecatcher makes a deep heel-mark on 
 the run pressing the earth together, 
 and so blocking the tunnel and is thus 
 able to tell when the mole has passed 
 that way by the consequent lifting of the 
 trodden turf. Two moles never, it is 
 said, meet snout to snout underground 
 without a fight, which invariably ends 
 in the death of one combatant. In one 
 of these heaps, usually somewhat larger 
 than the rest, the mole brings forth its 
 young, whose fate is often to be pitched 
 
 53 
 
 A Wilt- 
 shire 
 Mole- 
 catcher. 
 
54 
 
 A Wilt- 
 shire 
 Mole- 
 catcher. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 rudely out on to the sward as they lie in 
 their dark nests. Runs are often to be 
 seen which mark the turf in a long line, 
 seldom interrupted by heaps, and in such 
 the molecatcher prefers to set his traps. 
 A dozen moles is no very rare number 
 to be caught without long interval in a 
 single tunnel, and it has been known to 
 reach as many as seventeen. 
 
 The long track is more likely to be 
 used than the short one, and is the mole's 
 highway, or main road, from which he 
 seldom turns aside, except to make fresh 
 burrowings. Meadows are often inter- 
 sected in places by twisting runs, and 
 it is hard for the trapper to decide which 
 to use. He may have to wait several 
 days ere the animal passes that way. 
 In search of insect food, moles will 
 wander to the strangest places, boring 
 hard-trodden paths, and even stony roads. 
 Occasionally, in all likelihood, they pass 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 under brooks and watercourses ; and 
 gardens parted from the fields by roads 
 and walls are commonly disturbed by 
 their heaps. In the garden mole-runs 
 mingle with the tunnelling of the smaller 
 field-mice, who mine for beans and other 
 garden seeds. Far plainer than rabbit- 
 paths, by reason of the turned-up mould, 
 which makes them patent to all, mole- 
 runs sometimes extend for several score 
 yards, either straight or with devious 
 curves, just as the chance of food or 
 soil influences the burrower. As the year 
 advances, and, with summer heats and 
 drought, the soil becomes hard and dry, 
 the number of surface-runs decreases, and 
 the molecatcher must put aside his traps, 
 or be content with a few chance cap- 
 tures. The ground at the top is then 
 more difficult to work : worms also, and 
 the insects which are the mole's staple 
 food, descend with the moisture into the 
 
 55 
 
 A Wilt- 
 shire 
 Mole- 
 catcher. 
 
A Wilt- 
 shire 
 Mole- 
 catcher. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 earth, and the mole must follow them or 
 starve. 
 
 The molecatcher's grey - clad figure 
 stands out on the hill - slope, brilliant 
 with the morning sun, like a dead 
 and wrinkled thorn, seeming* scarcely to 
 move. He crosses a clover-field, where 
 the scanty growth does not quite hide 
 the chalk, and on a nearer approach the 
 hares' runs show faintly as light streaks 
 across the mingled green and grey and 
 white. Days go by without a single 
 visitor to the remoter parts of these 
 broad hills, and the molecatcher may 
 safely stoop in his path to take the hare 
 which has lain in the wire since daybreak. 
 The weathered coat flaps in the wind 
 as the hare sinks into the unsuspected 
 pocket concealed by the ample velveteen, 
 and, quietly as ever, the climb continues. 
 Though he stoops, and his gaze seems 
 always directed downward, he will note, 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 57 
 
 as he looks intuitively up, the swift plovers A wut- 
 
 that whistle and rush with their wings as Mole _ 
 
 they seek the ploughlands of the valley. catcher. 
 
 Like a dim cloud, alone on the ridge, 
 the old man sinks out of sight beyond 
 where the smooth mounds of the ancient 
 " castle " swell into the blue. 
 
MAY SONG 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 61 
 
 "Fine sounds are floating wild 
 About the earth." 
 
 KEATS. 
 
 CROWDED woodland of 
 varied hues, ledge be- 
 yond ledge, climbs the 
 hill's slow ascent, and in 
 this dazzling dawn the 
 sunlight plays upon the 
 dewed leaves with gor- 
 geous effect. Mellow limes contrast 
 with sea-green chestnuts, now flaming 
 with pinnacles of waxen bloom ; the 
 reddened foliage of the oaks seems to 
 burn in the fierce light, while the pale 
 tasselled birches are all a-quiver ; and 
 
62 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 May at the margin frail poplars change from 
 
 grey to silver whitening, as their leaves 
 turn, with undersides uppermost, in the 
 wind. The parched ploughland sloping 
 to the wood glows rust - red, though 
 shadowed at its borders by tall thorns 
 just crowned with the silver - white of 
 may blossom. Yonder, where the ridge 
 dips to the north among dark meadow- 
 tracts, the gleaming roofs and glittering 
 spires of a silent town pierce the pale 
 sky. Coils of wood - smoke from the 
 keeper's cottage, with grey thatched roof 
 and russet chimney-stack, drift lightly in 
 the clear atmosphere, draping a corner of 
 the wood as with a blue translucent haze. 
 Flaring lights of gold and purple fade in 
 the eye of day, and barred clouds drive 
 slowly over from the west. 
 
 The rarely trodden meadow-path and 
 the taller grass around is hoary with 
 dew; but as it enters the hazel gloom 
 the scattered blades do but faintly twinkle 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 63 
 
 in their sheathing crystal. Tender hya- 
 cinths that open bell by bell each morning 
 are washed with a finer hue which must 
 vanish with scorching noon ; and the little 
 spring-vetch, mounting with spray over 
 spray of narrow leaflets to the lowest hazel- 
 boughs, is for the moment gay with its 
 solitary purple flower. Tiny caterpillars, 
 on which the whitethroat preys, seem to 
 hang from the oaks by silver gossamers, 
 and their own bodies are clear as 
 amber in the delicate half - light, half- 
 gloom, that dwells as yet in the wood's 
 shadow. Through this weird light the 
 early willow wrens chase one another 
 with twirling motions like butterflies ; 
 then in the nut bushes or the broad 
 oaks they sing their tender threnody, 
 playing among the slender swaying twigs. 
 In the deeper shadows, far among the 
 oaks, jays squeal and chatter, drowning 
 half the music of the wood. Suddenly, 
 with a flash of blue - pied pinions, a jay 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 May 
 Song. 
 
 leaves a tree where a nest of oak twigs 
 and woven rootlets, yellow and stiff as 
 cocoanut fibre, is hidden amid thorny 
 boughs, a hoarse cry and a flutter of 
 wings through the leaves following her 
 flight. Blackbird and thrush steal across 
 the lawn-like walks between roofing ar- 
 cades of oak, halting half way over to 
 pull a worm or to listen for a while. 
 Unsheltered and in full view the black- 
 bird displays a grotesque mixture of dar- 
 ing and timidity in his hurried though 
 bold - seeming progress, with ducking 
 head, and in the chiding yet half-exultant 
 chuckle with which he slips away into 
 cover. In his mellow music alone there 
 lurks no sign of doubt or fear. 
 
 Where a pool, encircled by fringing 
 rushes, makes a broad open space, the 
 sunlight streams in as through a pane 
 upon the woodland shadow. The surface 
 itself, rippling silently in the middle, and 
 at the edge lapping with low music the 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 shelving shore, glitters as though flashing 
 sword-points were continually thrust up 
 and drawn below the water. A green 
 hazel thicket slopes steeply down to the 
 pool, with here and there an oak rising 
 from its midst. Under the bushes, where 
 shadows change each moment as winds 
 disturb the boughs, a russet leaf mat 
 hides all growth save pale spears of 
 grass and young bracken, whose fronds 
 uncurl more and more each morning in 
 the sun. Already some of the brake 
 reaches high among the hazels, with 
 three green fronds tufting the straight 
 stem like palm-plumes. In the mists of 
 dawn, the midday glitter, and on through 
 the still warmth of afternoon and the 
 dews of evening, the nightingale sings 
 fitfully from the nut-tree shade. Out- 
 bursts of rapid melody break from the 
 rust-brown bird as he flutters, stirring the 
 dead leaves below ; and again high up in 
 oak or deep in hazel the song is withheld 
 E 
 
 May 
 
 Song. 
 
66 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 May for hours. Straying wantonly amid the 
 
 dark undergrowth and the dewy grasses, 
 the nightingale rises now and then to a 
 low screening bough, and in the liquid 
 rapture that rushes throbbing from his 
 throat, the very wood seems to have 
 found a voice. Though often choosing 
 dark bowers wherein to sing, he is not 
 shy, and commonly he may be watched 
 on an open branch piping whilst unwit- 
 ting of the stranger below; then, as the 
 sunbeams thread the hazels to sparkle on 
 the spangled grass, the bird's form is 
 clear in each detail the body always 
 quivering, the mandibles vibrating with 
 baffling quickness, in the characteristic 
 bubbling notes that throng with such 
 rapidity. The clear rounded notes are 
 varied by a strange plaint, uttered with 
 closed beak, like the melancholy whining 
 of a dog at night ; yet always the whine 
 swells to the perfect song, tremulous as 
 a straining human voice. Often a dis- 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 67 
 
 cordant chatter, when a rich note seems May 
 
 unattainable, unworthy of Philomel's May 
 song, changes imperceptibly without jar 
 into purest melody. When a fine note 
 is reached it is repeated again and again 
 with passionate power ; and not a sign 
 of melancholy intrudes save in the whin- 
 ing strain. In full song, change follows 
 change with nervous rapidity, and even 
 in one burst the note is altered consum- 
 mately in its midst. Nothing so marks 
 the lay as the rhythmic words in which 
 the poet phrased the ethereal music heard 
 by the train of nymphs : 
 
 " the wild 
 Thrilling liquidity of dewy piping " 
 
 words which suggest with subtle power 
 what else is indescribable. There is 
 a force in its delivery, peculiar to the 
 nightingale and the cuckoo, which carries 
 each utterance without loss of beauty 
 across such a wide gorge as that at 
 Clifton between the cliffs of Avon. 
 
68 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 May 
 Song. 
 
 Tall tufts of brown and green rushes 
 mark the edge of a swampy meadow at 
 the woodland border, where willows 
 crowd, flinging inconstant shadow -lines 
 on the shallow pools, never stirred by 
 ripples, behind their double bastion of 
 sedge and grassy banks. Brown leaves 
 from the wood spread even to the rain- 
 pools, and over all trails the pale tapestry 
 of moneywort, strewing the dull sward 
 with golden flakes of bloom, and bright- 
 ening it with lines of young foliage, varied 
 here and there by a coppery leaf that has 
 lasted two springs. Shooting like the 
 moneywort from amongst the fallen 
 leaves and the moss - islets of the shal- 
 lows, the dark bugle blossoms with ring 
 above ring of flowers, metallic-blue ribbed 
 with deeper streaks, its upper leafage 
 tinged by a purplish sheen. Brown- 
 flowered waving grasses spread and 
 lengthen around, and where the brown- 
 and-white dipper now feeds in full view, 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 69 
 
 a matted jungle of water-plants iris and May 
 
 bristling reed will soon hide the black- ong ' 
 
 bottomed pools. In his flight, swift and 
 jerky, skimming the dark waters or stoop- 
 ing among the brook's foam and ripples, 
 the dipper gives a weak wild squeal, and 
 his curving wings come down smartly 
 below his body like a partridge's. Feed- 
 ing by the rushy margin, lit with cuckoo- 
 flowers, or even under the nearest oaks, he 
 runs hurriedly about, bobbing nervously 
 as he picks from side to side. Black 
 tadpoles cloud the shallows as thickly 
 as summer gnats in a July twilight. 
 
 Cattle, with silken flanks marked red 
 or tawny, find scattered fare in the 
 gorsen tracts that follow beyond the 
 pools. Tough heather, having scarcely 
 a sprout of green, hides the lark, and 
 gives cover to the wandering partridge, 
 yet offers hardly a bite for the herd. 
 But they love the black shade of the 
 tallest gorse, and lie languidly rolling 
 
70 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 May the closely-bitten grass from side to side 
 
 between their jaws, opening their deep 
 liquid eyes, large and beautiful now as 
 of old when Hera was hymned as the 
 ox-eyed in Homeric song. Hardly taller 
 than the heather, petty - whin speckles 
 the dry tracts with golden blossoms, 
 smaller and more pointed than those 
 which flame on the gorse ; its thorns 
 also are slender and needle-like; and in 
 its dwarfed size this little whin differs 
 from its commoner cousin. Under the 
 gorse rise the earliest red spires of sorrel, 
 shorter and plainer than those brilliant 
 flower - heads which glow in the mid- 
 summer mowing grass with knapweed 
 and yellow rattle. Ere the wilderness of 
 whin and heather gives way to greener 
 meadows, becoming gay with butter- 
 cups, brambles interlace their thorny 
 boughs to bar all progress. Yellow tor- 
 mentil and the delicate foliage of wild 
 strawberry climb or creep among these 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 71 
 
 lowest branches and about the rising May 
 
 grass. Tenanted only by red and russet 
 mice, rustling in their shades, or by the 
 fickle birds whitethroat and sweet- 
 voiced blackcap that visit here, the 
 brambles are a paradise of jewelled in- 
 sects whose myriad hum makes the air 
 vibrant with subtle music. Glazed wings 
 of crystalline delicacy, amber and golden 
 bodies, gleam amongst the foliage at 
 every turn spring leaves and autumn 
 seeds are not more numerous than these. 
 In their haphazard jaunts from copse to 
 brook, from brook to copse, the happy 
 whitethroats, singing ever as they go, 
 visit the tangled brake and bramble, and 
 are seen and hid again each moment 
 as they flit through the endless plots of 
 light and shade. 
 
WILD FRUITS 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 75 
 
 T is a bright autumn after- 
 noon, and here in a remote 
 and unfrequented corner of 
 a glorious common, quite 
 close to London, pheasants 
 in twos and threes are con- 
 tinually rising from the leaf- 
 strewn ditch beneath the great oaks of 
 the hedgerow. Their heavy flight 
 heavier even than it is wont to be 
 and their reluctance to leave the ground, 
 tell of some great attraction there. It 
 is not far to seek. Heaped among the 
 long grass at the edge of the ditch, and 
 upon the dead black leaves beneath, are 
 bushels of ripe acorns. Many of these 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 have burst open on falling, from very 
 ripeness, and their numbers and size 
 allow of no wonder that the birds 
 lingered over them so long. The tints 
 of the acorns are those of the season. 
 One might say that the woods are 
 orchards with infinite numbers of fruit- 
 gatherers at this time of harvest. No 
 yellow of cultivated fruit could excel 
 the soft glow that is diffused in streaks 
 over the acorns, as they lie on the green- 
 sward, and the many shades of gold and 
 brown, varying almost from whiteness to 
 a deep hazel-nut tinge. All this wealth 
 of colour and ripeness is spread before 
 the wild creatures of the woods in rich 
 October. Many of the browns of the 
 acorns might find a match on the pheas- 
 ant's mottled back, and he harmonises 
 completely with the surroundings he has 
 chosen. 
 
 But the pheasants are not left alone to 
 enjoy the feast. The grave rooks and 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 pert daws come in large foraging bands Wild 
 
 and make havoc and rejoicing among the 
 mellow heaps. The red squirrel is there 
 also, but he is wiser than the heedless 
 birds, and lays up great store for the 
 harsh season that is coming. Beneath 
 the crab-tree in the coppice, gnarled and 
 lichened, there is rarer fruit than the 
 oaks provide. Never surely was there 
 such a pile of wild apples. They lie . 
 broad -spread, layer on layer, some al- 
 ready covered with the dead leaves. 
 Their colouring is yellow, softly golden, 
 but their looks are not justified by their 
 flavour ; hence it is, perhaps, that they 
 lie untouched, left to rot beneath Novem- 
 ber's frost-bitten leaves. 
 
 The present glory of the leaves is such 
 as was not approached at harvest-home, 
 or when the cultivated fruits were gath- 
 ered. Each leaf now is tinged with 
 apple-yellow and acorn gold and brown. 
 As the sun comes pouring in through the 
 
 77 
 
Wild 
 Fruits. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 leafy screen, the gay - hued leaves flash 
 back something of their own colour into 
 the atmosphere, and lend to the autumn 
 air a peculiar charm. Each tree has a 
 special hue of its own. Many of the 
 glossy beech leaves are of an exquisite 
 pale gold, while oaks are reddening later 
 than the rest; the sunbeams on the 
 willow-leaves produce a faint, soft, amber 
 light, and the osiers flash deeply ruddy; 
 on the dogwood - trees, which are even 
 now in flower, there is a bronze colour 
 that is almost unique, while the haw- 
 thorns wear their own purplish bloom. 
 The nut-trees alone show little in their 
 foliage that speaks of autumn, but the 
 catkins are there, telling the season in 
 spite of all, and even the leaves must 
 soon succumb. One bird, more than any 
 other, fits in with this changed aspect of 
 the woods. The robin's crimson breast 
 is perfectly matched by the combination 
 of gold and red and hazel that floods the 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 woodland scene; the brown of his plumage 
 goes admirably with the leaves among 
 which he wanders, and the fallen masses 
 that are scattered about. His very song 
 seems to harmonise with the air that 
 inspires it ; above all, it is passionate and 
 softly mellow, and the depth of colour 
 about him helps to convey its meaning. 
 It is one of the few songs of the wild 
 creatures' thanksgiving ; the blackbird 
 and thrush give him little aid, though 
 the lark that does not enter the woods 
 occasionally mounts high in song, unable 
 to forget the summer days when he soared 
 to the unsullied azure, with the carols of 
 his rivals ringing about him. 
 
 Above all others, perhaps, the black- 
 berry is the fruit most significant of the 
 season in the woods and hedgerows. The 
 great harvest has indeed passed, yet the 
 berries that remain are sweeter than ever 
 before, and more welcome in their com- 
 parative rarity. The bloom on the sloe, 
 
 79 
 
 Wild 
 Fruits. 
 
8o 
 
 Wild 
 Fruits. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 or blackthorn plum, is unrivalled, and 
 can scarcely be adequately described. It 
 is purplish, toned with lilac, becoming 
 almost pale blue ; the colour is in fact 
 almost that of the last scabious that is 
 flowering beneath. Wreathed in amongst 
 the lower oak -sprays a bine of honey- 
 suckle yet bears one crown of fragrant 
 blossom. This single flower calls up 
 memories of June, with its wild roses, its 
 song of Philomel, and its long happy 
 days rung in and out by the wild music 
 of the blackcap : there is summer in its 
 faint perfume, and it is almost out of 
 place among the ruddy oak leaves that 
 are heralding cruel frosts and damp 
 destroying mists. The festoons of bind- 
 weed are the palest of pale yellows, and 
 the few white trumpet flowers hardly 
 hold up their heads ; they are fast going 
 with the fall of the year. 
 
 The haws seem more scattered than 
 usual, and give no character to the 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 hedges as a whole. Here and there, how- Wild 
 
 ever, a tree is one mass of deep crimson, 
 which lends to it at a distance that 
 peculiar purplish hue given by the com- 
 bination of the sumptuous colour with 
 the duller tints of the fading leaves. As 
 yet the rose-bushes are untouched with 
 the flush that the hips give them; the 
 leaves are hardy, and many of the berries 
 are hidden by them, and so their colour- 
 ing is lost for a while. This makes them 
 far less prominent till the finches and red- 
 wings come among them, when the leaves 
 have dropped away. 
 
 The fruit of the bittersweet is brightest 
 among the hedge berries. Hanging as it 
 does over the thorn-bush or sapling which 
 the plant has chosen to climb, the effect 
 of the many oval bunches is that of ruby 
 pendants mixed with polished emeralds. 
 The bryony berries, like bright red beads 
 strung on invisible threads, are larger and 
 almost equally gay ; and where these 
 F 
 
 Si 
 
82 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Wild 
 Fruits. 
 
 beautiful berries are abundant, autumn's 
 many-coloured vesture gains a new opu- 
 lence of splendour. 
 
 The many wild fruits give a character 
 to the hedges and woods, and never are 
 they more lovely than at sunset. The 
 faint rays steal in through the fretted 
 foliage, lighting up the dewy green grass 
 beneath and the silvery trunks of the 
 frail birches, and brightening the ruddy 
 brier - stems and the few flowers that 
 remain ; whilst over the hill - top the 
 firs of the ridge are reddened for a while 
 by the glow which lingers after sundown 
 is announced by the homeward - flying 
 rooks and daws, and the clatter of the 
 lesser birds assembling in the rosy light 
 amid the trees. 
 
IN AUTUMN WOODS 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 leaves are falling from 
 the poplars steadily one 
 by one, and occasionally 
 in little showers. The 
 frosty night has done its 
 work, and what were 
 erstwhile glowing green 
 leaves are now fast spreading the sward 
 with a sombrely yet sumptuously col- 
 oured carpet. There is no wind, and 
 the pearly haze hangs oppressively over 
 the tree-tops, thereby obscuring the true 
 outline of the branches. It is this dead 
 stillness and gloom that make the fall of 
 the leaves so arresting ; no flutter of wind 
 drifts them through the air, no subtle 
 
 JUfomn 
 
86 
 
 In 
 
 Autumn 
 Woods. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 rays of sunlight play upon their glossy 
 surfaces to make ephemeral fairy glint- 
 ings as they wave ; not even the robin 
 sings to them as they glide through the 
 stirless space from branch to earth : their 
 disappearance from the picture is marked 
 by nothing but the solemn rustle as each 
 leaf touches and settles upon the growing 
 heap. 
 
 In the coppice, but a short distance 
 from the poplar grove, there is a scene of 
 surpassing beauty. The narrow winding 
 path is completely hidden by dead leaves, 
 their colours mingling in charming con- 
 fusion. Sycamores are heaped on syca- 
 mores, and broad horse-chestnuts over all, 
 while ever and anon feathery ash-leaves 
 drift lazily down. The tints of this med- 
 ley of leaves bewilder description : red 
 and gold and orange are thrown together 
 fairily, while some of the horse-chestnuts 
 still retain a few streaks of green. Even 
 as we gaze on this wondrous scene of 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 colour, the mist disperses and the sun- 
 beams pour down, further to enliven 
 what was already gay. As far as eye 
 can see through the maze of trunks, the 
 earth is strewn with gorgeous hues lit 
 up anew. As the light varies the 
 shadows shift, and now the orange, now 
 the gold, is all aflame. 
 
 The woods are pervaded by a silence 
 broken only by the challenge of the blue 
 tits in the dense firs, and the croaking of 
 the rooks afar among the acorns. Not a 
 song is there to cheer the solitude, as the 
 leaves drip, drip continuously. When the 
 path takes us out of the wood, we leave 
 the sheltered stillness behind, and feel the 
 cool breath of the breeze that has sprung 
 up with the lifting of the fog. In the 
 foliage of the oaks, still dense and shad- 
 owy, three wrens are singing in broken 
 snatches. Even in summer their song, 
 though high-pitched, is short; and now 
 the little fellows stop suddenly in the 
 
 In 
 
 Autumn 
 Woods. 
 
88 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 In 
 
 Autumn 
 Woods. 
 
 midst of their hurried tune, for want 
 of heart. Their tiny forms are hardly 
 distinguishable high up in the dark 
 shadows ; only a little flutter now and 
 again betrays where they may be found. 
 Farther along, a couple of wood-pigeons 
 crash hastily out of the oaks and make 
 for the adjoining plantation, where the 
 cries of jays tell that acorns are to be 
 had. 
 
 So late in autumn we hardly look for 
 the beauty of flowers. One short hedge- 
 mound, however, displays quite a number 
 of dainty blossoms. Thick as daisies on 
 a lawn, the tiny field-speedwells stud the 
 exposed side of the slope ; their leaves 
 are still a tender green, and the blue of 
 the flowers equals that of the veronica of 
 May, while this we treasure for its late- 
 ness. In the brambles above there are 
 still a few pale petals, but sadly torn and 
 discoloured by wind and frost. Another 
 late blossom is the golden cinquefoil, with 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 its pretty five - branched leaves trailing 
 hither and thither. Though long dead, 
 the tall docks yet defy the season, and 
 raise aloft a slender spike of deep red, 
 singularly like the sorrel-tips that toned 
 the buttercup fields of midsummer. Like 
 the docks, the teasels are grey and dry 
 and brittle, but look strong as ever, grow- 
 ing from the shallow ditch, and rearing 
 their tall stalks and prickly plumes almost 
 to the hedge-top. But perhaps the rarest 
 of all these flowers of the fall is one little 
 spray of hawthorn bloom. Though so 
 inseparably connected with spring, it is 
 here in the drooping of the year, with 
 its snowy petals and delicious fragrance. 
 This single group of florets recalls the 
 May day, just after the swifts came, when 
 first the dewy green of the hawthorn 
 was dappled with flakes of blossom, and 
 the call of the cuckoo was heard in the 
 land. How changed the scene since 
 then! 
 
 89 
 
 In 
 
 Autumn 
 Woods. 
 
In 
 
 Autumn 
 Woods. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Five teams are engaged in ploughing 
 up a broad sloping meadow, where the 
 blood - red clover grew, and about the 
 steaming horses the rooks are wheeling 
 and settling here and there. Over the 
 same field flocks of larks and finches are 
 flitting, seldom staying long in the damp 
 furrows among the brown clods that hide 
 them so completely. A moment ago two 
 larks were straining in song high above 
 their fellows and the quarrelsome rooks ; 
 and, what is rare in autumn, their notes 
 were uttered with the old persistence 
 and charm. Along the blackthorn hedge 
 blackbirds start out now and again with 
 their peculiar nervous chuckle, so irritat- 
 ing to the sportsman, but a note of warn- 
 ing to other birds. They hesitate to leave 
 the cover of the hedge, for it is a long 
 flight to the gorse opposite, and event- 
 ually determine to rely on the shelter of 
 the dead grasses that thickly envelop the 
 blackthorn-stems. Before we have long 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 passed them, their hilarity, so long sub- in 
 
 dued, bursts out in a defiant shriek as 
 they follow one another up into the 
 pollard oaks. 
 
 In the dense green coverts of the 
 summer hedgerows nests were difficult to 
 find, but now they show at every turn. 
 The cunning basket-work of the lesser 
 whitethroat, so frail as to seem incapable 
 of holding the smallest egg, is filled with 
 rotting black leaves and haws that have 
 dropped thus early. Screened by the 
 trailing dog-rose branches are heads of 
 yarrow-flower and a few worn dandelions, 
 mingling with the purple that stains the 
 woodbine drooping almost to earth, and 
 with the crimson of the blackberry foliage. 
 With the failing light that precedes sun- 
 down, a blackbird and a thrush join their 
 notes and delight for a while the ear, 
 now all unused to such harmonies of 
 woodland song. 
 
 Beneath the rosy - clouded sky come 
 
92 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 black battalions of rooks, with their at- 
 
 Autumn 
 
 Woods. tendant daws, almost equally numerous. 
 
 Night after night, with striking regular- 
 ity, vast numbers of these broad-winged 
 birds pursue their way to the elms and 
 beeches that form their rendezvous. 
 When their hereditary roost - trees are 
 reached they mount aloft and, with an 
 eccentric turn, swoop towards the beech- 
 tops, apparently to plunge amongst them, 
 but, turning abruptly, they rise again, 
 to repeat their diving movements. In 
 these manoeuvres, oft-repeated, jackdaws 
 accompany the rooks, performing strange 
 aerial feats. Sometimes they race and 
 plunge like nesting peewits. For an hour 
 at a stretch rooks and daws execute these 
 strange evolutions, and the former lose 
 for the time all their usual unwieldiness. 
 As the daylight continues to fade the 
 birds still keep high in air, while some 
 few descend to the sward, which they 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 dot in the distance with doubtful specks 
 of black. When at last the faint gleam 
 of sunset disappears from the woods, the 
 clangorous rooks in the swaying trees are 
 beating assembly for the night. 
 
 93 
 
 In 
 
 Autumn 
 Woods. 
 
WINDS OF WINTER 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 97 
 
 VERY line in the land- 
 scape is now etched bold- 
 ly and deep. In summer 
 each " tree received a 
 special character from its 
 foliage, but this was lost 
 in the maze of forest or 
 hillside clump. The falling of the leaves 
 has left the branches stark and bare, and 
 no matter at what distance the trees 
 seem wrought in black alone, that will 
 not blend with the sky as did the green 
 of kindlier seasons; each trunk becomes 
 clear and distinct from its neighbours. 
 The hedges, spoiled of their colouring, 
 save that of berries, are sharply de- 
 G 
 
 of 
 Qdinttv. 
 
Winds 
 
 of 
 
 Winter, 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 fined, standing out clearly when seen 
 from a distance ; even the ridge of 
 downs, with no verdure left but that 
 of grass, is darker than ever before ; 
 there is no longer a soft blurred line 
 at the horizon leaving the eye in hesi- 
 tation as to where exactly earth ends 
 and sky begins. 
 
 The wind is raving through the trees, 
 and scattering broadcast the few leaves 
 that cling forlorn to the black branches. 
 Few they are indeed. None but the oak 
 seems to have retained a single one from 
 afar ; only on a nearer approach do a 
 few dull patches show on sycamore and 
 hawthorn, beech and elm. Hardly a fort- 
 night since, in a more favoured region, 
 two elms in a hillside meadow were one 
 mass of deep green, without a tinge even 
 of gold. Here, in the full sweep of the 
 cold east, a single shrivelled leaf or 
 two remains of the beauty that has been. 
 Seedling beeches, only shoulder high, are 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 99 
 
 still covered with vari - coloured foliage, 
 though even this is dry, and saved alone 
 by the lowly situation. The ash - trees 
 are clothed in sombre garb, with russet 
 clusters of fruit instead of leaves. These 
 bunches leave behind threads that sur- 
 vive the winter, and even the bursting of 
 the buds in spring-tide. Oaks have lost 
 their warmer hues, and are now dullest of 
 brown dull as the sods of the fresh- 
 turned stubble. The wind tears through 
 the slight barricade of twigs, and then, 
 reaching the verge of a coppice, vents 
 all its pent-up fury on the oaks. A whole 
 maze of leaves is whirled into the upper 
 air, one over the other, and chased far 
 out, over ploughed fields or brown heath. 
 Here they sink and settle, strewing the 
 surface like spoils of blossom from a 
 garden after storm. Nor are the lesser 
 branches spared : rustling through the 
 slender hedges and over the turf, they 
 find a resting-place in the brook that 
 
 Winds of 
 Winter. 
 
100 
 
 Winds of 
 Winter. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 roars along the edge of the field with 
 doubly swollen waters. Against a partly 
 submerged bramble twigs and dead leaves 
 have collected, forming a thick though 
 porous barrier that turns the stream aside 
 with a slight lifting curl. 
 
 The very leaflessness brings into notice 
 a feature that would otherwise be lost. 
 The sky is pale blue, yet faintly washed 
 with grey. Seen through the network of 
 boughs and interlacing twigs, the blue 
 appears as a haze ; though, unlike haze, 
 it has no density, and does not in the 
 least obscure the form of tree or moving 
 creature. Only from a point midway up 
 the tree-stems is this visible ; dark larches 
 in the background make the rest shadowy 
 and grey. 
 
 Of the trees that are scattered about 
 the broken surface of the heath, the 
 birches are perhaps least striking; but 
 more than any they are completely in 
 accordance with the aspect of the stormy 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 plain. Their silvery twisted stems might 
 have been shaped by the slow action 
 of the wind ; so, too, the thin dark 
 branching and ragged outline. Yet, 
 in spite of their exposed situation and 
 frail appearance, several faded leaves still 
 adhere. Small blotches of hard wrinkled 
 fungus have grown about the stems of 
 several, a certain indication of inward 
 rottenness. 
 
 Though the wind is roisterous, the day 
 is mild for the season, and we may sit 
 with comfort on the lichened roots of 
 a wayside oak, protected from the full 
 strength of the blast by the dense ever- 
 green thickets that line the track ; and 
 a blackbird's song fascinates for a while. 
 Leisurely, as is his way, but passionately, 
 as the day is lowering ; not a mere short 
 stave, as is more generally the case amid 
 such changed surroundings, but late-pro- 
 longed and delicately intoned. Now loud 
 and almost shrieking in its ecstasy, now 
 
 101 
 
 Winds of 
 Winter. 
 
102 
 
 Winds of 
 
 Winter. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 low, but always passionate, the song pro- 
 ceeds. For full ten minutes the song 
 endures, and even then a note or two 
 is uttered at intervals ere sundown. 
 Autumn has laid but a light hand on this 
 spot, with its undergrowth of dense 
 rhododendron and its deep green spruce- 
 trees ; hence perhaps the intense joy of 
 the songster. The blackbird is singing 
 what leaf-buds o.n everything silently pro- 
 claim. Lilac in the garden is pale green 
 with buds ; willows are covered with ovals 
 of hazel - nut brown ; and the beeches 
 show countless " bird's-claw " points of 
 a deeper brown. There is wide, deep 
 hope and promise expressed in bird song 
 and tumid bud. 
 
 Open to nearly every wind that blows, 
 on account of their height trees lose 
 their verdure long before the underwood. 
 Many straggling brambles are still deep 
 green, and creeping marsh pennywort 
 amid the lush grass of the meadow is 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 103 
 
 untainted by the sere : elder, too, that 
 was so early to grow green in March, 
 shows no sign of the dying hues that 
 now prevail. Even a flower has sur- 
 vived so late. Small bugloss, common 
 but little known, bears several dark-blue 
 petals, unexcelled even by forget-me-not. 
 It ranks with the uncouth weeds about 
 the edge of a ditch, with nettle and dead 
 burdock. The oat - stubble is dappled 
 with numberless blossoms of corn fever- 
 few, somewhat tarnished from exposure, 
 but still flowers, and gay by comparison 
 with the greyness around them. All but 
 hidden by the purple and black leaves 
 that have been driven hither, are golden 
 petals of a creeping buttercup, and one 
 starry daisy, even less noticeable to a 
 passing glance. Several discs of orange 
 dandelion are strewn about the short 
 grass beneath far-reaching briers, and 
 even the flimsy puff-balls of pappus have 
 survived the breeze. 
 
 Winds of 
 Winter. 
 
IO4 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Winds of 
 Winter. 
 
 On a sandy plot in the midst of a 
 waving sea of gorse-bushes, where rabbits 
 have riddled the bank with their burrows, 
 the grass is bright emerald, and brighter 
 from the recent fall of rain. It is short 
 from constant nibbling by the creatures 
 that have their tunnels beneath, yet soft 
 and even mossy : such delicate grass is 
 not uncommon in similar situations. For 
 their principal meal the rabbits have to 
 wander farther afield by their secret paths 
 through the gorse and bracken wilderness, 
 beyond which the grass - blades are long 
 and luscious, and mingled with delicate 
 . fronds of hare-parsley. 
 
 About the dry stems of gorse, grey and 
 brown, narrow blades of sheep's sorrel 
 cluster thick, but no other growth exists. 
 Gorse seems inimical to any growth be- 
 neath it, probably on account of its den- 
 sity and the darkness that prevails within 
 its shadow. On the stems themselves 
 grow several parasol -shaped fungi, pale 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 105 
 
 yellow, and flushed at the top with pink. 
 Of other fungous growths that abound in 
 the underwood, some cling in sober brown 
 bunches ; others of a deep crimson, dotted 
 with tiny white knobs, stand singly, but 
 are more prominent from their colour, 
 which is brilliant. 
 
 Except in the farthest depths of the 
 wood, the wind is so powerful as to keep 
 all birds to cover. Even the strong- 
 winged rooks but rarely pass over, and 
 sometimes appear as if about to be 
 dashed to earth at a terrific pace; but 
 a slight inclination of the pinions changes 
 their course at a short distance above the 
 ground. Finches labour w r ith the utmost 
 difficulty, and are temporarily beaten back. 
 Their rate of progression, judged as they 
 move over the regular furrows, is miser- 
 ably slow. Starlings, with stronger flight, 
 occasionally swoop down under the fierce 
 breath of the wind, and are almost forced 
 to alight. Pheasants keep in hiding till 
 
 Winds of 
 Winter. 
 
io6 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Winds of 
 Winter. 
 
 hardly a yard from the passer-by, when 
 they suddenly start up and race with the 
 wind at headlong speed, their wings 
 whistling loudly through the air. Now 
 and then they crash out of the oaks, or 
 a cock-bird crows loudly and threatens 
 by his cry to summon the keepers ferret- 
 ing by the ash stoles yonder. Wood- 
 pigeons arrive at intervals in foraging 
 bands of nine or ten, and settle with 
 difficulty among the heaving tree -tops. 
 The monotony of the wind-music in the 
 woods is quite unrelieved now at evenfall 
 by any bird-song ; but here and there 
 among the thorns a blackbird chides as 
 he seeks a roosting perch, or a robin 
 utters a harsh challenge. At the edge 
 of the wood, where the wind finds outlet, 
 the music is deep-toned and roaring; in 
 a clump or single tree it is of a higher 
 tone and less decided,* while it only hums 
 through the grass and thistle - stems by 
 the hedge. 
 
A TOUCH OF WINTER 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 109 
 
 ROM this elm -pole stile, 
 overshadowed by curv- 
 ing hazel wands and 
 with the rustle of dead 
 bramble stems ever at 
 hand, the eye travels 
 over a wide landscape 
 of sloping meadow, furze, and woodland. 
 Grey pastures undulate to the horizon, 
 hedged in by hawthorns, with here and 
 there a dark yew or wind-shapen oak. 
 In the green coombe beneath us tall 
 elms, purpling with buds, tower above 
 the meadow. Past them, and through a 
 brier-hedge, winds the path a thin line 
 faintly drawn across the fields of vale and 
 
 of 
 Q&tnfcr. 
 
no 
 
 A Touch 
 of Winter. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 windy upland. Spread about the slopes 
 are dense coppices of oak and hazel, and 
 hedges that are almost as wide. Over 
 all the lowering sun sheds a soft red 
 light, enamelling the grassy tracts and 
 brightening for a while the leafless hedge- 
 row bushes. 
 
 All around a light fall of snow has 
 checkered the meadows and the plough- 
 lands of the valley with fleecy white, like 
 cirrus clouds that fleck the azure sky. 
 It lies thickest in the hollows and on the 
 footways ; in the shelter of the tall hedges 
 it has drifted deep. Looking only at the 
 exposed fields, the aspect is wintry ; but 
 in strange contrast are the hedge-mounds 
 that line the road and border the copses. 
 The summer verdure, indeed, is gone 
 red -robin, knapweed, even herb Robert 
 and the grasses, are withered and hidden 
 by the drifted leaves. Yet everywhere 
 are scattered signs that we look for only 
 in spring. Succulent shoots of many 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 in 
 
 plants peep through the dropped leaves 
 out of the cold earth. Deeply lobed 
 foliage of celandine springs in plenty 'by 
 the ditch side, and with it palest green 
 of ground-ivy hardly seen, so small and 
 delicate are the leaves. Chickweed in 
 masses, spangled with little starry flowers, 
 has sprung up unnoticed till it has put 
 out its many blossoms. But commonest 
 of all, and most beautiful with its whorled 
 leaves trailing about the mound and lean- 
 ing over the lowermost hawthorn-twigs, 
 is the goose-grass, well known for its 
 habit of attaching itself to the clothing. 
 To the rustic it is known as " clytes " ; 
 and the tiny berries, that adhere even 
 more readily than the foliage, are called 
 "sweethearts." Not yet long enough 
 to festoon the hedge as in summer, 
 the stems shoot up several inches high, 
 pale as the young ground-ivy. Nettles, 
 shorter still, and only recently emerged 
 from the ground, rise here and there 
 
 A Touch 
 of Winter. 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 A Toiich 
 of Winter. 
 
 in small clusters. More vigorous than 
 any in its spreading growth is the hedge- 
 parsley, with its intricately - cut leaves. 
 Here also a haw has fallen, and, buried 
 beneath the leaves, has sprouted forth 
 and sent up a slender red shoot adorned 
 with spring - green leaves : in the same 
 manner young seedling elms, no taller 
 than the nettles, have grown up under 
 this cold sky and biting wind. Many 
 another plant, such as the broad dock 
 and wild parsnip, has burst into leaf 
 about this same hedge. 
 
 Alongside the road, but some yards 
 apart, runs a deep wide ditch, resembling 
 a west country lane. Through a grove 
 of beech and ash it goes, and underfoot 
 their leaves lie rotting many inches thick. 
 Bushes of bramble and elder straggle 
 across the way, and in places knotted 
 roots, raised high above the earth, render 
 the walking difficult. Though parted 
 from the road only by a strip of sward 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 grown with young beeches, it is utterly 
 shut out from the highway, busy with 
 market-carts. Hither flock the titmice, 
 scared from the more frequented path, 
 and the blackbirds come to pull a worm 
 from the moist earth. Among the boughs 
 scatter the merry great tits, and away 
 into the underwood. Close at hand two 
 robins flit in the dense cover of the thorns, 
 recalling by their motions the amorous 
 chasing of late February days. Afar in 
 the turnips or the oat -stubble we can 
 hear at intervals the cry of partridges. 
 Overhead, now and again, fly the banded 
 larks bound for new feeding - grounds. 
 Tall burdocks rise up frequently in the 
 ditch with their bristling clusters, and 
 about the mounds on either hand dark 
 shining ivy creeps, rounding off the rugged 
 banks. Now the hollow widens out till 
 it is lost in an underwood of blackthorns ; 
 but beyond it is steep-sided and narrow 
 once more. In the crooked limbs of oak 
 H 
 
 A Touch 
 of Winter. 
 
114 
 
 A Touch 
 of Winter. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 that roof the grassy ditch blue-tits call 
 loudly as they scatter. Screened from 
 the blast, all the young green growths 
 may be seen that flourished on the hedge- 
 mounds behind. Where this sheltered 
 hollow ends, almost at a farmhouse door, 
 a great yew-tree leans over, and in its 
 dense stiff foliage the wind makes moan 
 like a sea lapping on the shingle. Fresh 
 twigs cluster thickly about the old peel- 
 ing stem, and, with the darker leaves, 
 appear to be varnished, so glossy are they. 
 The smaller branches of the oaks are 
 tinged with a ruddy hue like willow- 
 wands. 
 
 From some point not far distant comes 
 a song that is rarely heard in December. 
 These sweet though melancholy notes 
 are unmistakeably the chaffinch's. We 
 are disappointed to find the handsome 
 pink -breasted bird prisoned in a cage 
 hanging against the farmstead wall. On 
 the ancient bricks so dull and brown 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 the yellow blossoms of the jasmine are 
 studded thick, and they creep on to the 
 tiled roof, weather - stained to browns 
 and dingy reds. Most of the flint 
 cottage walls along the road are flaming 
 with the same bright-blossoming creeper. 
 
 Passing the farmyard and the pied 
 pigeons fluttering among the horses' feet, 
 the road itself is worn deep through sand 
 and chalk. So tall on each side is the 
 wall of crumbling earth we cannot see 
 the meadows above, and the elms that 
 stand away from the track. Just over 
 the sand a thin stratum of dark loam, 
 bound together as it were by the many 
 rootlets that stretch hither, juts beetling 
 out towards the roadway ; and hanging 
 from this rich dark layer a waving rootlet 
 of elder has sprouted afresh into leaf, 
 though several inches away from the 
 low cliff of sand. 
 
 At length the road emerges from its 
 groove on to the hill-top, and once more 
 
 A Touch 
 of Winter. 
 
A Touch 
 of Winter. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 it is level and bounded by narrow 
 woods of spruce, whence comes the 
 startling challenge of the pheasant- 
 cocks. Meanwhile the twilight air has 
 become keener and the wind rises 
 humming through the green firs. The 
 smaller birds are nearly all in cover, 
 and only a belated pipit or a steady 
 flapping rook moves aloft in the rude air. 
 Sometimes, in the hedges that line the 
 way, robins rustle gently and fly a yard 
 or two, or a blackbird blusters out; 
 otherwise the life so lately stirring is 
 silent, and the tomtits are rocked asleep 
 amid the swaying larch - boughs. Out 
 in the fields, freshly turned by the plough, 
 peewits run rapidly hither and thither, 
 occasionally chirruping a low distressful 
 note, unlike their usual screaming wail. 
 The whole flock is within thirty yards 
 of us, and their markings are perfectly 
 clear, the flowing crest, the dark band 
 beneath the throat, and the snow-white 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 117 
 
 breast, showing against the clods. With 
 the chilling wind the snow begins to fall 
 again, and from the shelter of this holly- 
 tree we can watch the flakes drifting 
 swiftly across the meadows, and rolling 
 like thin smoke, silvering the sward 
 and heaping by the ditches. Still the 
 peewits move uneasily in the open, al- 
 ways facing the wind and the thin wall 
 of snow bearing down upon them. Scared 
 by a sportsman passing near them, sev- 
 eral rise, but soon settle again, running 
 a short distance in the very teeth of the 
 blast. Some of them stand huddled in 
 the furrows, as partridges do by the ant- 
 hillocks. At length the snow ceases 
 and the wind drops to a whisper; then 
 over the hill-top the lapwings start up 
 again and wheel in phantom flight, shriek- 
 ing their weird night call. 
 
 A Touch 
 of Winter. 
 
WINTER IN RICHMOND PARK 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 KEEN frost and a grey 
 hanging fog have numbed 
 and silenced all life within 
 the Park. Not a sound 
 trembles through the heavy 
 air. The rooks that travel 
 over, each day at dawn, 
 linger yet in their roosting-trees, and no 
 sullen caw reaches us from their dark 
 forms high up in the elms. Starlings, 
 whose myriad wings make a faint music 
 through the morning air as they pass for 
 distant meadows, are also delaying their 
 flight : until sunlight pierce the gloom 
 they will not stir. 
 
 From the outermost twigs of a broad- 
 
 121 
 
 (JUcflmonfc 
 (part. 
 
Winter in 
 
 Richmond 
 
 Park. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 spreading chestnut the stem is quite in- 
 visible, and the boughs above are lost 
 in grey, so dense is the mist. Nestling 
 against the trunk are scattered groups of 
 sparrows, hardly moving, and betrayed 
 only by a half-hearted chirp at rare in- 
 tervals. The melancholy long - drawn 
 whistle of a starling that sits with ruffled 
 plumage in the same tree is the_ only 
 other break in the stillness. 
 
 The windows of a cottage facing south- 
 east flash back the first bright sunbeam. 
 A rustling breath of wind sighs through 
 the dense foliage of the spruce-firs and 
 disperses the fog, till all around countless 
 points of frosty crystal glitter in the tardy 
 sunlight. Slowly the landscape is un- 
 folded as the fog retires, and depths of 
 woodland, unseen before, loom slowly 
 into view. When at last the mist hovers 
 above the elms of the horizon and the 
 far-off mere, from a kindly veil of fern 
 doubling back to the grass the morning 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 lark climbs high into grey space. In- 
 stantly, as in answer to a signal, the 
 shivering birds scatter from their retreats 
 of knot-hole, tussock, and rugged oak- 
 limb. Widespread companies of rooks 
 go dinning overhead, and the starlings 
 take a hurrying flight eastward. On 
 every side the clamouring sparrows de- 
 scend to scour the grass and the bramble 
 underwood ; some of them wander to 
 the pools, and where the ice does not 
 prevent, indulge themselves in a bath, 
 spraying the water with their rapid 
 play of wings, and quarrelling noisily 
 for the best places. 
 
 From the bed of a narrow runnel, not 
 yet filled with winter floods, we can 
 watch the starlings foraging across the 
 lawn. Intent on a meal already long 
 deferred, they allow us a close approach. 
 At each step they make a swift downward 
 stroke of the beak on their insect prey. 
 Rapidly here and there they hop and run, 
 
 123 
 
 Winter in 
 
 Richmond 
 
 Park. 
 
I2 4 
 
 Winter in 
 
 Richmond 
 
 Park. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 now hidden by a tussock, now in full 
 view above the close - shorn grass. In 
 their busy journeying to and fro they 
 weave an intricate maze of lightly trodden 
 paths, leaving no inch of ground unsought 
 and no sod unprobed. Tomtits, a busy 
 throng, find insects in plenty, about the 
 elms and in the beeches, where a few dun 
 leaves, shrivelled and dry, still rustle in 
 the breeze. They climb and spring and 
 flutter from branch to bough, springing 
 heedlessly upon the slenderest twigs that 
 rock wildly beneath them. As they ad- 
 vance slowly along the groves or away 
 into the thickets, their merry chattering 
 talk echoes sweetly through the glades. 
 Ever and anon a score or two of fallen 
 leaves are lifted feebly among the trees. 
 The tenacious oaks still hold their leaves, 
 but the stronger winds cause a russet fan 
 to float slowly through the air to the 
 deepening mass that lies in the hollows 
 beneath. 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Sober-hued "November" moths cling 
 motionless against the grey oak-palings, 
 and seem but half alive, not stirring even 
 when touched. Each frost and every 
 morning dew chills them more and more, 
 and ere long they must perish and fall 
 to earth. The fog that hung thick and 
 silent about the fields an hour since sug- 
 gested no thought of beauty, but now 
 that it has vanished it leaves behind 
 crystal beads of moisture, adorning the 
 slim beech-wands and the dead thistle- 
 heads below. Twin leaves of wood- 
 bine just unfolding in so cold an air, 
 hold within their clefts one sparkling 
 drop. 
 
 Out from the rank clinging under- 
 growth, now turned grey, rises a tall 
 bleached stem of hemlock. Long bereft 
 of foliage and blossom, it has outlasted 
 its compeers of the summer; but its 
 shiny stalk of crude arsenical green is 
 now brittle and shrunken, and nothing 
 
 125 
 
 Winter in 
 
 Richmond 
 
 Park. 
 
126 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Winter in 
 
 Richmond 
 
 Park. 
 
 save the skeleton ribs remain of the 
 umbels that once bore its flowers. The 
 old stalk rises amidst the branches of a 
 birch, and leaning on this support its 
 fall is long delayed. Around are showing 
 newly budding leaves of humbler growths, 
 whose faintly-fragrant foliage makes the 
 hemlock the more gaunt by contrast. 
 On the briers, not quite leafless, though 
 deeply sered by slow action of the ele- 
 ments, the few hips spared by the field- 
 fares are dull black and wrinkled, prob- 
 ably by the frost. Some of their younger 
 branches wave high above the rest in 
 graceful curves, pale green with great 
 ruddy claws, the thicker and older stems 
 being dark and dull, almost of an earth- 
 brown hue. 
 
 Past rolling acres of dead bracken 
 and mossy banks drilled with rabbit- 
 burrows, giant oaks rising on either 
 hand, the broad track of greensward 
 descends to the Penn Ponds. Tis here, 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 127 
 
 girt about by tufted rushes and gently 
 sloping turf, 
 
 " Where the duck dabbles 'mid the rustling sedge, 
 And feeding pike starts from the water's edge, 
 Or the swan stirs the reeds, his neck and bill 
 Wetting, that drip upon the water still ; 
 And heron, as resounds the trodden shore, 
 Shoots upward, darting his long neck before." 
 
 The wild duck are invisible, but their 
 haunt is where the flags grow thickest, 
 and rustling alders throw a deep shade ; 
 moorhens creep among the rushes, and 
 every now and again their startling cry 
 comes weirdly along the shore. Upon 
 the placid surface, near the tiny islet, a 
 pair of swans glide slow and silent, heard 
 only when they skim the water with 
 clumsy ponderous flight ; the pike assert 
 their presence and their marauding habit 
 by an occasional mighty swirl among 
 the rotting weeds ; carp leap perpendicu- 
 larly half-way into the air. Alone of the 
 wonted denizens of the ponds and the 
 
 Winter in 
 
 Richmond 
 
 Park. 
 
128 
 
 Winter in 
 
 Richmond 
 
 Park. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 enclosed woodland by their margin, we 
 miss the herons, gone, perhaps, on their 
 wintry wanderings by wild sea-shore or 
 in marshland solitudes. Beneath yonder 
 oak, that leans somewhat over the water, 
 is a favourite haunt of the heron : late 
 into the grey twilight his lank figure 
 may be seen there, motionless in the 
 reedy pools, dreaming over his own dim 
 shadow, till gudgeon or eel unwittingly 
 approaches within the stroke of that 
 poniard bill. 
 
 From the marshy sward about the edge 
 of the higher pond, our way, diverging 
 from the beaten path, lies along a slight 
 ascent through a waste of brake-fern and 
 crisp yellowing turf, trodden in all direc- 
 tions with rabbit-runs. In amongst the 
 oaks that tower well apart like massive 
 columns, straight and thick, we hear 
 wood-pigeons clatter out of the branches 
 with loudly beating pinions. On either 
 side, far as eye can reach, stretch tiers 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 129 
 
 of dark-stemmed trees. Some of them 
 fork into a pair of giant limbs close to 
 the earth, and are less striking than those 
 which rise sheer up without a break for 
 many yards. The lofty gnarled hollows 
 within the trunks of the larger trees sug- 
 gest the haunt of owls. High out of 
 reach against the rugged sides their 
 nests might well be reared ; but the stern 
 spirit of game preservation drives else- 
 where the_soft-winged hunter of the night. 
 In the oval shadows cast by the oaks the 
 grass is short and spare, cropped, no 
 doubt, by the deer when feasting on the 
 strewn acorns. 
 
 Beyond a strip of level turf tall palings 
 surround a large plantation, with dark 
 chestnuts showing at the border. These 
 are sacred depths, whence comes the 
 vigorous crow of a pheasant or the 
 garrulous screaming of the unwelcomed 
 jay. Where the trees end an open space 
 is studded with bare hawthorns, one or 
 I 
 
 Winter in 
 
 Richmond 
 
 Park. 
 
1 3 o 
 
 Winter in 
 
 Richmond 
 
 Park. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 two still aglow with their bright haws. 
 Nearer the fence thickly-growing rhodo- 
 dendron-bushes make a perpetual shelter 
 for rabbits and winged game, affording 
 as they do safe cover when bramble and 
 thorn are leafless. 
 
 With the approach of night the mist 
 has again lightly gathered, and the sun 
 setting over the western oaks is quite ob- 
 scured. Empty husks of Spanish chest- 
 nuts crunch audibly underfoot, but farther 
 on the walking is soft and silent over the 
 velvety sward. Not yet retired for his 
 winter sleep, a bat wheels in eccentric 
 curves overhead, and as he flits above the 
 moonlit pool a faint shadow of him falls 
 on the shimmering surface. 
 
A PINE-WOOD NEAR LONDON 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 REAT rugged elms stretch 
 side by side on the short 
 turf of the meadow which 
 yesterday they shadowed. 
 The labour of a few short 
 days, with many strokes 
 of axe and saw, has felled 
 them all. They have been 
 thrown just as the innumerable buds 
 were beginning to show a faint purple 
 when the sun gleamed among their 
 branches. Resting long with their im- 
 mense weight on the yielding soil, 
 not yet hardened by frosts, they will 
 leave great rounded grooves across the 
 meadow. In the fresh pellucid air the 
 
 133 
 
 woo& nidi 
 JSonfcon. 
 
134 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 A Pine- 
 wood ntar 
 London. 
 
 elms yonder, leaning at a threatening 
 angle over a pond of the village green, 
 show clearly in every detail of twig and 
 bough, and the sparrows are easily dis- 
 tinguished. There is no denned bank to 
 the pool, but the long grass trends gently 
 down till it is lost in the shallows. 
 From near the margin grotesquely-shaped 
 willows grow in a curving line, and follow 
 the road with its strip of sward into the 
 village, some of them standing almost 
 alongside the " solemn, shadowy " yews 
 of the little churchyard. Cut off from 
 the green where the villagers' geese are 
 digging at the turf only by a narrow 
 ditch is a furze -clad common. For a 
 space tiny hillocks cover the ground, each 
 tipped with a dark -green that is almost 
 brown by moss and heather and dwarfed 
 gorse. The walking is hazardous, and in 
 places the surface suddenly descends into 
 precipitous hollows spread thickly with 
 birches and an undergrowth of heather 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 that nearly hides a goat roaming among 
 them. Narrowing at length, the furze- 
 common ends, and a pleasant grass- 
 grown track winds along a lane between 
 tall oaken palings. On the farther side of 
 the fence the turf is somewhat lifted 
 up, and sends through the interstices a 
 drapery of ground -ivy and blackberry- 
 bramble still bright in leaf. High above 
 the palings rise many oaks for the entire 
 length of the lane. In one of these, from 
 a middle bough, a thrush is singing a 
 sweet though unfinished tune. The singer, 
 too, seems conscious of his fault, and 
 stops short now and then to gaze timidly 
 around : a harsh note thrown in occasion- 
 ally half spoils the tune, but there is 
 promise in the mellow whistle for the 
 wildwood chorus of March. 
 
 A lawn of the sweetest grass reaches 
 with a slight swell to the very foot of the 
 oak-fence, and is there strewn deep with 
 black and purple leaves from the trees be- 
 
 A Pine- 
 wood near 
 London. 
 
136 
 
 A Pine- 
 wood near 
 London. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 yond. A robin, silent for a while after a 
 passionate outburst of carol, drops quietly 
 from a lower bough of oak behind the 
 palings. Among the dead leaves his 
 long stilt-like legs make a faint rustle as 
 he probes carefully for the worms that 
 abound. It is a favourite corner for a 
 robin, where food will surely be found 
 here at the foot of a fence screened by the 
 oaks. Perched on a fallen twig, the little 
 fellow leisurely gulps a large worm pulled 
 from between the leaves and the grass- 
 blades peeping up. You will find him 
 here or in a like spot that need not be se- 
 questered, at any hour, but especially in 
 the grey early morning. Confident, as 
 he ever is, he will allow the wayfarer a 
 near approach, and charm him with the 
 most exquisite song of winter, at least 
 until the music of the thrush and others 
 of the hedgerow choir is more finished. 
 Trefoil, with its pale rounded leaflets, 
 nestles by the palings, and close by a few 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 drooping stalks of dumb-nettle, just bereft 
 of blossom ; while beyond a fresh growth 
 of nettle is pushing up. On a birch that 
 shows here alone among the oaks, broad 
 ledges of fungus jut out from the upper 
 stem, in shape and outline like a scallop- 
 shell. Skirting an avenue of mighty 
 beeches and a narrow spinney where 
 wood -pigeons are flapping as in March, 
 the way leads straight in amongst a group 
 of pines, then loses itself in a waste of 
 furze. 
 
 Under the pines there is hardly a 
 slip of grass, and nothing flourishes but 
 bramble, that wanders round the lofty 
 pillars, and matted brake and heather ; a 
 scanty trail of ivy creeps, though rarely. 
 The silence within the shadow of the 
 trees proclaims that such cover is not 
 loved by the birds. They favour strips of 
 woodland where the branches reach and 
 spread almost to earth, that they may 
 drop with - ease on to the sward and 
 
 i37 
 
 A Pine- 
 wood near 
 London. 
 
138 
 
 A Pine- 
 wood near 
 London. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 rise again to the bough, often repeating 
 these short desultory journeys to and fro. 
 Branches of the Scotch fir and notably 
 where the trees are closely ranged spring 
 in dark tufts at the top, and a long sweep 
 of stem is without a suitable branch. 
 Hence there is a dearth of birds in the 
 pine-wood, where human footfall seldom 
 disturbs the stillness of the years sleeping 
 in the wind-battered stems. High aloft 
 the titmice bands are scattering, and their 
 happy cries ring sweetly, like the tinkling 
 of fairy bells. Most of them are cole-tits 
 with their black caps and short squat 
 figures ; their notes, too, are distinct. 
 As they hang head downwards, like flies 
 from a ceiling, their faint grey-blue wings 
 shiver slightly, and their tails, spread 
 widely out, vibrate so that the sunlight 
 shows through their gauzy feathers as 
 through the wings of a dragon-fly. 
 
 A feeble wind plays dreamily through 
 the dense fir foliage above, and the un- 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 ceasing groan sounds like the far-off 
 murmurs of the sea; like it, too, the 
 sound swells and dies away as the wind- 
 waves roll and break. Though so suscep- 
 tible to the flow of the breeze, the fir- 
 wood is oppressed with a strange silence. 
 A small white fungus on a stump 
 of birch under the firs suggests the 
 thought of snow, but the mild wind, 
 that makes the thrushes sing and the 
 young leaves peep through the sods, 
 belies it. Here and there amid the 
 trunks many fungous bunches are to be 
 met with all emitting a disagreeable, 
 damp, earthy smell. The carpet of fir- 
 needles, that nowhere ends in the wood, 
 is sometimes half a foot thick, and has 
 taken here a brown and there a whitened 
 tinge. The narrow track, too, that stems 
 its haphazard way between the trunks, 
 is thick with fallen needles and cones, 
 so that the heavy woodman's cart 
 approaches without sound, and the 
 
 A Pine- 
 wood near 
 London. 
 
140 
 
 A Pine- 
 wood near 
 London. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 wheels roll as over even velvet. Indeed 
 the needles make softer and more silent 
 going than turf, which yields, and then 
 springing back, jolts the cart. Scaly 
 cones, bleached needles, and flaking bark 
 emit a pleasant odour as of fresh-turned 
 earth among spring woodlands, Tall, 
 straight pines tower on every hand, and 
 the eye is baffled in trying to thread the 
 maze ; and each tree is like its neighbour, 
 inasmuch as short branches all snapped 
 off near the trunk grow at regular inter- 
 vals round the russet stem. These stout- 
 looking branches stretch out an aid that 
 is at first welcomed by the climber ; but 
 they are quite unreliable, being frequently 
 rotten, and likely to break unless the foot 
 is planted right close against the stem. 
 
 Now the rows of pines on either side 
 the track open wide apart, and we quit 
 the gloom and silence of the wood for a 
 broad lane, with a farmhouse at the end 
 showing through the oaks. A little patch 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 141 
 
 of undulating sward lies immediately be- 
 yond the trees and before the lane is en- 
 tered, where grey lichen contrasts with 
 the thick moss - matting over which we 
 walk. The lane, with three cart-tracks 
 side by side, is little used, and the turf is 
 scarcely rutted ; but refuse from the cot- 
 tages, standing somewhat back, mars the 
 pleasant green and the dandelion leaves 
 showing through the grass. Once more 
 closely-set oaks stretch across the way 
 from either hedge, rising out of a thicket 
 of hazels and bramble. In the depths, 
 amid the wands and trailing stems, a wren 
 creeps and rattles off his song ; farther on 
 blue-tits are playing among the slenderest 
 oak-twigs their heads no bigger than 
 the oak-apples. A dark streak is drawn 
 right down their yellowish breasts, as 
 though they wore tunics buttoned in the 
 front. The road dips just by the farm 
 and discloses the chimney - stacks and 
 church tower of a sleepy village. A faint 
 
 A Pine- 
 wood near 
 London, 
 
I 4 2 
 
 A Pine- 
 wood near 
 London. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 blue smoke wreathes upwards from a log- 
 fire, losing itself in air at the height of 
 the topmost elm -branches, where the 
 rooks' nests are swinging in the breeze. 
 Turning aside from the lane, we enter 
 a narrow footpath, graceful pagoda - like 
 spruce firs mingling their foliage over- 
 head. Herb Robert covers the hedge- 
 mound with its daintily-cut hairy leafage 
 quite a fresh growth, too, that was 
 under the earth a few weeks back. Pass- 
 ing the spruces, another open common 
 lies on the one hand, with a dark coppice 
 of Scotch pines on the other. A scratch- 
 ing faintly heard on the bark of a tree 
 arrests the ear. Two squirrels, matching 
 the stem with their reddish fur, with agile 
 steps race swiftly towards the green 
 boughs above, and there play heedlessly 
 among the lesser twigs. As evening falls, 
 from the gorse on the common even 
 from the black forbidding firs and the 
 spruces behind comes the blackbird's 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 vesper song. The rich, far-reaching tones 
 rise high above the gentler melody of the 
 robin, the light tapping of a solitary nut- 
 hatch on the elm-bark, and the rustling 
 of the red squirrels amid the fir-cones 
 and the deep -green needles. 
 
 A Pine- 
 wood near 
 London. 
 
A SURREY WOODLAND 
 
 K 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 147 
 
 H A D O W Y spruce firs 
 
 stretch their foliage over- ^nfc* 
 
 head from either side of 
 the path, and while the 
 light is gloomy enough in 
 the open, it is still more 
 dim within the shade of 
 the coppice. It is but a strip of wood- 
 land, left in the midst of arable and 
 pasture fields a bare stone-throw across 
 yet in its depths we are quite shut 
 out from the meadows by fir and chest- 
 nut and oak, all closely ranged. Yonder, 
 half a mile away to our right, through 
 the columned stems, is an oakwood of 
 greater extent ; but it is hidden for the 
 
148 
 
 A Surrey 
 Woodland. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 while by a yellow mist, and beyond the 
 boundary hedge of thorn nothing can be 
 seen. Underfoot, signs of promise and 
 decay are strangely mingled. Winter 
 winds have driven the acorns into the 
 shade and shelter of the firs; and they 
 strew the ground, soddened, darkened, 
 and crushed by rain and the hoofs of the 
 gipsy ponies that pass through. And 
 still they lie, some of them on the little- 
 trodden path, along with the dark- 
 skinned fruit of the horse-chestnut that 
 has long ago lost its rich glossiness. 
 Dead twigs from the oaks and myriads 
 of fir-needles make a mantle of the wood's 
 decay which has fostered the new shoots 
 of spring. Ground-ivy is here with its 
 rounded leaves, daily broadening and 
 deepening to a glaucous hue: it trails 
 and interweaves its slender stems till the 
 earth, even under the firs, is carpeted 
 with living green. More rare as yet, 
 and oftenest standing alone among the 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 149 
 
 dead grasses or by a bramble - stem, is 
 the crowfoot, whose stalk is already tall, 
 and whose leaves are almost full- spread. 
 Dandelion and thistle in stout clusters 
 make way by the ditch -side, and from 
 the former a faint flower-sheath is shoot- 
 ing up. The gorse stems that we passed 
 in the meadow behind were hidden at the 
 root by a bold growth of pale sorrel 
 leaves. The better to show up the 
 beauty of the budding leaves, the com- 
 mon berried ivy, that spreads in places 
 as abundantly as the ground-ivy, is dull- 
 brown and grey, like the earth over which 
 it lies ; for where it grows so thickly 
 there is no sign of grass. All around, 
 too,* clustering thickest by the hedge 
 where brier and bramble trail, are the 
 tall grasses of last summer, grey and wan 
 after months of wind and rain. Much of 
 it is still breast - high, and topping the 
 thin stalks are light ghostly plumes, so 
 airy that the wind hardly stirs them in 
 
 A Surrey 
 Woodland. 
 
A Surrey 
 Woodland 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 its flight. Near by they have wandered 
 on to the path, and, though we step 
 never so gently through, they snap and 
 fall. 
 
 When the mist has lifted slightly, the 
 clearer light makes visible the long ridge, 
 as it were, of oak woodland across the 
 broad ploughed field. It extends in a 
 scarcely broken line for a mile perhaps, 
 though in places it is so thin that the sky 
 beyond can be seen between the oaks. 
 The tall dense hawthorn hedge that sur- 
 rounds it is undistinguishable at this 
 distance, as it blends completely with 
 the dim mass of the trees. Westward 
 the wood recedes sharply from view and 
 dips below the horizon. On a bulge of 
 meadow somewhat nearer at hand is a 
 group of dark elms towering above the 
 sward with a dwarf wind-battered birch 
 alongside. Coppices of beech and fir and 
 poplar are dotted here and there, half a 
 mile or so apart, over the meadows, one 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 or two of them so narrow that they are 
 like untended double hedgerows with 
 trees set in their midst. Our way lies up 
 a gentle slope skirting the fir-wood that 
 we lately passed through, and which ends 
 at a farmhouse a quarter of a mile ahead. 
 On our right lies the largest wood, chiefly 
 oaks of half a century's growth, with a 
 moss - grown patriarch standing at the 
 edge. Over them flaps a battalion of 
 peewits lately risen from the clods : they 
 wheel and swerve somewhat in their 
 course, then rise a little, and, dipping, are 
 lost behind the trees. In front the 
 country is open, and the view to the 
 horizon is but slightly interrupted by a 
 homestead embowered among its shrubs 
 and rookery elms. We leave behind the 
 meadows where we entered among the 
 firs, and over a stile find a path that 
 leads to a wood whose solitary pool 
 harbours the moor-hen among its matted 
 flags. 
 
 A Surrey 
 Woodland. 
 
152 
 
 A Surrey 
 Woodland. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Thud and echo of the woodman's axe 
 have but lately died away : for a few days 
 there was bustle and din instead of the 
 wonted calm, and now a clearing has been 
 made like a vast hall in the woodland. 
 The poplars have suffered most, and on 
 the thin sward lie their pale crooked 
 stems pitted with small dark scars that 
 look as if made artificially with a tool. 
 In falling, their greater limbs have fur- 
 rowed the soil deeply, and torn up masses 
 of ivy carpeting. No path crosses this 
 wood, and a way must be carefully picked 
 through the tangled blackberry bushes 
 and over the prone poplars often buried 
 in the undergrowth. We have to stoop 
 to pass under the lowest chestnut-boughs, 
 with their great sticky buds, and the 
 branches of the beech, still adorned with 
 warm brown foliage that has long been 
 crisp and dry. Here is the pond, in 
 a hollow, just seen as we emerge through 
 a portal of giant trunks. Dense haw- 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 153 
 
 thorns overhang the water, making 
 gloomier with their shadow a pool al- 
 ready looking as if bottomed with pitch. 
 On one side a low hedge borders the 
 pond, and through a gap the cattle stray, 
 cautiously to sip the stagnant black water. 
 A poplar has been uprooted at the bank, 
 and, falling across the surface, it forms 
 a natural but unsafe bridge. Its bark, 
 saturated and rotten, is coated with furry 
 moss that affords only precarious foot- 
 hold. Almost at the end, among the 
 boughs that have survived, a moor-hen 
 cradled its nest, so as just to touch 
 the water. The cottage lads know the 
 story of its plunder. A long crawl on the 
 slippery trunk and untold bootfuls of the 
 black oozy mud, and some at least of the 
 bird's treasures were no more her own. 
 But among the fringing bed of broad 
 flags and tufted rushes there is safe 
 hiding for a nest, surrounded as it would 
 be by yards- of yielding boggy soil. The 
 
 A Surrey 
 Woodland. 
 
154 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 A Surrey 
 Woodland. 
 
 marsh -marigold first puts forth its golden 
 " bubbles " by the water-side, and with 
 them crowd the dim white cuckoo 
 flowers. Through the thorns and willow 
 about the margin the titmice creep and 
 chatter, and farther on a passing band of 
 fieldfares rattle hoarsely as they fly, while 
 a moor-hen shrills weirdly from the flag- 
 thicket somewhere ; but it is fully hid- 
 den, and does not rise, though we must 
 be passing it close. Under a sycamore 
 the grass is shorter than any downside 
 pasture, and looks from afar like a film of 
 emerald dust that might be rubbed out 
 with a finger-sweep. Hither the black- 
 bird hastens at dawn to snatch a worm 
 from between the blades ; and out into 
 the furrows he wanders, where the pale 
 green wheat is sending up its spear-shafts 
 wide apart as yet, so as not to hide the 
 black robber. In the shadow of the elm- 
 trunks, where the grass is still short, two 
 snowdrops nod their frail white bells 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 155 
 
 outcasts in all likelihood from the garden 
 close at hand. 
 
 No sunset-flames illumine the dark sky 
 to-day; but through the trees the sun 
 burns as a crimson disc of concentrated 
 light that dazzles the eyes, though shaded 
 by the lattice-work of twigs. A nuthatch 
 taps faintly on the bark of a pine as it 
 climbs mouse-like and but dimly seen in 
 the shadow ; and ere its tapping ceases, 
 the sun is down behind the elms, and it 
 is rapidly darkening in the wood. Twi- 
 light is a signal for blackbird and robin to 
 join in a last chorus, and the woodland 
 rings with their music. Rabbits are 
 creeping out into the dusk of the hedge- 
 row, and our path ahead through the 
 spruces grows fainter with the waning 
 light. When the track passes once more 
 over greensward, and through a waste of 
 gorse, hedges bound the field on one side, 
 dark firs on the other. From behind the 
 eastern slope the moon has risen pale and 
 
 A Surrey 
 
 Woodland. 
 
i S 6 
 
 A Surrey 
 Woodland. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 silvery : as the night darkens, the air 
 becomes clearer and a wind waves the 
 grass underfoot. Gradually the moon 
 glows deeper and more golden, shedding 
 bright beams across the rain-pools by the 
 path ; and thus the last note of woodland 
 music faints on the wind. 
 
A 
 
 DIARY IN ENGLISH FIELDS 
 AND WOODS 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 159 
 
 ERONRY at Richmond Park 
 on a harsh blowing 
 day. Nests chiefly in 
 firs, also in beech and 
 oak, and almost invari- 
 ably built among the 
 crowning branches ; dif- 
 fering much in bulk some are huge with 
 the layers of succeeding years, others 
 lightly built in the manner of wood- 
 pigeons. One nest was a yard thick, 
 of large twigs, the hollow for the eggs, 
 however, being no broader or deeper 
 than usual. In general the eggs are 
 laid in a shallow depression, roughly 
 lined with mosses and light grasses or 
 
 E 
 
 tn 
 
 anb 
 
 (HJoofce. 
 
 April I , 
 1895. 
 
i6o 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 April i. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 branchlets. The number of the herons 
 has decreased, the keeper thinks, since 
 the long frost, when the ponds were 
 ice-bound and abandoned by moor -hen 
 and wild duck; at which season the 
 birds are much abroad in foraging, at 
 the river - side or remote marshlands, 
 and a prey to every gunner. Not 
 more than five or six nests could we 
 then make out. One contained six eggs, 
 an unusual number ; like a wild duck's in 
 size and colour, but rough and chalky in 
 the surface of the shell, as many sea-birds' 
 are : they had been laid, probably, in the 
 middle of last month, and would be 
 hatched in two weeks hence. Another 
 nest had only one egg, others were empty 
 yet. Rising at our approach, the birds 
 wheeled, their legs held parallel to their 
 tails and close to the body, disturbing 
 the banded wood-pigeons from the oaks 
 under. When about to alight, the legs 
 are dangled awkwardly as if seeking 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 161 
 
 In English 
 Fields and 
 Woods. 
 
 a perch, and their cries are loud and 
 hoarse, varied by gentler metallic calls 
 
 and coughings not bird-like. We learnt 
 that the colony is the result of a forced 
 
 April i. 
 
 migration from the neighbouring Park 
 
 
 of Bushy. 
 
 
 Hedge-sparrow laying: in a low-built 
 
 
 nest with the willow " palms " over it: fol- 
 
 
 lowing the blackbird, thrush, and robin. 
 
 
 Swans resorting to their nests in the 
 
 
 parks. 
 
 
 Chiffchaff singing, our earliest visitor, 
 
 6. 
 
 late this year ; accompanied by the 
 
 
 gentler willow-wrens ; while the Norway 
 
 
 wanderers, fieldfares, are still here. 
 
 
 Blackbirds and thrushes laying and 
 
 
 building ; new nests discovered each day 
 
 
 since the earliest in mid- March. 
 
 
 Horse-chestnuts green with half-break- 
 
 
 ing buds ; preceded only by the elder 
 
 
 (always early : once noted on February 
 
 
 i). Hawthorn following, lime also in the 
 
 
 L 
 
162 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 April 12. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 groves, and blackthorn with its flower 
 before the leaf. 
 
 Cuckoo at Wimbledon crying in the 
 oaks ; and below him the first wood- 
 anemones, flushed white. Young rooks 
 and thrushes in the nest. 
 
 Swallows, house - martins, and sand - 
 martins come to Wandsworth Common 
 in fine blue weather. 
 
 London to Marlborough Forest on foot. 
 Swallows' and cuckoos' voices along the 
 road westward. Whitethroat has come, 
 singing and chattering with his " I did it, 
 I did," ceaselessly. 
 
 Jackdaws building in hollow beeches, 
 and in rain-worn knot-holes. 
 
 Squirrels' drays, or " huts," as they are 
 locally known, contain new-born young. 
 
 Snipe bleating over water-meadows near 
 Hungerford. This sound, which is most 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 loud when the bird is in full flight, cir- 
 cling upward or hovering, makes the air 
 vibrate, and seems to be caused by the 
 play of wings. Peewits make a similar 
 noise in their sharpest turns, diving and 
 ascending; their joints seem to creak. 
 
 Loud laughter of the green wood- 
 pecker ; clarion song of the missel- 
 thrush ; " whit-whitting " of the nuthatch 
 up the beech-bole. 
 
 Many jackdaws' nests lined luxuriously 
 with down and deer's fur. 
 
 Swindon, North Wilts. 
 
 Moor -hens laying. Their nests built 
 raft-like, with an osier mooring, on the 
 water : deep in the flags : upon hidden 
 trunks or limbs of willows : or far above 
 the ground, like wood-pigeons' nests, in 
 thorns. As many as fourteen eggs in 
 one nest, the lower ones very damp. 
 
 163 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 April 
 
 18. 
 
i6 4 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 April 19. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Garden - warbler singing ; but every- 
 thing here is behind - hand, the white- 
 thorn black and bare and no thrushes 
 laying. We are as a rule two weeks 
 behind the neighbourhood of London. 
 
 Willow budding, with its pennon leaves 
 uncurling. 
 
 Chiffchaff sings "chiff-chaff" several 
 times, ending with the same syllable 
 twice called " chiff-chiff." He sings 
 whilst flying. 
 
 Yellow- ammer, besides singing, ejacu- 
 lates " bit-bit " when perched and alarmed. 
 
 Meadows rare with cowslips ; deep pur- 
 ple later, with lush early orchis. 
 
 Woodlark singing. His song like a 
 snatch from the skylark's, uttered too 
 whilst soaring and descending as well as 
 from a perch ; wistful, but sweeter than 
 that of his cloud-loving relative ; delicate 
 concluding notes " sweet- sweet," which 
 also the skylark has, but with more fire. 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 165 
 
 Pilewort (lesser celandine) blossoming ; 
 a month earlier in Surrey. 
 
 Chaffinch building : an early date. 
 
 Nightingale singing : much earlier in 
 eastern woods : not to be confounded 
 with any other, thrush or blackcap ; 
 powerful and characteristically bubbling; 
 the finest bursts led up to by whinings. 
 
 Blackcap singing, sweetly wild. 
 
 Blackthorn steeped in blossom now. 
 
 Reeds piercing the ripples of the brook, 
 with twin blades curved and meeting like 
 calipers. 
 
 Kestrels much disconcerted by light 
 gusts, and in the breathless noons 
 they often slip weakly on from their 
 hovering. 
 
 Woodlark sings often from telegraph 
 wires, and from dead -bare branches on 
 the tree-tops ; so, too, the yellow-ammer 
 and chaffinch. 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 April 20. 
 
 21. 
 
i66 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 April 22. 
 
 23- 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 The black hedges now emeralded with 
 hawthorn-buds. 
 
 Gorse often in bloom when the stem 
 is dry and dead-seeming, and the thorny 
 branches crack saplessly. 
 
 Partridges urge a lowly flight over the 
 meadows, hedge -high, by abrupt wing- 
 flaps, each of which carry them several 
 yards. 
 
 Peewits fight over the furrows buffet 
 and parry in mid-air adroitly ; each turn 
 seems a conceit to display the pied 
 plumes. 
 
 Broad -leaved garlic, with its furled 
 leaves like lily-of-the-valley, covering the 
 mounds like arum in February. 
 
 Bold bluff music of the thrush ; chiding 
 sometimes, with the common thrush- 
 phrase " Did he do it ! " that shamed us 
 in our robber days. 
 
 Elm-bole green with the first leaves, 
 low down. 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Dead leaves on the oaks ; husks on the 
 beeches. 
 
 Marsh-marigolds or " bubbles " in blos- 
 som with the dull-flowered lilac butterbur. 
 
 Ash -sprays out to greet the earliest 
 sedge-warbler. 
 
 Coots laying in piled nests of drenched 
 water-weeds and jointed " mare's-tail." 
 
 Young dipper abroad at Coate Reser- 
 voir. 
 
 Cuckoo-flowers in the damp meadows. 
 
 Chaffinch laying; one egg each morn- 
 ing, till five are told. 
 
 Nightingales, quarrelling in the midst of 
 their song, break away but keep up a 
 careless note in flight. 
 
 Wren sings from all heights and whilst 
 flying, when the movement obviously 
 hurries the already hurrying lilt. 
 
 i 
 Moschatel blossoming with its green 
 
 fivefold flower. 
 
 167 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 April 23. 
 
 27. 
 
 29. 
 
1 68 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 April 29. 
 30. 
 
 May 2. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Red -robin flowering in crowded ranks 
 along the steep hedge-banks and in dank 
 hollows. 
 
 Beech out in leaf with the sycamore, 
 which begins to shower its green -yellow 
 bloom on to the thin sward under. 
 
 Orange-tip butterflies first seen, thread- 
 ing the coppice with a flight like blown 
 leaves. 
 
 Early field scorpion-grass, a miniature 
 hairy forget-me-not, blossoming from 
 crannies in an old ha-ha : pale blue, 
 earliest of its kind. 
 
 Mares' -tails not only grow in marshy 
 land and even quite submerged, but in 
 the driest spots, such as seldom -used 
 railway embankments where the riddled 
 chalk will not hold water an hour: here 
 it grows, among the metals, with colts- 
 foot and wild carrot and poppy. 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 169 
 
 Coltsfoot down floating everywhere : the 
 linnet takes it for her nest in the furze. 
 
 Dead-nettle flowers : found in January, 
 June, and November. 
 
 Cuckoo, courting with drooped wings, 
 bobbing head and tail, and twisting body, 
 with a laughing guttural " coo -coo - 
 coo-ga! " 
 
 Hum of bees loud round the stacked 
 withy wands, golden with catkins that 
 live long after the cutting of the 
 branches. 
 
 " I be fond of a crazy ! "the " crazy " 
 is the Wiltshireman's buttercup ; so also, 
 the marsh - marigold is the " water- 
 crazy." 
 
 Hedge-sparrows laying still. 
 
 Lesser whitethroat cradling his lightly 
 woven nest in the blackthorn, whose 
 blossom, mingling with the hawthorn 
 boughs, is often taken for the may. 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 May 3. 
 
 4- 
 
170 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 May 6. 
 
 Sedge - warbler bathes singing in the 
 rillets after rain. 
 
 Oak -buds losing their nut-brown for 
 the green of bursting leaves. 
 
 Buds more backward on the pollarded 
 ash-trees than on the free-grown giants. 
 
 The linnets are breeding, but come in 
 bands to the dandelions, whose flowerless 
 husks they tear and empty. 
 
 Ribwort plantain blossoming. 
 
 Flycatchers arriving. 
 
 Swifts unaccountably late, the weather 
 having been mild throughout last month : 
 at last they are here, screaming about 
 their old turrets and familiar eaves. 
 
 Waters strewn, as with scant driven 
 snow, by waterweed blossoms. 
 
 Reed-bunting has a short peevish song, 
 occasionally sweet ; uttered from the top- 
 most sprays of the hedge thorns. 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Outer leaves of hawthorn partially 
 bronze or deep red. 
 
 Sedge - warblers laying : in rushes 
 not often : usually in underwood near 
 water : a nest built up inordinately 
 high, but with no very deep hollow 
 for the eggs. 
 
 Pseonies in the cottage gardens. 
 
 Whinchat laying : five blue eggs, paler 
 than the hedge - sparrow's, and having 
 very few faint red stains. Nest, deeply 
 hidden under the jags of an old willow 
 at the root, built carelessly of grey 
 bents, rootlets, moss, and little hair. 
 
 Horse - chestnut thick with bloom : a 
 week earlier in London. 
 
 Dragonflies abroad, spinning over the 
 pools. 
 
 Reed-bunting has a nest of five eggs : 
 built in the midst of rushes round which 
 the outer bents are woven : coarsely 
 
 171 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 May 10. 
 
172 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 13- 
 
 14. 
 
 needled, and large for the bird's size : 
 framework of brittle grasses lined with 
 black hair. 
 
 Herb Robert flowering, with faint pink, 
 rarely white ; giving out an unpleasant 
 odour from its dry downy leaves. 
 
 Laburnum founts of blossom. 
 
 Ash -leaves, bronzed before they are 
 full-spread. 
 
 Hawthorns covered up in bloom : a 
 tardy blossoming, and the trees open 
 their flowers one after another, some 
 being thick with unopened buds in June. 
 
 Bird's -foot trefoil in gold -and -orange 
 flower ; a mere film of herbage on the 
 parched chalk -downs, but several feet 
 high in the damp hollows. The favourite 
 lotus of Jefferies. 
 
 Oaks yellowed by slim catkins. 
 
 Comfrey or boneset blossoming with 
 peals of white or purple bells over 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 173 
 
 a mass of coarse foliage : kept in a 
 hallowed corner of their gardens by the 
 cottagers. 
 
 Five eggs, one by one, on five suc- 
 cessive mornings in the whitethroat's 
 nest. 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 May 14. 
 
 1 6. 
 
 Greenfinch laying in a hair -and -moss 
 nest up in the thorns : nest and eggs 
 often like the linnet's the former usually 
 larger and more careless, the latter larger 
 and with finer markings. While the 
 linnet's eggs are often pearly, the green- 
 finch's are generally blue. 
 
 Bullfinch laying: one pure -white egg 
 among four others, dark - blue with 
 blotches of red and chocolate. 
 
 Delicate ivy - leaved toadflax covering 
 the ha-ha with its pale foliage and faint 
 pink flowers. 
 
 Meadow crane's-bill flowering, with its 
 
 17- 
 
 21. 
 
174 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 May 21. 
 
 21-26. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 blossoms, large, widespread, of various 
 purple, quickly fading; its intricately 
 cut foliage dashed here and there with 
 scarlet. 
 
 Chaffinch laying : eggs newly laid on 
 every day of this month : in one case a 
 pale green, without spot or line, unusually 
 frail and dusted with chalk. 
 
 Evening campion or white campion 
 blossoming very commonly : on chalky 
 soil in particular : noticed with harebell 
 and toadflax on London railway embank- 
 ments. 
 
 Clifton. 
 
 Swifts very numerous in the neighbour- 
 hood : in the Avon rocks and on every 
 side. Nightingales in the Leigh Woods 
 and on the hither bank of Avon com- 
 monly : their song piercing strongly across 
 the broadest pass from cliff to cliff. 
 
 Jackdaws never so common as here 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 building in the midst of this town of 
 groves, and in the rocks inaccessibly. 
 
 The luxuriant greenery of the gardens 
 and avenues and clumps within the town 
 itself loud all day with cuckoos, who, 
 where there is little poultry, waken us 
 at dawn. 
 
 Hawthorns on the Downs just flower- 
 ing : smothered in yet by flowerless wild 
 clematis. 
 
 Goose-grass pearling the hedges with 
 its strings of little blooms, climbing over 
 all inextricably. 
 
 Hot-coloured tormentil flowers. 
 
 Globe-flower in blossom. 
 
 Brooklime in tiny flower : a speedwell, 
 and blue and beautiful as the other 
 speedwells. 
 
 Swindon. 
 
 True May forget-me-nots in the wet 
 hollows, and densely among the water- 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 May 
 21-26. 
 
 27-3L 
 
 27. 
 
1 7 6 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 May 27. 
 
 28. 
 
 29. 
 
 3*' 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 side rushes : some flowers, pure white 
 with the blue trembling through as in 
 the lining of a shell. 
 
 White bryony in flower : green-ribbed 
 blossoms among its many-angled leaves, 
 that fling themselves, as it were, aloft on 
 airy tendrils. 
 
 Young whitethroats gaping in the nest. 
 
 Yellow iris coming into flower in the 
 broad reed beds at Coate among its 
 willow-islets. 
 
 Herb bennet or avens blossoming; its 
 yellow flowers succeeded by bright deep- 
 red plumes, bristling all over. 
 
 Honeysuckle in flower. 
 
 Moorhens and coots still laying at 
 Coate. 
 
 Mowing begins on the broad billowy 
 meadow that slopes to the forget-me-nots 
 at the southern water's - edge of Coate 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 177 
 
 Reservoir : near it, in the water now, 
 is the hollowed oak ; and on shore an 
 old crab-tree whose bark the cattle have 
 rubbed to a polished red to it the chaf- 
 finch comes for horsehair in the chinks. 
 All along the shore is a row of young 
 willows where the house-martins linger 
 with the bank-swallows and preen their 
 plumes and twitter. Out in the " mere " 
 pike leap : in the deeps at the edge of 
 the vast weeds that root, twenty feet 
 deep, in the cold bed of the pond, there 
 are great tench. Hither, on a summer's 
 day, the keepers stroll and chat with 
 the fishers, and talk of the pheasants 
 that do well this year. The keepers are 
 from Burderop on the hill great woods 
 of oak and ash and lesser larches, with 
 violet and wind - flower and primrose 
 in spring in whose midst is the low 
 dormer - windowed cottage of Richard 
 Jefferies' "gamekeeper," overbrowed by 
 walnut - trees, whose fruit the old 
 M 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 May 31. 
 
178 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 June I. 
 
 keeper used lately to give the boys of 
 the countryside. 
 
 Opposite the old house of Richard 
 Jefferies, on the Coate Road just beyond 
 the stile which leads a path aside to the 
 reservoir, I met an old dame who had 
 lived there in the old low house since 
 a time considerably before the birth of 
 Jefferies. She talked willingly of Jeffer- 
 ies ; of his wanderings at all hours and 
 on every side : and of the fact that she, 
 in younger days, prepared the single- 
 windowed cheese-room at Coate Farm for 
 use as his study. The family has left the 
 village : Jefferies himself visited it little 
 after his marriage. The martins that 
 built in the eaves of the old lady's 
 cottage she called affectionately " my 
 birds." 
 
 Ragged-robins and water-cress in flower 
 together. 
 
 Sainfoin blossoming. 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 179 
 
 Nest of young swallows ; and near it, 
 in the barn, an old swallow's nest had 
 been altered by a great tit, and crammed 
 with his own customary moss and feathers. 
 
 The last cuckoo-flowers. 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 June i. 
 
 The first wild rose of the summer. 
 
 Several nightingales have ceased to 
 sing. 
 
 At one time sand-martins built at the 
 very edge of Swindon old town in " the 
 Quarries " ; but frequent blastings and 
 the invasion of starlings and sparrows 
 have exiled them. 
 
 The sand-martins here certainly are 
 not, as Gilbert White described them, 
 "rather mute" and not "of a sociable 
 turn " ; they are garrulous, though in 
 gentler tones than swallows, with whom 
 also they associate. Neither are they 
 shy, seeking unfrequented banks ; for in 
 London, in a busiest suburb, they occupy 
 
i8o 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 June 6. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 drain - holes in the upright cement wall 
 of a railway embankment, past which 
 trains are incessantly whistling towards 
 and from a great junction. 
 
 Yarrow blossoming from the stones of 
 the field-roads, and at path-sides : cocks- 
 comb out in the thin mowing grass. 
 
 Elder in flower, its scent thickest after 
 rain when the petals whiten the sward 
 under : the flower-clusters were noticeable, 
 bosomed in young leaf, as soon as the 
 March buds burst. 
 
 Hemlock in flower along the brook. 
 
 House-martins beginning to lay: thus 
 late, because earlier nests had been blown 
 down. 
 
 Lesser field convolvulus in flower : braid- 
 ing the driest paths, even on ploughed 
 land, unsown : and creeping about the 
 barren sea-beach. 
 
 Common mallow flowering in dry 
 places. 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Blackberry-bramble blossoming; hum- 
 ming already with many bees. 
 
 Cuckoo sings, but.broken-voicedly. 
 
 Wild parsnip flowering : found more in 
 the midst of the fields than at the hedges, 
 like parsley. 
 
 Curious crying of the young rooks a 
 faltering " ka-wa-wa," in attempting the 
 grave "caw." 
 
 Bee, burying himself in the larkspur 
 blooms, each one of which he looks into 
 in turn. 
 
 Meadow-sweet flowering : at the mar- 
 gins of canal and brook sometimes 
 actually in the water, with the lesser 
 skullcap and its upturned leaves. 
 
 Common arrowhead in blossom ; grow- 
 ing in dense beds, where the moorhen 
 builds, and under which the pike lurk : 
 its leaves and tough, easily penetrable 
 stems, hold the angler's line or hooks. 
 
 181 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 June 12. 
 
 16. 
 
 17- 
 
182 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 June 17. 
 
 18. 
 
 Nightingale hatches her eggs under a 
 bramble : and her mate stops singing and 
 begins to scold with a harsh "bit-bit" 
 or a wistful " wheet-torr," in which both 
 birds join deep in the underwood. 
 
 Spotted orchis blossoming with poppy, 
 tormentil, chamomile, and coltstail, 
 among the railway metals on dry soil. 
 
 Shivering drawl of the common bunting, 
 as if the dust of the roadsides, which he 
 loves, had got into his throat : he sings 
 on the telegraph wires or bare posts by 
 preference : quite a short song, betraying 
 his relationship to the reed-bunting, and 
 in a lesser degree to the larks. 
 
 The chiffchaff is now the commonest 
 singer, with the willow-wren, and he sings 
 on to September; the garden -war bier is 
 silent with the nightingale, and the talka- 
 tive whitethroats and sedge-birds are more 
 often quiet than before ; the cuckoo now 
 is hardly a voice, and it is strange how 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 183 
 
 few know his low flight and long-tailed 
 figure as he journeys, now silent as 
 a rule. 
 
 Stonecrop with mallow on the dry ha- 
 ha wall. 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 June 1 8. 
 
 Stonechats in the furze occupy the 
 blackened sprays and cry from them 
 " whee-chuck-chuck " on the windy war- 
 ren-hill. 
 
 " Brook betony " or figwort blossoming 
 purple above its square stems. 
 
 Pied flycatcher's nest lodged ten feet 
 high against an elm-bole: four pale-blue 
 spotless eggs. The nest was built out- 
 wardly of crumpled hawthorn-leaves, as 
 the nightingale's is of oak-leaves : lined 
 with hairs. 
 
 Nightingales follow us through the 
 copse where their nest is hid : the young 
 birds are abroad within a fortnight after 
 hatching. 
 
 19. 
 
 20. 
 
i8 4 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 June 22. 
 
 
 23- 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Branched water-plantain in flower. 
 
 Young cuckoo, fledged in a hedge- 
 sparrow's nest, abroad. 
 
 Flowering - rush puts out a bunch of 
 rosy flowers from the abrupt top of its 
 stem after the manner of certain kinds 
 of narcissus. 
 
 Greenfinches laying. 
 
 Swifts dip in brook and pond as they 
 fly; but more rarely than swallow and 
 sand-martin. 
 
 Bird-voices heard at midnight : 
 
 Corncrake intermittently. 
 
 Sedge-warbler. 
 
 Nightjar: with his rattling drilling 
 cry, long, and seldom musical though it 
 has something in common, from its ease 
 and liquidity, with the nightingale. 
 
 Larks rise singing in the darkness, 
 before the stars are gone : followed by 
 the swallows as the east grew white (but 
 not for half an hour did the swallows fly, 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 they only twittered on the oaks that over- 
 look their barns) : later came the shriek- 
 ing of a peacock, yellow-ammers singing, 
 hedge-sparrow, rook, and wren. All night 
 the rabbits pattered in the wood. 
 
 Water-vole swims out to an arrowhead 
 bank, nips a stalk, and returns with it 
 trailed behind. He feeds frequently on 
 a flag -platform of his own construction, 
 much resembling a moorhen's nest. 
 Beaver -like he nibbles the tallest reed 
 through at its thick base, and feeds upon 
 it at his ease when it has fallen flat. 
 
 Grass of the rising aftermath or " latter- 
 math " beautifully green after a quicken- 
 ing rain, while the thistled pastures are 
 grey. 
 
 Narrow-leaved water-parsnip in flower. 
 Nuthatch flings himself through the air 
 with powerful jerky strokes. 
 
 185 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 June 23. 
 
 27. 
 
 30. 
 
 July i. 
 
1 86 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 7. 
 
 I4 . 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Last cry of the cuckoo. 
 
 Yellow-ammer yet sings. 
 
 Sparrows flocking in the unmown fields : 
 as they rise their combined wings sound 
 like a horse shaking himself in the meads. 
 
 Peewits flocking : in much the same 
 numbers as will be seen henceforward 
 until March. 
 
 Teasel plumes purpling. 
 
 Eyebright blossoming with wild thyme, 
 bird's-foot lotus, and rest-harrow on the 
 hot downs. 
 
 Hips large and reddening; here they 
 are "peggles," blown through hollow 
 wild - parsnip stalks, called "peggle- 
 shooters." 
 
 A tender sky, stroked, as it were, by 
 winds into ripples of grey. 
 
 Tall willow-herb, capped with fresh red 
 flowers, crowding in the ditches, where 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 187 
 
 their grey stalks outlast the winter with a 
 thin cottony plume aloft. 
 
 Yellow lady's bedstraw, lowly, thick on 
 the banks and square wastes, with a faint 
 smell of autumn. 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 July 14. 
 
 Larks, already banded, fly skipping 
 across the clover, with but a chirrup of 
 song. 
 
 Linnet has eggs newly laid ; also black- 
 bird. 
 
 Linnets lay on until the end of August, 
 together with swallows: wood -pigeons 
 even later. 
 
 1 6. 
 
 18. 
 
 Small insects throng very high in the 
 twilight air : slight rain does not beat 
 them down, and the swallows do not 
 descend. 
 
 20. 
 
i88 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 July 
 21-31. 
 
 21. 
 
 26. 
 
 27. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Surrey once more. 
 
 Succory blossoming on dry wastes and 
 stony roads with docks and poppies ; its 
 petals lucent blue, and frail, notched at 
 their narrow edge. 
 
 Toadflax spires of yellow bloom, with 
 orange lips, cradling weevils in their pollen. 
 
 Adonis blue butterflies crowding over 
 an odorous purple field of mint. 
 
 Wild clematis over the hedge-thorns; 
 deep red corn-cockle under them. 
 
 Rough hawkbit, like a chastened dan- 
 delion, in flower. 
 
 Starlings whistle and chide on the 
 London roofs, for the first time noticeably 
 since busy May. About the beginning of 
 this month they diminish in numbers and 
 conspicuousness. Now they are roused 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 189 
 
 by the sheet-rain of dawn; lifting their 
 voices as the wind whistles down their 
 chimney-perches. 
 
 The sky cobwebbed with delicatest silk, 
 which the wind sweeps but does not 
 destroy; the webs recur writhing and 
 wildly spun everywhere. 
 
 Thistle-down floats on the winds, and, 
 drifting, lines the wood-hollows tenderly. 
 
 Fading chestnuts smell of decay, not 
 unsweetly, like the earth-odour of spring : 
 their fruit is yet pale and bright. 
 
 Swifts abound in Richmond Park, 
 haunting the ponds there with the swal- 
 lows and martins. 
 
 This wet weather succeeding the late 
 drought favours the pheasant-rearing. 
 
 Crows do far more harm to the game 
 in the Park than hawks : the former use 
 art, and sidle up and wait about all day ; 
 the latter dash, gain or miss, and are off. 
 But a hawk will on occasion seize a chick, 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 July 31. 
 
 August 5. 
 
190 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 August 5. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 or more often the nestling of a song-bird, 
 under the very mouth of the gun. 
 
 The arrival of a hawk is rare and note- 
 worthy now, and though a pair will haunt 
 the plantations with the intent of breeding, 
 it is very rarely that they succeed even in 
 building a nest far more seldom do they 
 hatch. They, with the jays (so common 
 near by, at Wimbledon) and rarer mag- 
 pies, are ruthlessly shot. 
 
 Stoats and weasels are trapped and 
 shot ; and, so ill has this exterminating 
 work been carried out, not one has been 
 seen this summer. 
 
 Owls visit and are shot here. 
 
 Peewits once haunted the low green- 
 sward, rush -tufted, that sweeps to the 
 larger ponds. 
 
 7.30 P.M. the herons return to their 
 nesting trees : five of the birds in close 
 company came over from the west. Each 
 wing-stroke lifts the bird perceptibly, but 
 its course is not thus altered, sinking as it 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 does in the distinct interval between each 
 flap. 
 
 Five pairs of martins have built under 
 the eaves of two houses in a crowded 
 thoroughfare of shops : their hawking is 
 done over mud -pools or chimney -tops, 
 and literally under the horses' feet or 
 the wheels that go by without end. 
 
 Wind breaks up the sheets of scum 
 upon the ponds, so that it appears to 
 sink, but collects again in calm. 
 
 Moorhen builds at this late date in 
 Battersea Park. 
 
 Bittersweet or woody nightshade knits 
 the thorns together with weakening 
 threads of red and green berries, round 
 which the flowers also linger. 
 
 White bryony yet in flower : while its 
 bunched green berries are large and bright. 
 
 191 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 August 6. 
 
 10. 
 
 14. 
 
192 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 August 14. 
 
 17- 
 
 18-31. 
 18. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Herb Robert, whose foliage reddens 
 more and more, and silverweed, are 
 blossoming. 
 
 Oat-harvesting at Merton. 
 
 Already stalks of the wild parsley are 
 stiffened and dead in the woods. 
 
 Ducks gathering insects from the sur- 
 face of a pond at dusk skimming them 
 literally, with sharp snaps of their beaks, 
 which they hardly dip. 
 
 Hedge woundwort blossoming, with 
 willow herb and wild balm. 
 
 Eastbourne. 
 
 Pimpernel in the corn on Beachy Head : 
 with it harebells, toadflax, lotus, and 
 
 poppy- 
 Butterflies on the Downs : all the com- 
 mon Vanessidse, Peacocks and Painted 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Ladies Brimstones Graylings Chalk 
 Hill, Adonis, and Common Blue Argus 
 Fritillaries Small Coppers with 
 bright Burnet moths. 
 
 Swifts still here. 
 
 Yellow horned poppies bursting from 
 the inaccessible cliff-walls. 
 
 Linnets are gathered in small bands, 
 which break up as they alight among 
 the gorse and thistles, each dropping 
 a soft snatch of song in flight. 
 
 Mullein blossoming, with a tall ragged 
 wand, on which the yellow flowers hide 
 inconspicuously in the leaf-axils. This 
 plant, with its flannel-like leaves, thick 
 at the ground, is common on the coast- 
 hills of Glamorgan, between the Mumbles 
 and Langland Bay. 
 
 Wheatears and wagtails come down 
 to the chalk jags with which the beach 
 is littered under the Head, and through 
 
 N 
 
 193 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 August 1 8. 
 
 22. 
 
 31- 
 
194 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Sept. i. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 which glitter the rills of spring-water from 
 the cliff. 
 
 Stonechats in the windy gorse, crying 
 and flitting without end. 
 
 Chiffchaff sings. 
 
 At this time a cuckoo flew up and down 
 a London street, bewildered, sheltering 
 in its limes. 
 
 House -martins still occupied at their 
 nests. 
 
 Herb Robert, red campion, and white 
 campion blossoming commonly through- 
 out the month ; also bird's-foot lotus and 
 chamomile, with common mallow, char- 
 lock, and foamy yarrow. 
 
 Chiffchaff singing: last voice of the 
 migrants, except blackcap and the 
 swallows. 
 
 Clover and an aftermath being cut. 
 
 Leaves filling the ditches: the early- 
 budding limes are many of them leaf- 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 less, others unsullied in their green : 
 larks and pipits gathering on the 
 ploughlands. 
 
 Both convolvuli or bindweeds blos- 
 soming, with red purple-dashed fumitory 
 in the underwood. 
 
 Brimstone butterflies, earliest of the 
 year, are still abroad : Red Admirals, 
 too, and Whites. 
 
 Swallows and martins still at their 
 nests, where the weak young chirrup. 
 
 Sycamore foliage darkening, but un- 
 flushed. 
 
 Bats fly in the evenings : and even in 
 treeless London streets, where lodging 
 for them seems wanting. 
 
 Air suddenly thick with elm -leaves 
 falling : on the sward the decay is beauti- 
 ful until the rains and winds have huddled 
 them, stained and warped, into the root- 
 hollows of the trees. 
 
 The winds become more keen in the 
 
 195 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Sept. 4. 
 
 9- 
 
196 
 
 T n English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Sept. ii. 
 
 1 6. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 thinning trees ; and autumn is in the air 
 despite an opulence of sunlight. 
 
 Martins leave us for a few days, and 
 return unexpectedly, still playing about 
 their nests. 
 
 Cold white fog, whose moisture is 
 beaded exquisitely in the late flowers 
 of white bryony and buttercup. 
 
 Wood -pigeons cooing, their nests still 
 undeserted. 
 
 Shoots of young gorse pierce the fire- 
 blackened sward; and in the clustered 
 spikes grey buds show and swell. New 
 green life wakens every day : in winter 
 ground-ivy leaves do not fail to broaden, 
 and deepen in hue. 
 
 Chiffchaff lingers, still with song. 
 
 Cobwebs slung anew each morning on 
 the furze ; their threads hung with globes 
 from the mist, which make them visible ; 
 but the weaver is hidden. 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Ragged - robins flowering still ; also 
 premorse scabious. 
 
 Robin, the spirit of autumn woods, 
 sings at daybreak and dusk unfailingly 
 each day. The bleakest spot does not 
 daunt him : on the harsh western waste 
 he sings, even now, below the level of 
 shrub and flower, among the rocks with 
 the sea-pies. 
 
 Cinquefoil in blossom on the mounds. 
 
 Larks sing and soar : others only twitter. 
 
 Poppy, ragwort, white bedstraw, and 
 succory flowering at Carshalton. 
 
 The umbelliferse, parsley and parsnip, 
 we must associate with the summer 
 migrants ; at whose home-coming they 
 first become conspicuous and blossom, 
 whose nests they shelter, and whose 
 hidden hedge -paths they cover, and at 
 whose vanishing they wane : they now 
 put forth a last flower. 
 
 197 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Sept. 21. 
 
 22. 
 
 28. 
 
i 9 8 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Sept. 28. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Lime -leaves are breaking out anew 
 in the bared groves. 
 
 Catkins swelling, and growing con- 
 spicuous on the hazels, under whose 
 leaves they hid in earliest August. 
 
 Flowers on the blackberry-bushes ; they 
 outlast the fruit, and keep up the bee- 
 song by their late sweetness. 
 
 Starlings " mobbing " a kestrel high in 
 the air. Though the hawk meant them 
 no harm, and had not the power to hurt 
 such a band, they tilted at him whenever 
 he attempted to poise for a descent, and 
 upset his balance. The starlings were 
 loud as they closed about the hawk, 
 but seemed never to touch him. 
 
 Last swallows seen. 
 
 Blue burly beetles in crowds upon the 
 hills, with spinning and often lofty flight ; 
 glancing suddenly from the earth as if 
 singed like moths from flame. They are 
 attracted by the sheep's droppings, in 
 which they mine and are hid. The sward 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 199 
 
 they will tunnel until it is torn in all 
 directions. 
 
 On these cold misty dawns the sparrows 
 chirp far more persistently than before, 
 as if for company's sake, when they can- 
 not venture far. With the starlings there 
 is an endless round of musical talk, 
 huddled as they are in the elms. The 
 character of the morning may often be 
 told by the sparrows' chirrup. Often- 
 times they attempt a song, but the 
 sequence of notes, sweet in themselves, 
 is not pleasing, and the effort is very 
 apparent. 
 
 Harebells flowering, and throughout the 
 month, with dwarf red-rattle, among the 
 rush-tufts with lipped flowers and mossy 
 thick leaves ; sheep's scabious ; ragwort ; 
 hawkweeds ; field speedwell ; yarrow ; 
 second woodbine wreaths ; tormentil ; 
 buttercup ;. bramble ; dove's-foot crane's- 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 October I. 
 
200 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Oct. 3. 
 
 12. 
 
 17- 
 
 20. 
 
 bill ; herb Robert ; wild thyme'; eye- 
 bright ; black knapweed ; and wild 
 parsnip. 
 
 Blackcap singing in the bared hazels. 
 
 Uproar among the assembled rooks and 
 daws at sundown ; such wild flights occur 
 at all seasons, perhaps chiefly in the large 
 autumn flocks. Country-folk call similar 
 exhibitions "winding the blanket." Fre- 
 quently they seem to circle round an 
 imaginary globe in the air, within 
 the bounds of which they hardly 
 enter. 
 
 Convolvulus leaves stricken yellow. 
 
 Larks singing. 
 
 Bloom on the sloe, like the colour of 
 the late scabious flower. 
 
 Wood-pigeons with rooks at the acorns. 
 
 Hawthorn blossoming, in scattered 
 sprays, on Wandsworth Common ; while 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 the leaves are gone, or going, with purple 
 about them. 
 
 Fallow bucks gathered and grunting at 
 Richmond. 
 
 Wrens singing in flight. 
 Chaffinches banded in small numbers 
 among the oaks. 
 
 Gulls appear for a day or two on the 
 Thames, at Hammersmith. 
 Last martins seen. 
 
 Blossoms found also throughout the 
 month : harebell, herb Robert, field speed- 
 well, black knapweed, bramble, fumitory, 
 dead nettles, feverfew, small bugloss, 
 creeping crowfoot, shepherd's purse, 
 chickweed ; and a last flake of hawthorn. 
 
 Drooping clusters of coral berries on 
 the spindle - tree bursting, to expose 
 orange fruit within. 
 
 " Old man's beard " of the wild 
 
 20 1 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Oct. 20. 
 
 26. 
 
 28. 
 
 Nov. 2. 
 
202 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Nov. 2. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 clematis flecking the hedges ; like the 
 tail-feathers of a bird of paradise. 
 Solitary linnet sings. 
 
 Tinge of red on the tops of the wands 
 in the withy -beds, like a hovering mist 
 over the green. 
 
 Fieldfares crowding, with their racket- 
 ing cries, to the hips in the hedges. 
 
 Peewits arriving in the fields of Merton; 
 which is, of all places, the nearest to 
 London haunted by these birds. They 
 come yearly at about this date, staying 
 four months of the year. All their time 
 is spent on the ploughed fields ; and, 
 though they take great lofty flights, roost 
 always in these fields. When disturbed 
 they rise together even in the darkness, 
 and wheel far and high before alighting. 
 They never enter woods. Their nearest 
 nesting station, for they never build here, 
 is probably in the neighbourhood of 
 Croydon. 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 After heavy rain the elms are stained 
 down their grey bark as if seared with 
 heated iron ; beeches also are marked 
 black down their green -coated boles by 
 spring-like rills of rain from above, or by 
 condensed mist. 
 
 Fog pierces where rain and wind can- 
 not, and is more terrible than all to the 
 wild things of the wood more certain 
 even than frost. 
 
 Two elms in a Croydon hollow, 
 purely green and unchanged apparently 
 by autumn ; but elsewhere the elms are 
 leafless. It is noticeable that leaves in 
 bunches still cling to elms and poplars 
 in London streets, where the trees are 
 neighboured by gas -lamps. The heat, 
 though intermittent, appears to be the 
 cause of this. 
 
 Russet clusters of " keys," or fruit, on 
 the ash -trees. These keys, which have 
 a bitterish taste, like carroway-seeds, and 
 
 203 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Nov. 8. 
 
 9- 
 
204 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 In English 
 
 are eaten by country lads, are favoured 
 
 Fields and 
 Woods. 
 
 by the bullfinches, who will clear them 
 
 Nov. 9. 
 
 unaided later in the season. 
 
 
 Linnets at the heads of thistles and 
 
 
 docks, which they have nearly stripped. 
 
 
 Briers and brambles laden with fallen 
 
 
 leaves in masses that look like nests. 
 
 
 Thrushes and blackbirds come home 
 
 
 singly at twilight to the beeches and keep 
 
 
 a clamour of answering cries. 
 
 12. 
 
 Beech - trunks covered with ledges of 
 
 
 wrinkled fungus. 
 
 
 Grass, a rarer green when it is shorn 
 
 
 by the rabbits about their burrows. 
 
 
 Many hips are now blackened and 
 
 
 shrivelled by frost, but the silky seeds 
 
 . 
 
 within are safe ; several are unfaded 
 
 
 scarlet amongst them. 
 
 
 Wonderful bunches of big haws on the 
 
 
 whitethorns, but untouched by the birds ; 
 
 
 whilst the hips are almost cleared from 
 
 
 the briers. 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Tall white grasses standing in the 
 woods, their streamer leaves quivering 
 on every wind. 
 
 Oak smothered in green ivy, which 
 hides its true leaflessness. 
 
 Oval willow - buds, green and nut- 
 brown, alternate from side to side up 
 the branches. 
 
 Thick bands of chaffinches in rhodo- 
 dendrons at Richmond ; which evergreen 
 cover they love and roost in. 
 
 Wood-pigeons come home from their 
 forays in the oaks, late, and in broken 
 companies. 
 
 Starlings appear now in vast flocks, 
 which the strong winds beat swiftly earth- 
 ward ; but such bands cross London even 
 in the spring high over the city. 
 
 Fieldfares in the woods rather than the 
 hedges under storm. 
 
 At nightfall a woolly mist creeps ir- 
 
 205 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Nov. 12. 
 
 16. 
 
 20. 
 
206 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Nov. 20. 
 
 23- 
 
 regularly about the gorse, overflowing 
 in the hollows, swathing the limes low 
 down; deep only as the gorse -bushes 
 vanishing slowly and inexplicably as it 
 came. Often the mist is so shallow 
 and white that it silvers the green 
 like rime. 
 
 Fresh green heather-sprays coming up 
 through the old blackness, about which 
 bleached flowers still hang. 
 
 At about this time, or earlier, the 
 little blue-tits visit the streets of Lon- 
 don, where their petty migrations lead 
 them for weeks up and down the trees, 
 poplars or willows, that sparingly line 
 the back-gardens. 
 
 Wind blowing dirges in the black 
 woods ; yet hazels have put out a sweet 
 green leaf, smitten, however, in one 
 morning, to yellow along its edge. 
 
 Chaffinches with greenfinches spend the 
 nights frequently in the dense hollies ; 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 their hour of retirement is more decid- 
 edly before sunset now than ever. 
 
 Rabbits out in the wet windy night, 
 hurrying like vague shadows over the 
 heath. 
 
 Fog thick and silent, but enters into 
 the woods not at all, or so dispersed as 
 to be hardly noticed. 
 
 Catkins swelling on the birches ; they 
 are silent now, but in May at their birth 
 made a pattering against the stiff leaves. 
 
 Willows cut in the beds. 
 
 Hedge - sparrows singing ; and inter- 
 mittently, with wren and robin, through 
 the winter. 
 
 Seven herons arriving late at the Rich- 
 mond settlement. 
 
 A sparrow-hawk flew over ; in autumn, 
 released from nesting duties, they wander, 
 like most birds, more than at other times. 
 
 A late bat abroad. 
 
 207 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Nov. 23. 
 
 27. 
 
 30. 
 
208 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Nov. 30. 
 
 Dec. i. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Weeding the Penn Ponds at Rich- 
 mond ; just as they sink, rotting, below 
 the surface, and become less hindrance 
 to fishing. 
 
 Blossoms conspicuous in the month : 
 Corn - feverfew, chickweed with many 
 white stars, cinquefoil, tormentil, dead 
 nettles, field speedwells, and fumitory. 
 
 Caged chaffinch sings. 
 
 Rain glistens on the walls at night like 
 the path of many snails. 
 
 Narrow gusts of wind race over the 
 water, whipping its pale surface to rapid 
 streaks of black like cloud -shadows on 
 summer hills. 
 
 Leafless birch beautiful yet like a liv- 
 ing fountain of branches in the wind, 
 such grace and lightness. 
 
 Felling the old willows that leant by 
 the Wandle near Wimbledon, once a 
 sweet spot with the green pennon leaves 
 mirrored in the trouty waters. The 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 elms also are going one by one, and 
 the old path blocked. 
 
 Snow lightly around, yet I see spring 
 signs: delicate new sprouts of many 
 herbs ground -ivy, goose-grass, nettle, 
 wild parsnip all pale with youth ; sticky 
 young shoots about the flaky yew-bole. 
 
 Cold fog and frost : the numbed, fright- 
 ened birds will not leave the trees, but 
 chirrup feebly through the curtain to one 
 another. 
 
 Barred, sober -hued November moths 
 cling to the oak palings, where they over- 
 lap. 
 
 Low young beeches keep their leaves 
 whilst the tall exposed trees have been 
 stripped. 
 
 Twin buds of woodbine opening out. 
 Skin of the stout woodbine -stems, that 
 cling about the oaks like rigging, is al- 
 ways frayed and hanging, 
 o 
 
 209 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Dec. 7. 
 
 II. 
 
210 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Dec. 21. 
 
 28. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Larks and sparrows unite their flocks. 
 
 Thrushes sing short broken melodies. 
 
 Bullfinches and wrens singly in the 
 frost. 
 
 Fresh fronds of yarrow rising. 
 
 Loud shuffling of the blackbirds in the 
 undergrowth. 
 
 Hazel -catkins reddening with a faint 
 flush, like fat short caterpillars, in bunches 
 of two, three, four, or five. 
 
 Pheasants roosting at night, very 
 conspicuous on the bare boughs ; sleep 
 heavily and do not readily quit their 
 perches. 
 
 Wheat ears linger singly in the gorse. 
 
 Wretched squatter's dwelling in the 
 midst of a bare joyless common rude 
 plank shed, patched with sacks, and 
 hedged by a mound of sods with thorns 
 at top, and birches sheltering the cote of 
 the pigeons, who mingle with ducks and 
 curs within the enclosure. 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Year opens mild, with the happy songs 
 of blackbird and thrush thick in the 
 woods ; green shoots rising everywhere ; 
 all life is quick and glad ; the fallow deer 
 idle in the tempered sun under the oaks 
 at Richmond, or sip the water through 
 budding buttercups and weeds. 
 
 Wood -pigeons crowd to the oaks at 
 sundown, clattering loudly. 
 
 Hips quite gone from the briers, though 
 empty husks are left. 
 
 One oak shadowy with leaves, while 
 its neighbour is black and bare. 
 
 The robin, when alarmed, leaves his 
 perch, but immediately on realighting 
 opens his song once more with breathless 
 eagerness. He is always thus impetuous ; 
 no song is more passionate than his. His 
 especial haunt is the heap of dead leaves 
 that drifts to the shelter of palings : on 
 the palings he sings; among the leaves 
 he finds more worms than elsewhere. On 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Jan. 7, 
 1896. 
 
 8. 
 
212 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Jan. 8. 
 
 ii. 
 
 13- 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 rainy mornings, when he cannot sing, he 
 keeps up a challenging chatter, or a whine, 
 which also he uses at sundown. 
 
 Lifelessness under Esher pines, whose 
 unbroken dark the birds do not love ; few 
 sounds but the harpy-cries of jays or the 
 clatter of rising wood-pigeons. 
 
 Cole-tits play in the dense foliage, with 
 sweet callings like fairy-bells. 
 
 Squirrels betray themselves by a loud 
 scratching of the brittle bark as they 
 climb; they rise by jerks, pausing at the 
 end of each impulse, to reconnoitre. 
 
 Birches and oaks still look blue through 
 a mile of clear air. 
 
 Midges dancing over stagnant pools. 
 
 Earth-worms busy in the soil, which 
 rains and sweet west winds have loos- 
 ened. 
 
 Every day the notes of blackbird and 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 thrush become freer, richer, and con- 
 tinued longer into the twilight. 
 
 Sparrows build busily with rag and 
 rope and straw, in London streets. 
 
 Leaves of last year still very thick, 
 many even green, upon the brambles. 
 
 After a short dull frost, the air is once 
 more clear and bright and vocal. The 
 bare yellow-brick walls of London answer 
 to the sun, and heighten to a wheat-field's 
 gold. The sky itself becomes dazzling 
 with its blue, even towards the north. 
 
 Rooks rising and diving about their 
 nests, which they begin to look to. 
 
 New growths of crowfoots, thistle, dan- 
 delion, and sorrel shooting up. 
 
 The first skylark of the year sings, but 
 hidden in mists. 
 
 For the last few weeks the twigs near 
 the elm-tops seem to swell, and thicken 
 to a mist. The purpling opening flower- 
 
 213 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Jan. 13. 
 
 23- 
 
 24. 
 
214 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Jan. 24. 
 
 29. 
 
 30. 
 
 buds, which are tipped with deeper colour 
 like a daisy, are the cause of this. On 
 the lower boughs they do not yet appear. 
 
 Dock -leaves thickening green about 
 the base of the stout old stems. 
 
 Brambles still thick enough with cling- 
 ing leaves to hide the wrens. 
 
 Titmice continue in bands, but of de- 
 creasing size. 
 
 Young wheat rising high where there 
 was clover last autumn ; already the pale- 
 green stalks, though wide apart as yet, 
 hide the sparrows and blackbirds prob- 
 ing there. 
 
 Gorse- blossom opening in sheets over 
 the commons. 
 
 Great double daffodils and pale bunch- 
 ing narcissi sold by thousands in the 
 streets at stalls. 
 
 Snowdrops flowering under elms, out- 
 casts or colonists from a garden near. 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Albino sparrow in Wimbledon town : 
 very dull colour, but almost completely 
 white or grey. 
 
 French violets offered commonly for 
 sale. 
 
 Frost on the first days, and fog, that 
 throw things back slightly ; but all is now 
 bright and warm. 
 
 The air of what even now seems spring, 
 is " radiant with arrowy vitalities." 
 
 Celandine, pilewort, leaves appear. 
 
 Herons busy in their quarters at Rich- 
 mond Park. At least eight nests ap- 
 peared complete, so that their nesting 
 this year is very forward. In rising from 
 us they made strange cries, snortings, 
 and blowings such as could not be ex- 
 pected of them. 
 
 Wood-pigeons still in huge numbers in 
 the same wood ; taking an hour to settle 
 finally for the night, with noisy flapping 
 
 215 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Feb. 3. 
 
216 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Feb. 7. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 as they dive looking much paler in 
 plumage than at other times. 
 
 Crow, though unpermitted, has a nest 
 along with the herons. 
 
 Ducks wandering in the underwood and 
 rhododendrons, pairing thus early. 
 
 Great companies of rooks and daws 
 crowding to the places where deer have 
 lain in the afternoon. 
 
 Many oaks felled at this time in Rich- 
 mond Park. 
 
 Linnets in bands still. They are of all 
 birds the most sociable, and are seen 
 Jflocking in every month of the year. In 
 the nesting season they gather for the 
 harvest of dandelion -seeds; all through 
 the summer they fly in loose companies 
 over the gorse ; and in autumn their flocks 
 become larger and more compact in time 
 for the seeds of thistle -plumes and red 
 dock-spires, which are completely stripped. 
 Their song is irrepressible, and at all times 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 217 
 
 they break into music ; their lightest chir- 
 rup is unequalled for tenderness and sweet- 
 ness. As a rule, their companies are to 
 be noticed for a certain carelessness of 
 array ; yet they roost close together, often 
 with pipits and red-polls, in the furze. 
 
 Finches when in flocks over the furrows 
 are, as a rule, in perfect condition as to 
 flesh and plumage, even in frost but only 
 so long as the snow is withheld. 
 
 On the wrinkled gorse- boughs splash- 
 ings of fungus are bright almost as the 
 blossom over them ; others are deli- 
 cately pink, trembling into amber at 
 their edges. 
 
 Larks still in small bands. 
 
 Long taper blades of grass arch grace- 
 fully from tussocks, which the decay and 
 rooting of years have raised into consider- 
 able mounds, in which herbs find root- 
 hold. 
 
 An elder-tree at Wimbledon covered in 
 fresh green leaf. 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Feb. 9. 
 
218 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Feb. 9. 
 
 Partridges begin to pair; racing low 
 down with their twanging cry. 
 
 Great tit singing a song which is a 
 foretaste of the chiffchaff's. 
 
 J 4- Black poplars thick with fat woolly 
 
 catkins. 
 
 Larks become so impetuous in song, 
 they sing in their least flights from tuft to 
 tuft of grass in the meadows where they 
 play, and will fight anon. They dance in 
 the air singing. 
 
 Clamours of starlings grow louder ; at 
 dawn they seem to strain for the longest, 
 wildest pipe. 
 
 Feb. 15 to 
 
 March 28. 
 
 Feb. 15. 
 
 Swindon, Wilts. 
 
 Mounds thick with leaves though bare 
 of grass : ground -ivy lengthening its trails 
 nettles rising thistles and teasels 
 spreading prone cuckoo -pint unrolling 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 goose - grass thick but low crinkled 
 leaves of garlic-mustard begin to ascend 
 in spires young yarrow-fronds compact 
 as yet like a dormouse's tail elder- 
 foliage bronzed while budding. 
 
 Lesser celandine, a firstling bloom. 
 
 Linnets singing. 
 
 Silk-white catkins have burst from the 
 brown willow-buds. 
 
 Moss everywhere a winter growth one 
 delicate curl from the crisp dead stem of 
 a tall grass. 
 
 Primroses blossoming with the snow- 
 drops, in a garden. 
 
 Crimson hazel-flower, in minute tufts; 
 their numbers if standing frost foretell 
 a good nutting year. 
 
 Wild primrose flowering alone ; but 
 violet-buds are hard yet. 
 
 Dog's mercury commonest herb along 
 the mounds. 
 
 219 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Feb. 15. 
 
 16. 
 
In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Feb. 1 8. 
 
 19. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Hedger cutting a hedge which had not 
 been trimmed for more than forty years, 
 and whose briers and thorns in a thick 
 belt occupied half an acre in a small field. 
 He meets with a fat sleeping hedgehog 
 now and then, but it is getting late, and 
 the creatures begin to breed and lose 
 their fat. Their oil the hedger holds a 
 sovereign remedy for hoarseness, &c., 
 applied to throat or chest. His work 
 begins with looking to the cows before 
 daylight; his wages 2s. a- day with a 
 small cottage ; his billhook he calls a 
 " 'ookut." 
 
 Chaffinch flocks in the rickyards; yet 
 every hedge has its lonely chaffinch sing- 
 ing ceaselessly. The flocks may consist 
 of still undisbanded hens. 
 
 Ladybirds abroad. 
 
 Palm-like, evergreen spurge laurel tall 
 in the hedges. 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE, 
 
 Wood-sanicle leaves paving the woods 
 where anemones blossom later. 
 
 Long tangle of bedstraws in the ditches. 
 
 Yellow-ammers sing. 
 
 Bees on the sunny walls. 
 
 Companies of wood-pigeons digging for 
 new-sown vetches. 
 
 Young rabbits already strong and 
 abroad. 
 
 Coltsfoot blossoming. 
 
 Peewits swerve in their flight like one 
 bird as sandpipers wheel on the sea- 
 shore. 
 
 Goblet -like seed-vessels of red -robin 
 begin to drop pale, with edges curling 
 daintily back. 
 
 Golden plover arrive on a day of frost, 
 and stay for a month, chiefly in the 
 ploughed fields ; swift ordered flight, 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Feb. 20. 
 21. 
 
 22. 
 
 23- 
 
222 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Feb. 23. 
 
 24. 
 
 with a loud swish of wings and wild 
 whistling. An old friend, a west-country- 
 man, calls them the "seven whistlers," 
 and deems their passing an ill omen. 
 
 " He the seven birds hath seen that never part, 
 Seen the 'seven whistlers' in their nightly rounds, 
 And counted them." x 
 
 Bullfinches busy, in a frost, at the ash- 
 keys, left till now untouched : in a few 
 days they are almost gone, though the 
 birds are not plentiful. 
 
 The bullfinch's song has more sweet- 
 ness than is acknowledged ; low, inward, 
 but accomplished frequently, and like a 
 chastened violin. 
 
 Canal is ice-bound ; but green buds 
 swell on the hawthorns. 
 
 25. In a corner of the garden at the rear 
 
 of Coate Farm we find a round brick 
 summer - house, with conical thatched 
 
 1 Wordsworth. 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 roof, circular window opening south, 
 low doorway, and a seat running round 
 the interior: this house was built by 
 Richard Jefferies alone with his own 
 hands, and is that mentioned in 'Wild 
 Life in a Southern County.' 
 
 Beeches and firs of the isolated hill- 
 top clump at Liddington all blown to 
 a leaning angle by the west wind; in 
 the valley also the same wind has bowed 
 many pines. 
 
 " Oont land," a land of many moles, 
 near the old "castle" or encampment 
 at Liddington ; acres of land ruffled 
 by great mole-heaps. 
 
 Hare's form, where there is no grass 
 a slot in the ground, deep at one end for 
 his hind-quarters. 
 
 Limes ruddy with leaf-buds. 
 
 Flocks of yellow - ammers in the fir- 
 trees. 
 
 The hare- in his form rises slowly bit 
 
 223 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Feb. 25. 
 
 26. 
 
224 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 Feb. 27. 
 
 28. 
 
 29. 
 
 March I. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 by bit, and returns, as carefully, after a 
 stretch of his hind-legs or reconnoitre. 
 
 South wind breaks up the ice ; house- 
 flies hum over an inch of thawing ice. 
 
 Leaves bursting on bramble and brier. 
 Starlings have got the visiting plover's 
 whistle by heart already. 
 
 Stout dock- stems hide each a spider 
 in their hollows. 
 
 Bow-legged beetles begin to climb 
 clumsily about the grass, in sable-bright 
 armour : they move the second leg of 
 one side with the first and third on the 
 opposite side at each step. 
 
 Moorhens' feet, treading the mud like 
 "ski" on snow, leave broad-arrow prints. 
 
 Larks have paired, and fly, hover, and 
 feed in couples ; resorting often to the 
 roadsides. 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 22$ 
 
 At the passing of a kestrel starlings and 
 fieldfares rise in fright to meadow elms, 
 squealing long after the threat is past. 
 
 Dog's mercury flowering. 
 
 The first violet. 
 
 Kestrel buffeting in the air with two 
 rooks, who rival him in adroitness but 
 not in speed. 
 
 Hares prefer to face the apparent 
 and combatable danger of men and dogs 
 to the treacherous net, scented though 
 unseen, by a gateway : they bolt between 
 the legs of the poachers and dogs the 
 latter being slow, and fit only for driving 
 game. 
 
 Water-voles have faint winding "runs" 
 on the beds of streams, worn as they 
 swim, according to their habit, at the 
 very bottom of the water; the "runs" 
 are rapidly erased by the water. 
 
 Golden plover manoeuvre for an hour 
 p 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 March 2. 
 
226 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 March 4. 
 
 at a time ascending high and wan- 
 dering far. But their " wedge " forma- 
 tion is carefully observed ; and even 
 when split up aloft, by a wind or vary- 
 ing strength, several wedges appear side 
 by side. 
 
 Rooks advanced in their building; but 
 twenty birds, some of them strangers, 
 quarrel loudly over the three nests which 
 were all that were necessary before to 
 the diminutive colony. 
 
 Elms glow startingly rust - red with 
 flowers in sunlight. 
 
 At evening a new sound is heard, the 
 hissing of fallen rain through the grass- 
 blades into the earth. 
 
 "Tump" means a small mound. 
 "Tumps" are formed in meadows by 
 the piling of roots and blades of a coarse 
 tufty grass called " bull - polls "; sweet 
 grass soon covers the mound, and it 
 then resembles a tumulus. 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Rabbits out on the windy side of the 
 hedge in storm at night. 
 
 Kestrel sways in the lightest wind, 
 like a ship on a calm sea; beats along 
 the hedge, up and down in small curves, 
 hovering at the summit of each some- 
 times at the height of only a yard or two. 
 Starlings pass him fearlessly. 
 
 Kingfishers up and down the brook 
 together; building at some distance. 
 They give a high - pitched squeal, par- 
 ticularly on alighting, when they bob 
 their heads nervously. 
 
 The first tortoise - shell butterfly zig- 
 zagging out in the sunlight. 
 
 Kingfishers build in the hollow stem of 
 an old willow, leaning like its neighbours 
 threateningly over the stream, which has 
 loosened the soil about their roots. 
 
 Willow-catkins hoary, green, and gold : 
 the last on the upper boughs. 
 
 227 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 March 6. 
 
228 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 March 10. 
 
 12. 
 
 Moorhen's cry sounds as if uttered 
 while the bird's mouth was full of 
 water. 
 
 Water-vole occupies a heap of flood- 
 wrack on the shore, caught by willow- 
 boughs ; there, in hiding, he curls up 
 in a ball, and, shutting his eyes, may 
 be touched or handled. 
 
 Though the weather is mild, the earth 
 is bitterly cold, as the mole - catcher 
 finds it. 
 
 Hawthorns fully in leaf. 
 
 Crab-tree leaf-buds burst. 
 
 Frogs spawning on an approach they 
 dive to the bottom-weeds of the water ; 
 while here a leg is upthrust, or a yellow 
 mottled leg protrudes. 
 
 A dull warmth to - day which the 
 chaffinch loves in which he sings most 
 and best. 
 
 Dumb-bell-shaped red ants occupy the 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 wrinkling roots of a great water- dock; 
 these roots reach an enormous size, 
 are white within, and medicinal. 
 
 Bands of yellow - ammers and chaf- 
 finches still abroad. 
 
 Ground-ivy blossoms. 
 
 " Snow on the mountains," Alyssum 
 saxatile, a fleecy show in cottage-gardens. 
 
 Common snake abroad. 
 
 Blackthorns flushed with blossom-buds. 
 
 Common moschatel in flower. 
 
 Wrens begin to build. 
 
 An old willowed garden, with elms 
 around, where wildings are permitted 
 Wood sorrel, ivy -leaved toadflax, anem- 
 ones, moschatel, pilewort, ground -ivy, 
 climbing the rockeries. 
 
 Green curled fronds of hart's- tongue 
 fern linger on the mounds as though 
 fresh ; as yet young shoots barely show. 
 
 229 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 March 13. 
 
 16. 
 
 18. 
 
 19. 
 
230 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 March 21. 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 Great tit has a little sweet song, like 
 " 'tis sweet 'tis sweet." 
 
 Chiffchaff arrives one here, one there ; 
 singing always, even in flight; among 
 others singing on the wing are wren, 
 pipits, buntings, linnet, robin rarely, 
 whitethroat, cuckoo, and all the swallows. 
 
 An undertone of summer's insect-song 
 has begun. Innumerable bees around 
 the willow's " palms," burying themselves 
 in the gold. 
 
 Gnats thicken in the air, with finer 
 music than the bees. 
 
 " Skaters " first out on the brooks ; 
 resting like a boat with outriggers ; 
 moving like boat and oarsman in one. 
 
 Caterpillar abroad on a grass-blade 
 beautiful with orange, black, dun, and 
 blue in stripes and spots. 
 
 Nine -angled coltsfoot leaves begin to 
 show; as a rule, after the flowers. 
 
 Always a sweet tender ending to the 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 lark's song, as he pauses in his fall 
 to the sward, "hear it hear it hear 
 it." 
 
 A richness, now first felt, in the atmos- 
 phere, as if the sun drew fragrances from 
 the earth. 
 
 The grass fairly ripples with the sweet 
 small life of creatures in shining mail 
 flies and beetles. 
 
 Tortoise-shell butterfly at the coltsfoot 
 blossom ; but he would not touch it when 
 gently placed between the leaves of a 
 book though bees will follow a garland 
 into a house. 
 
 Peewits always alight with slowly 
 closing wings, as if conscious of grace 
 and colour ; so, too, gulls settling in 
 the sea. 
 
 Nest of five thrush's eggs ; date of first 
 laying igth. 
 
 231 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 March 21. 
 
 23- 
 
232 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 March 23. 
 
 24. 
 
 Willows and crab-trees nearly in full 
 leaf at Coate. 
 
 Wood anemones, delicately flush, 
 blossom at Burderop. 
 
 Hazels coming into leaf. 
 
 Flags show a foot above the water of 
 the brooks. 
 
 Hairy bitter cress in white flower ; 
 petals almost hid by long seed-pods. 
 
 First blossoms of red -robin and cow- 
 slip. 
 
 Brimstone and peacock butterflies 
 abroad. 
 
 Wood-pigeons travelling still in troops. 
 
 Fieldfares gather, clattering in the 
 elms at noon, and in the larches 
 with their chains of alternate leaf and 
 flower. 
 
 Blackbirds are laying ; robins also, and 
 hedge-sparrows. 
 
 Tender still air of the twilight ; when 
 
THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 233 
 
 ' 'the gentleness of rain was in the 
 wind." 
 
 Bats begin to flit. 
 
 Marsh-marigolds flowering. 
 
 Elms in leaf. 
 
 Flowers of wood-sorrel. 
 
 Blackthorn bloom. 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 March 24. 
 
 2 5- 
 
 26. 
 
 An early cuckoo-flower. 2 7- 
 
 Water-crickets stirring. 
 Purple periwinkle in flower. 
 
 Orchard trees lit with blossom. 28. 
 
 Chestnuts coming into leaf. 
 
 Deep-red blossom clusters on the ash ; 29. 
 
 odorous of the earth, or of peeling 
 bark. 
 
 Missel- thrushes sing on Wandsworth 
 Common. 
 
234 
 
 THE WOODLAND LIFE. 
 
 In English 
 
 Fields and 
 
 Woods. 
 
 March 30. 
 
 Dull dry days, but calm beautiful 
 nights. 
 
 Gorse - thorns, like fir - needles, form 
 a friable mat of soil on the surface ; 
 gorse wastes almost as much as the 
 bramble, in the number of its lesser 
 branches which decay each year. 
 
 Poplar-twigs daily more jagged with 
 breaking leaf-buds. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS. 
 
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