S>tate Collese of ^sriculture 
 
 Sit Cornell WlnitttSitf 
 
 Jftiiata, i^. $. 
 
 ILibrarp 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 TIURICDtTDRE'DE'PARfiSr'' 
 CORNELL UNI LR3ITY 
 ITHACA, NEW YORK 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924002830721 
 
In Garden Orchard 
 and Spinney 
 
First Edition. June iSgJ 
 Reprinted, Jamary i8g8 
 
In Garden Orchard 
 and Spinney 
 
 BY 
 
 PHIL ROBINSON 
 
 tAutkor of 
 
 RDEN " " Bl 
 AND WOODLAND " &C. 
 
 ' IN MY INDIAN GARDEN " " BIRDS OF THE WAVE 
 
 ISBISTER AND COMPANY Ltd. 
 London 
 
 15 & 16 TAVISTOCK ST. COVENT GARDEN 
 
 MDCCCXCVIII 
 
 w 
 
Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson &> Co. 
 London &• Edinburgh 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 The 3^onth that Looks Two 
 
 Ways 
 
 Fagc 9 
 
 The Famine in 3^y Garden 
 
 
 25 
 
 t£fter the Famine in CMy Garden 
 
 61 
 
 '■'■'Before the Swallow Dares'' 
 
 
 87 
 
 The First Nest of a Rookery 
 
 
 113 
 
 Sunshine and Rain 
 
 
 149 
 
 The Looting of the Orchard 
 
 
 197 
 
 Of Nuts and Nut-Crackers 
 
 
 Z2S 
 
 Bays in the Fall 
 
 
 249 
 
THE MONTH THAT 
 LOOKS TWO WAYS 
 
 WITH a face looking either way, January, 
 the middle month of winter, holds 
 Autumn with one hand and Spring with the 
 other ; a queer empty sort of month, when 
 Nature seems to let things alone, and, between 
 the balanced attractions of either season, to 
 stand, in cold neutrality, aloof. The im- 
 patient Spring may hazard a week of 
 untimely warmth, and the sparrow, ever 
 ready to be tempted, turn him, uxorious, to 
 domestic joys. But Winter jealously super- 
 venes, and the sun hangs crimson in a frozen 
 sky, and the sparrows, married in haste and 
 repenting at leisure, sit, too cold to care for 
 9 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 appearances, ruffled up and contradictory 
 on opposing water-pipes, scandalously apart, 
 and drearily recriminate in chirps. One 
 week the crocus, generous bulb ! with a heart 
 all too large for waiting, pierces the soft 
 earth with its green needle-point of leaf. 
 With the next comes back the Frost, and 
 alas ! for the crocus. But January looks on 
 and watches, and does not interfere. It is 
 the month that waits upon the others, the 
 narrow isthmus of two seasons. Like the 
 rhododendron of the Himalayas, it clings on 
 its bough-tips to the ruddy memories of a 
 summer of flowers that is past, while about 
 its roots it gathers, in rustling heaps, the 
 leaves where the pheasant and the barking 
 deer shall nestle in the chilly days that are 
 coming ; or, conversely, like our own brave 
 English holly, that holds out scarlet signals 
 of a passing winter, and yet, remembering 
 what nest it holds, keeps its leaves green 
 and close for the nightingale of coming 
 summer. 
 
 Ay, the month that looks two ways ! — one 
 face of it sad with Regret, the other glad 
 
 10 
 
The Month that Looks Two Ways 
 
 with Resolve. A resting time, the " breathing 
 hill " of the year of pilgrims. 
 
 I have called it an empty month, but it is 
 only so in the seeming. Underground all 
 the roots are resting ; even the grass, which 
 one would think might be glad of something 
 to do, does not grow ; it does not even take 
 care of itself, is untidy and unkempt ; under 
 the hedges and in odd corners it revels in 
 a mediasval, Merovingian raggedness of 
 growth. The trees and bushes stand about 
 in a brown study, and the nests in them — 
 " What more dreary cold than a forsaken 
 bird's nest filled with snow ? " — are all to let, 
 and dilapidated, tilted up on one side, or 
 sodden flat, the hedge-thorns spiking through 
 them, and dead leaf and empty snail-shell 
 where the pretty eggs have been. Under the 
 hedges the field-mouse and hedge-sparrow 
 go nervous and uncomfortable, for the 
 thawing twigs drip upon them, and the leaves 
 are noisy under their feet. In the grey sky 
 the rooks are blown about, uncertain of their 
 objects, for the grubs are so deep under the 
 soil that it seems hardly worth the birds' 
 II 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 while to settle on the bare fields; the larks, 
 gathered into companies, drift in aimless 
 fashion from farm to farm; but the robin, 
 with his sun-ripened breast, sits above you on 
 the medlar-tree, the master of the ceremonies, 
 cheerily whistling the New Year in, and, if 
 you care to listen, there seems a blither lilt in 
 his voice than when, a week ago, he sang the 
 old year, " with all its cares, to rest." 
 
 A billow of ivy overhangs part of my 
 garden-wall, making a rare shelter against 
 inclement skies for such of the winged insect 
 folk as have overlived the year — a large- 
 eyed, melancholy fly, its body ringed with 
 yellow and brown, transparent with empti- 
 ness, a thing of sad lemurine demeanour and 
 dreamily torpid; a tortoise-shell butterfly, 
 with wings as tattered as any Crimean 
 colours, but holding here and there traces of 
 its autumnal glories ; a blue-bottle infirm and 
 old, hoary with anxieties, that moves wearily 
 under the burden of its days. 
 
 And not insect folk alone. The possessive 
 sparrow does not scorn the thick, close 
 foliage of evergreen, for often as I pass down 
 
 12 
 
The Month that Looks Two Ways 
 
 the garden path I hear little sleepy noises 
 thrown out from under the eaves of the ivy. 
 Protests perhaps at my approach ; or perhaps 
 only conciliatory, apologetic intimations of 
 presence, as deprecating dispossession or dis- 
 turbance. A wonderfully snug retreat it 
 makes too, this solid overflow of green-stuff ; 
 dry, even dusty, in the wettest of times ; 
 weather-proof against all the watering-pots of 
 all the rain-compellers — of Odin the merciless 
 drencher, or Zeus Ombrios, of Pluvial Jove, or 
 Indra Parjanga, he who floods the enormous 
 Ganges, drowning even the crocodiles where 
 they swim, and rolls the Indus, Father of 
 Waters, swollen with the pride of its five- 
 fold tribute from the North, imperious to 
 the sea. 
 
 And the snails are here too, all in a bunch, 
 pretending to be only knobs on the wall, and 
 living, as bears do, upon themselves. 
 
 Now, I have always held the snail in respect 
 as a model to travellers. He is your true 
 " old campaigner." You can never cut him 
 off from his base, for he always takes his base 
 along with him. The objective point of the 
 13 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 small strategist is always, more or less, on 
 his back. He has no lines of communication 
 to be harassed and to be kept open when the 
 enemy is hovering round ; runs no risk of 
 being caught straggling, or without his 
 baggage, belated, or at the mercy of sudden 
 storms. He marches with his zereba ready 
 made for any sudden Arab on-rush, his laager 
 for Zulu surprises. In Afghanistan you shall 
 always find his sungum with him, in Burma 
 his stockade. Indeed, the forethought of 
 this compendious little beast, with its indus- 
 trious ambitions, is very enjoyable, I think. 
 So too is its integrity. Other nomads and 
 gipsies are sudden in their flittings, pre- 
 cipitate, evasive, and spectral. Their appari- 
 tions and evanishments are jerky, zigzag, 
 bothering. You never, so to speak, get 
 nearer them than the ashes of their last night's 
 camp-fire. It is quite different with the 
 snail. He proceeds, by preference. In a right 
 line, and, unless circumstances beyond his 
 control should compel obliquity, he visibly 
 apologises for digression by writing all along 
 his path, "This is the way I have gone." 
 H 
 
The Month that Looks Two Ways 
 
 So conscientious is he that he cannot even 
 bear the suspicion of dodging, but puts you 
 up all the way a continuous sign-post, so that 
 you cannot miss him : he unwinds a bobbin 
 as he goes to his bower : sprinkles crumbs 
 along the path to his cave. Follow up his 
 directions and you will come upon the little 
 pilgrim, either upon the road or resting in 
 his tracks — unless, of course, some hungry 
 thrush or blackbird has anticipated you. 
 And why should folk-lore always deride this 
 sober-sided little person ? 
 
 " Snail, snail, put out your horn, 
 Father and mother are dead. 
 Brother and sister are in the back yard. 
 Begging for barley bread." 
 
 In every language in Europe there are 
 rhymed instructions for beating snails " black 
 and blue," and flouting them as friendless 
 orphans. It is very queer. However, here 
 in my garden they are safe enough for the 
 present. The sparrows do not understand 
 them, and as for the old blue-bottle he is so 
 much occupied in pitying himself he has but 
 little thought for his neighbours. 
 15 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 And we have the lark with us, and the 
 robin, and the wren, delightful birds all three, 
 and our own into the bargain. I am no 
 nightingale enthusiast. Just as operatic stars 
 visit us " for the season," so the maestri of the 
 feathered choir come over for our May and 
 June. It is too hot in Egypt and Palestine ; 
 the food they prefer is scarce there. So they 
 come to England to take advantage of our 
 cool, deep-shaded hoUies for their nesting, and 
 of our exquisite English summer. As soon 
 as their brood are on the wing they fly away 
 with them back to the east and the south, 
 and somehow I cannot help suspecting that 
 they tell them as they go how perfidious the 
 climate is in this England of ours, which is 
 always so glad to see them, always so hospitable, 
 and gives them of its best. Of course I like 
 to listen to the nightingale, its ear-amazing 
 melody. This bird is the crowning glory of 
 our English May, a delightful parable and 
 poem. 
 
 Indeed, I even go so far as to think that it 
 is almost solemn that two little brown birds 
 should have such a charge committed to them 
 i6 
 
The Month that Looks Two Ways 
 
 as the hatching and gearing of a whole nestful 
 of nightingales, and I delight in the dignity 
 of the father which prompts him to cease his 
 singing, as conscious of great responsibilities, 
 as soon as the eggs are pipped. To lighten 
 as it were the anxious hours of his brooding 
 mate, he sits close by, flooding the woodland 
 with overflow of song — 
 
 " Divine melodious truth. 
 Philosophic numbers smooth, 
 Tales and golden histories 
 Of heaven and its mysteries." 
 
 But as soon as the little ones leave their olive 
 shells, he lays by his pipes and turns to helpful 
 work. A lesson to genius. 
 
 It is a delightful bird, this sweet sequestered 
 nightingale, whether at rest, cloistered "among 
 cool and bunched leaves," or busy singing its 
 heart out to the listening night. And yet, 
 and yet, and yet — it only comes after all to 
 see our English daff"odils blow, and goes when 
 the petals of the roses are falling. So I miss 
 it less, this dainty migrant, following the 
 swallow summer from clime to clime, than I 
 
 should do, I think, 
 
 17 B 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 " the pious bird with scarlet breast, 
 Our little English Robin." 
 
 Every one delights in Robin as a winter 
 bird. For myself I like it best in its pious 
 aspect, the bird that " with leaves and flowers 
 doth cover the friendless bodies of unburied 
 men," or else — the ever-enchanting intrigue 
 of it — as the lover of " Jenny " Wren. And 
 the wren, what a bewitching little morsel 
 it looks, when in the leafless publicity of 
 winter it hops about in the empty bushes 
 or perches itself, wee dwarf in feathers, on 
 the wall. 
 
 Yet within its small person, so tradition 
 alleges, it holds necromantic potentialities of 
 a very serious kind, and on one occasion at 
 least was the abiding-place of Beelzebub him- 
 self. Poor little mite ! you do not look like 
 it, skipping in and out the old pea-sticks, and 
 suddenly stopping in your elfin antics to trill 
 a roundelay. 
 
 And the robin up in the medlar-tree listens. 
 
 He is lord of the garden croft ; but he turns 
 
 his shapely head — how the round black eye 
 
 glistens! — and waits till the wren has finished, 
 
 iS 
 
The Month that Looks Two Ways 
 
 and then gives a stave of his own. What a 
 gentleman he is too, this robin of ours, always 
 elegant, always self-possessed. You can never 
 see without respecting him. His every 
 gesture is in good taste, and musicians say 
 his song is singularly correct. Most punc- 
 tilious as to his honour, he is ready to draw 
 his sword at the first hint of insult, and when 
 with his equals, his hand is perpetually clapped 
 to his side, a veritable little fire-eater among 
 his peers, attacking with the light-hearted 
 dash and pursuing with the gallant reckless- 
 ness of a Cavalier. And yet, when the 
 etiquette of robin-hood is not infringed, he is 
 a delightfully well-bred little person, coming 
 into your presence with an unassuming, self- 
 respectful independence that is very engaging, 
 and leaving, when he has said what he has to 
 say, with the same ease of gentle bearing, the 
 same unaffected demeanour. 
 
 How difl'erent is our sparrow ! Thoroughly 
 British, too, but not of the Elizabethan 
 gallant or the Royalist type. For the sparrow 
 is a bullet-headed, opinionated, self-assertive 
 Briton of the " average " kind, and dreadfully 
 '9 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 vulgar ; given, too, to grumbling in all 
 weathers, though living (the London citizen 
 of his kind) in the foremost city of the world, 
 a freeman of it, and availing himself, with an 
 extraordinary presumption, of all contem- 
 porary privileges. The telegraph-poles and 
 wires might have been put up for his con- 
 venience, the vast domes of our railway 
 stations erected to suit his tastes, the omni- 
 buses and tramcars run for his special 
 convenience in locomotion, for he roosts on 
 our wires, nests in the vaulted roofs of our 
 stations, travels on all public conveyances. 
 But this assertion of his rights has endeared 
 the small brown bird — deplorably grubby 
 though he often is — to the British cockney. 
 He is, indeed, a British institution, and a 
 supporter of the British arms too — not in the 
 way that the lion and unicorn may be, but in 
 this, that he follows our armies into every 
 field. Wherever our conquering camps are 
 pitched, there the sparrow takes possession of 
 foreign soil. He flies with our battalions, 
 and, perched on our flag-staffs, chirps his 
 satisfaction in a full-fed, matter-of fact sort of 
 
 20 
 
The Month that Looks Two Ways 
 
 way that is strongly national. Zululand now 
 knows him, and he is familiar in the Soudan ; 
 he is at home among the mulberries in the 
 Candahar bazaars and out on the peach-dotted 
 plains before Cabul. Nor is it only the 
 commissariat waggons of war that he follows, 
 for he goes abroad, a symbol of civilisation 
 and the commercial conquests of peace. 
 Following " the course of Empire westward " 
 the British sparrow has invaded America. 
 Ten years ago it had spread as far as Omaha, 
 on the skirt of the great prairies, and, sailing 
 round the Horn in our merchant vessels, had 
 occupied San Francisco on the Pacific, and 
 spread eastward to Salt Lake City. I looked 
 out for it in my travels, and made notes of it, 
 and I found then that there was a strip some 
 thousand miles wide, running north and 
 south, which the sparrow had not crossed. 
 But by this time he has crossed it, is pecking 
 his food in Cheyenne, and travelling by the 
 Union Pacific across the levels of the Platte. 
 An excellent little fowl, and a hardy, in his 
 own way genial, and in every v/ay strongly 
 British. 
 
 21 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 In the month of January, with his brave 
 little feet planted so firmly in the crust of 
 snow, his plucky little head ruffled by the 
 keen snow-wind, the chirp still so full of 
 heart, he is a lovable bird. He is waiting for 
 his small dues of crumb ; let him have them. 
 By-and-by the frost will be gone, and the 
 wind blow warm and sweet through the bee- 
 beleaguered limes, and there will be birds 
 enough in every bough. 
 
 For January looks forward to the month of 
 daffodils and green-tipped hedgerows. 
 
 And looking backwards, my memory flies to 
 those days in India, where the New Year 
 finds us living under a blue sky, with the 
 gardens at their brightest, and in the morning 
 just that touch of sharpness which tempts us 
 northern folk out into the air, and which 
 shrivels up our Aryan brother, making his 
 limbs shiver under the many-folded blanket 
 in which he creeps about his duties, and his 
 teeth chatter as he sits by the stream, plying 
 his neem-twig toothbrush with " a face on 
 him," as the Americans say, like the ragged 
 edge of despair. And from the road beyond 
 
 22 
 
The Month that Looks Two Ways 
 
 the wall, where the villagers have taken out 
 their pots and pans to the travelling tinker- 
 man, the chink-chink-chink on the metal 
 reaches my ear. 
 
 And suddenly there grows up before the 
 mind the peepul-shaded walls of a many- 
 templed city in the East, and all up and 
 down the street, screened from the sun, 
 January though it be, sit the artificers in brass 
 plying their little hammers, engraving the 
 glittering lotahs with processionary monkeys, 
 peacocks, and fiercely whiskered tigers. And 
 the chink-chink-chink of the engraving 
 needles upon the sharply resonant metal fills 
 the air for a mile round with a myriad of 
 cicada-points of sound that thrill on the 
 ear with a rhythmic pulsation — a perpetual 
 cadence of little insect-notes, as unlike the 
 voice of serious human toil as well can be. 
 Just such sounds do the belated travellers in 
 fairy-books hear when they find themselves 
 on the hillocks where the gnomes have their 
 smithies, and the fairies' anvils ring to the 
 strokes of elfin hammers. 
 
 Looking back ! What a far-off city it 
 23 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 seems that Benares which I know so well, 
 lying to-day — New Year's Day — steeped in 
 clear sunlight, and the water-carrier crying 
 down the street, selling to thirsty folk as he 
 goes. 
 
 24 
 
THE FAMINE IN 
 MY GARDEN 
 
 A FROST overnight, and in the morning a 
 thaw. The February sun so bright that 
 the poor old flies come out and bask in com- 
 pany on the ivy-bloom — the veterans of a 
 year, content in the evening of life to sit still 
 and feel warm once more. Will you laugh 
 at me if I say that there is something very 
 pathetic in this last convention of the little 
 creatures, doomed to die to-night, who have 
 met together " morituri," to salute, for the 
 last time, the Sun .? 
 
 How few they are, these survivors of the 
 countless hosts of summer, and how feeble 
 they look, burly blue-bottles and " hoverers," 
 
 2S 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 with big, bulging eyes, as they creep, hand 
 over hand, on to the centre of the tods of 
 ivy-bloom and sit there — you can almost hear 
 them puffing and wheezing after their exer- 
 tions — to thaw their half-numbed limbs. A 
 wasp, one of those selected by Nature to 
 outlive the winter and found new colonies in 
 Spring, comes upon the scene, self-assertive 
 and bad-mannered as usual. She has scented 
 the aromatic honey in the ivy flowers, and is 
 making the most of the brief time, scrambling 
 greedily from bunch to bunch, and upsetting 
 off each the poor old dozy fly that was sitting 
 on the top, thinking out the end of its life. 
 How unfeelingly robust the busy insect must 
 seem to those melancholy " centenarians " of 
 a twelvemonth, those philosophic invalids, 
 silently sunning themselves once more before 
 they die. 
 
 Ivy-bloom is Nature's last roll-call of the 
 flies. To it muster the battered remnants of 
 great armies of winged folk, and it may be 
 that they think summer has begun again, and 
 looking round and seeing that every tuft of 
 flower is occupied, may imagine that all the 
 26 
 
The Famine in My Garden 
 
 rest of the garden is just as full of their 
 kinsmen as the ivy is, and as the garden used 
 to be when the sun shone every day. And 
 who knows ? Perhaps these old people 
 deceive themselves with the hope that the 
 feebleness which they feel all over is only 
 " passing," and that by-and-by they will be 
 just as they used to be, glossy in coat and 
 strong on the wing, and — the joy of it ! — 
 with noble appetites for the honey of flowers. 
 And dreaming that they are going to be 
 young again soon, they fall asleep in the 
 sunshine, and while they sleep the merciful 
 frost overtakes them, and they dream them- 
 selves one by one off the ivy-bloom, and 
 drop, from leaf to leaf, to the ground. Only 
 the wasp is left. She has filled herself up to 
 the neck, like a bottle, with honey, and, 
 while there was still light to see by, has crept 
 away under the thick ivy, and deep down into 
 the middle of the thatch, where her folk had 
 their nest this year and whence next year she 
 will come forth to start her own. So that 
 this self-assertive, pushing wasp is really, if 
 you think of it, an assurance of coming 
 27 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 Spring. Had she, like the old flies, sat still 
 and got frozen when the sun went down 
 behind the firs, you might have said, " There 
 is an end of it. Winter is coming now." 
 But the wasp has kept herself alive : nothing 
 final or conclusive has happened ; she is 
 there, snug and happy, a link between the old 
 year and a new. So you must not say 
 " Finis " : for it is Springtime that is coming, 
 not Winter. The wasp knows that. If she 
 did not she would die like the hoverers with 
 the big eyes and the blue-bottle that looks so 
 stout, but is really only the husk of a fly. 
 So think as well as you may of the wasp. 
 For she is a gracious reminder of gentler days 
 that are coming, days that are good for the 
 blue-bell and anemone, and when the sun will 
 glitter again on daffodil-trumpets for the bees 
 to blow. 
 
 Has it ever occurred to you what an 
 amazing experience this surviving the winter 
 ought to be to a blue-bottle ? Is it not, as 
 far as the fly is concerned, the end of the world, 
 itself surviving } Where has the sun gone 
 to from out of the sky .? Where too the 
 
The Famine in My Garden 
 
 green earth, beautiful with flowers and 
 the grace of leafy trees ? Where all the 
 insect peoples, the nations of winged folk ? 
 This blue-bottle has actually outlived its 
 year. It has seen " the greater light " founder 
 in the snow-storm, fields and forests shrivel 
 up in catastrophic frost, the air desolated of its 
 myriads by reason of bitter cold. And it is 
 left alone. Not another blue-bottle, so far 
 as it knows, in aU the universe ! Alone, 
 in a miserable immortality of decrepitude and 
 solitariness. 
 
 On the night that the world was overwhelmed 
 in Arctic horrors, it happened to be sleeping 
 in a keyhole, and so in the general overthrow 
 of the firmament was overlooked by the 
 destroyer as he went, and here it is, as wretched 
 as any of those Struldbruggs that Gulliver 
 saw in Luggnagg. 
 
 Do you remember them ? Gulliver 
 imagined them to himself as the happiest of 
 creatures, the sages of the cities, encyclopaedias 
 incarnate, placed' by their vast age and the 
 assurance of perpetuity beyond every senti- 
 ment of uncharitableness, universally reve- 
 29 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 Tenced for their immeasurable wisdom and 
 beloved for their mild benevolence. And 
 then the wretchedness of the reality ! Tooth- 
 less, deaf, blind, decayed, without the sense 
 of taste, imbecile, dead in the eye of the law, 
 unable from the changes of language during 
 successive centuries to converse with their 
 kind, even if their addled minds and com- 
 plete loss of memory had permitted them to 
 articulate, they crawled about in the en- 
 closures in which they were kept, objects of 
 public odium and contempt. Will it come to 
 this with the February blue-bottle ? "When 
 the Spring flies are abroad in their glossy, 
 vigorous youth, will it be a Struldbrugg to 
 them.'' See how infirm it is, how unlike its 
 volatile and nimble kind ! When it creeps 
 out to sit and warm itself in the patch of 
 winter sunshine on the brick-wall, you may 
 push it with your finger, and it will not take 
 alarm. It may fall off in helpless protest 
 on to the bench below, and you can pick it 
 up and put it back on to the brick it fell off. 
 What is the meaning of this apathy ? Per- 
 haps the thing has been stunned with the 
 3° 
 
The Famine in My Garden 
 
 stones that misfortune has flung at it. Afflic- 
 tion has emptied its wallet at it ; the phials 
 of disaster are dry. So have poets and 
 moralists described men and women without 
 number, benumbed and deadened by the 
 repeated blows of grief and careless in the 
 lethargy of despair. Once on a time when 
 the hammer fell, sparks flew out in hot quick 
 remonstrance. But the hearts of them are 
 chilled, dead, blackened, and hard. 
 
 It is true the thing is only an old, very old 
 blue-bottle, but what of that ? Lower your 
 own standards to its small dimensions, and 
 in its way it is as authentic as those Elder 
 Gods whom Keats saw lying outstretched in the 
 valleys of defeat. Has it not survived the 
 shock of the meeting years ? And with the 
 slender thread of its own life bridged across 
 from the past to the future ? You can blow 
 the fly away with a breath, and yet it has had 
 experience of all the solemn epic of a year, 
 sojourned with the Frost-giants in Jotunheim 
 and survived. It has seen Ragnarok, the last 
 twilight, and is still alive. 
 
 In its own tiny way, then, it is very 
 31 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 reverend, this grey atom that has lasted out 
 its epoch. Has it not presumptuously tres- 
 passed upon a geological age to which it does 
 not belong ? It is a prehistoric relic, an old- 
 world beast that has lingered into the present ; 
 the Hermogenes of flies ; the Nestor of blue- 
 bottles. So a happy new year to you. Master 
 Struldbrugg, and if that gout which (if I am 
 not mistaken) makes your little padded feet 
 so lumpy does not go to your heart, you may 
 live after all — who knows.'' — to see the sun 
 shine on the crocuses yet, and when the old 
 machinery inside you suddenly falls to pieces, 
 at every point simultaneously, like Wendell 
 Holmes' Wonderful One-hoss Shay, I hope 
 your inconsiderable fragments may rest, as 
 those of a patriarch should do, in honourable 
 peace. 
 
 And next morning falling snow, and a 
 bitter wind from the north, that whirls it 
 round and round in the open fields, and drifts 
 it up in the lanes, burying the fieldmouse in 
 his winter nest in the bank, and, to the great 
 bewilderment of the travelling rabbits, levelling 
 the ditches with the road. Follow bunny's 
 32 
 
The Famine in My Garden 
 
 tracks up and you can hardly help laughing 
 when you see what happened when he got to 
 the snow-filled ditch. How deep he plunged 
 in and what a fuss he made in getting out ! 
 Lucky for Brer Rabbit, that Brer Fox was 
 not lying low, or there, in the ditch, would 
 have been the end of all his misbehavishness. 
 But he got out all safe and went on, and here, 
 further along, you see is where he crossed 
 into the hedge-row in safety, a sheltered 
 corner with no treacherous drift. 
 
 And the snow still falls till it has covered 
 up the snowdrops, and the winter aconites 
 which the soft mild weather of the early 
 year had wheedled into bloom, and goes on 
 falling till everything has been made beautiful. 
 The laurels and ivy are deeply coped with 
 snow, their broad leaves hold it well, but the 
 japonicas are only outlined in white. The 
 yews, drooping long feathers of snow to the 
 ground, are beautiful beyond words, and the 
 oak's stiff branches straight-stretched before 
 it are spangled to the tips. The leaves of the 
 box and barberry are every one of them 
 fringed with loveliest lace, and the birch, the 
 33 c 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 lady's tree, stands like a bride in her veil. 
 The firs are wonderful, weird, and fairy-tale- 
 like — what might not easily happen at 
 Christmas time in a forest of fir trees ! — and 
 beautiful, above all, are the great elms like 
 frozen fountains. Every tree, every shrub, 
 takes the snow to its own personal adornment 
 as it will, or as it may, and the loveliness is 
 such that those who see it aright feel thankful 
 to Pan. And under the trees lie stretched 
 the levels of the earth bewitching in the purity 
 of white, and thus in his ermine imperial 
 Winter stands confessed. 
 
 But alas for the little folk of my garden ! 
 Under a few trees, yews and cypresses, 
 Wellingtonias and deodars, the brown earth 
 is still bare. Here the pheasants scratch and 
 the squirrels make hysteric search for nuts — 
 nuts buried in the merry Autumn days when 
 they revelled in filberts and sunshine, and 
 the cracking of shells and the tapping of tit 
 and nuthatch were the loudest sounds in the 
 orchard : when blackbird and thrush and 
 rabbit feasted on fallen fruit, and the red 
 admirals floated to and fro among the dahlia 
 34 
 
The Famine in My Garden 
 
 blooms and sipped the juices of apple and 
 pear and plum, and tipsy bumble-bees lay 
 about among the flowers sleeping off the 
 effects of the linden wine. 
 
 Those happy days of warmth and plenty 
 are gone for a while, and the present is all 
 snow and famine. Puffed up into balls the 
 birds sit all forlorn and hungry under the 
 shrubs, and sedately melancholy the pheasants 
 urge a desperate quest for food underneath 
 the laurel and box and holly. The squirrel 
 does not care, for he is up in a silver fir 
 eating off all the tips of the branches, and 
 the bullfinch does not mind, for the buds on 
 the cherry-trees are plump and without 
 number. The rabbit too, though perplexed, 
 is not dismayed, for he delves his way up out 
 of his burrow through the overlying snow — 
 his exits look like the blow-holes in the ice 
 where seals come up to breathe — and issues 
 upon a grassless world it is true, but with 
 " fine confused feeding " before him — 
 veronicas and violet leaves, honesty, sweet- 
 williams, all sorts of flower-garden fare — and, 
 as his footprints in the morning show, he frisks 
 35 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 about and foots it featly with his kind. 
 What distances these creatures travel In a 
 night ! coming and going upon their tracks 
 till they become a labyrinth, and arriving 
 at their objective points— the Brussel-sprouts 
 that stand up like little palm-trees from the 
 desert white, and the large round heads of 
 winter cabbage dumplinged over with snow — 
 by such oblique approaches, such cautious 
 circumbendibuses. Perhaps these other foot- 
 marks, round pads, five-toed, that go along- 
 side theirs may account for some of the 
 rabbit's circuitous excursions and sudden 
 alarums. For the cats are abroad these snowy 
 nights. 
 
 But, except the squirrel and the bullfinch 
 and the rabbit and the mice that go to sleep 
 when they find it cold, all the other little 
 burghers of the garden are miserable. So 
 relief-works are opened, not on any sliding- 
 scale of misery, or with allowances com- 
 puted by prominence of skeleton, but on the 
 good old blundering, demoralising, principle 
 of indiscriminate charity. And it does not 
 work very well : for there is the sparrow. 
 36 
 
The Famine in My Garden 
 
 It was no less nor worse a person than 
 Martin Luther who said the " sparrows 
 should be killed wherever found." But this 
 is no time to talk of killing. The snow lies 
 a foot deep on the ground, and the frost 
 rings true to the skate and means to last. 
 So let us try and forget what Luther said — 
 perhaps in his haste — about "the bird that 
 the Hebrews called tschirp." But they have 
 to be cheated, outwitted, circumvented, and 
 generally bamboozled, or the relief-works 
 would be a mere mockery and a farce. For 
 as soon as the food is thrown down the 
 sparrows are in the middle of it, and not 
 eating as other birds do, with a peck and a 
 start, a crumb at a time, but gobbling, 
 wolfing. They think of nothing else, never 
 exchange a remark with one another, never 
 look about them, but eat, eat, eat, till all is 
 gone. It is only then that the blackbird 
 and the chaffinch, who have been all along 
 aware that a meal was in progress but have 
 hesitated to share it, come timidly for- 
 ward, only to find that every crumb has 
 been swallowed. The new-comers hop about 
 37 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 the relief-works, picking up unconsidered 
 atoms here and there — it is poor gleaning 
 after the sparrow has reaped — while the 
 sparrows sit idly scratching their heads or, 
 perched in the trees around, watch for the 
 re-opening of the door. At the first sound 
 of the handle turning, the song-birds and the 
 birds of beauty are off, and the sparrows are 
 back. 
 
 So it goes on all day. You can no more 
 fill a sparrow up with crumbs than you could 
 Jumbo with buns. A robin is soon satisfied, 
 and, satisfied, goes away. A sparrow is 
 nothing if not exceeding, and its excesses 
 somehow seem to " sparalyse " the appetites 
 of all other birds. Besides, it has not the 
 remotest idea of good taste or manners. 
 It has neither self-respect nor gratitude. So, 
 though its little graceless necessities must be 
 duly respected, its excesses of appetite may 
 be becomingly, and in a Christian spirit, 
 muzzled. 
 
 One plan is to mix oatmeal with very fine 
 stale crumbs and ostentatiously scatter it 
 about, pretending that you are spreading a 
 38 
 
The Famine in My Garden 
 
 banquet, on as many sides of the house as 
 possible, and over as much ground as possible. 
 Then when the sparrows are all greedily at 
 work at the scanty provender, go ofF with 
 a basket of solid provisions, scraps of fat, 
 heads and tails of fish, broken bread, sliced 
 apples, bacon-rind (and, reader, if you are 
 cutting it off for the birds, do not pare it too 
 close, let your knife generously slip a little), 
 maize, dog-biscuit, everything and anything, 
 and dispose of it, under the shrubs and in 
 corners where you see the birds have been 
 scratching, not in meagre driblets, but with a 
 free hand in a few places. Then go inno- 
 cently back to the house, and about an hour 
 later have more oatmeal and tiny crumb- 
 lets scattered with great display for the 
 sparrows. And thus you may keep "tschirp" 
 under your windows, quite content, thinking 
 he has everything to himself, while far away, 
 out of ken of the voracious little vagabond, 
 the birds you wish to serve are keeping 
 themselves alive upon ample and varied fare. 
 For it must be remembered that the 
 country sparrow does not suffer from " incle- 
 39 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 ment " skies. It does not matter to it what 
 " the skies " are hke : its food is there all the 
 same. With other birds the case is vastly 
 different. They are literally starving, and 
 but for your relief-works would die. As it 
 is, many do die, simply from timidity. And 
 here comes in the only good that the sparrows 
 do in times of famine. They guide the 
 shyer and less sophisticated birds to the food 
 that is offered them. If it were not for the 
 sparrows collected upon the pathways and 
 snow-cleared spaces, the blackbird and thrush, 
 the chaffinch and hedge-sparrow, the tits and 
 nuthatches, might never find out the charity 
 provided. 
 
 Robins need no telling, for they come at 
 once ; but can anything be more provoking 
 than their behaviour ? They pick up a tiny 
 crumb, perk their tails, flick their wings, 
 attitudinise, take fright and fly away ; come 
 back again for another tiny crumb, behave 
 absurdly again, and go off. Meanwhile the 
 sparrows go on stuffing without a word, or 
 even a look for anything else but the food 
 before them — " In the name of the Prophet 
 40 
 
The Famine in My Garden 
 
 — crumbs ! " The hedge-sparrows, with 
 nervous twitching of wings, hop about select- 
 ing apparently the tiniest morsels they can 
 find. The courtly chaffinches come with a 
 gay step, chirping to each other to give and 
 take confidence, but eating nothing, moving 
 obsequiously out of the way of every glut- 
 tonous sparrow, and pecking only with 
 apologies. Suddenly comes a general 
 stampede. A blackbird, determined, come 
 what may, to get something to eat, descends 
 upon the scene, picks up as large a piece as 
 it can see, and flies, with a nervous squeak, 
 back into the shrubs, and for the rest of the 
 day spends its time in being chased by, or 
 chasing, another blackbird. 
 
 So, reader, you who love the birds do not 
 bring them all down to an equal necessity of 
 accepting too publicly your outdoor relief. 
 Do not insist upon their coming to the door- 
 step and the window-sill for food. Some of 
 them are very nervous and sensitive — made 
 of tender stuff. They shrink from the 
 common feast, and, until the pain of real 
 starvation beats down their shyness, will, from 
 +1 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 the shelter of the shrubs, piteously watch the 
 robust ones dividing your alms among them, 
 but will not, these small gentlefolk in feathers, 
 intrude any claim upon your kindness. So 
 pretend that you know nothing of their 
 necessities. Affect an innocence even of their 
 haunts, and, out of your own good taste, as 
 it were, do not urge them to the ordeal or 
 joining the mob before your windows. So 
 will your bounty not be a misery to these 
 little people. Take your benevolences out 
 into the shrubberies and the orchard, and, as 
 you pass, scatter the saving morsels where- 
 ever they may most quickly catch the eye — 
 under the bushes, where the earth is brown, 
 round the feet of the trees, where there is still 
 grass green — and the birds that you love best 
 will eat in peace, gratefully sharing in your 
 charity now sweetened to them by seclusion. 
 They eat now not as paupers, but as the little 
 neighbours of a great lord, each of them in 
 its own home, as it were, and twice thankful, 
 for the snow-tide help, and for their own 
 escape from the sharp discipline of public 
 relief. 
 
 42 
 
The Famine in My Garden 
 
 There are no conditions that I know of 
 that give the looker-on so authentic an 
 insight into the characters of birds as their 
 behaviour during a famine. Of the sparrows 
 I have already spoken. But it is noble to 
 see the robin tourney at him and peck him 
 full on the middle of his grey noddle ; to see 
 the hedge-sparrow ruffle itself up, and hear it 
 tilt with a squeak straight into the burly 
 braggart ; to see the tiny marsh-tit, its head 
 feathers all on end with pluck, drive at him. 
 The sparrow seldom retaliates except upon 
 his own kind. Even the polite chaffinch, 
 always ready to give place, and never coming 
 forward without a " By your leave," gets out 
 of patience with the sparrow and dabs it on 
 the back when it hustles it. But the sparrow 
 has a fine street-boy sort of revenge upon 
 them all, and, from observation, I am almost 
 certain that one trick which it plays is 
 deliberate. The birds are all feeding, ten or 
 twenty sparrows to one of any other kind, 
 and suddenly they rise all together. 
 Whir-r-r ! All the other birds are frightened 
 and fly to long distances and there wait for a 
 +3 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 catastrophe that never occurs, or some danger 
 to pass by that never threatened, and lo ! the 
 sparrows are all back among the food again. 
 They had only flown up into the tree over- 
 head or on to the wall behind, and had hardly 
 alighted before they returned. But the other 
 birds are too sincerely perturbed to come back 
 for a long time ; some of them never come 
 back at all. 
 
 These panics among the sparrows are so 
 causeless and so advantageous to themselves 
 that I am convinced they are a ruse. A 
 blackbird among them is a nuisance : he 
 bullies them. So up they get — whir-r-r ! — 
 and where is the blackbird ? Gone so far 
 and alarmed so thoroughly that he will not 
 be back for an hour at least. But the 
 sparrows are all there again within five 
 seconds, and going on with the crumbs just 
 where they left off. Dogs, we know, practise 
 this " swike " regularly and of plan prepense. 
 One dog has a bone which another covets. 
 The boneless dog suddenly rushes out of the 
 room barking excitedly ; the other follows 
 him. Back comes first dog and carries off the 
 44- 
 
The Famine in My Garden 
 
 bone. Enter second dog. 'tableau. Crows 
 do the same In India. A kite is feasting, 
 and they come round it. There is a sudden 
 panic. Up starts the kite, and lo ! the feast 
 is gone and the crows with it. The same 
 trick, I believe, from observation during 
 wintry weather, is practised every day upon 
 the more timid tenants of our gardens by 
 " the bird that the Hebrews call tschirp." 
 
 Next to the sparrow, the most interesting 
 visitor is the marsh-tit, a very common little 
 bird, but by most people mistaken, from the 
 similarity of headgear, for the " blackcap," 
 which is only a summer visitor and does not 
 stay with us in winter. This tiny bird is 
 very fearless, respecting only its cannibal 
 cousin the great tit, and, if it has made up its 
 mind to get the bait, disregarding the dangers 
 of the trap. You may catch the same marsh- 
 tit over and over again, the little captive 
 coming and going at each imprisonment with 
 the same cheery little cry. It perches on the 
 food with an impudent *' Chee-chee-chee ! 
 I'm small, but I won't be imposed upon ! " 
 and deliberately picking out the largest piece, 
 45 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 flies off with it. It has hardly gone before it 
 is back. " Chee-chee-chee ! " and away again 
 with the largest crumb it can find. And so 
 it will go on as long as any food large enough 
 to be worth carrying off remains. And 
 the sparrows tell ofF small parties of threes 
 and fours to pursue each tit and pick up 
 what it drops. 
 
 Why does this bird carry off so much food 
 that it does not want ? No other English 
 bird does it. The crow family, of course, 
 will hide morsels for enjoyment later. But 
 there is no analogy here, for the marsh-tit 
 has not the smallest idea where it puts its 
 food, nor does it care where it goes. If I 
 place a dozen large crumbs of bread upon 
 the birds' table outside my window, a single 
 marsh-tit will carry them all off in three 
 minutes or less, and deposit them in twelve 
 different places, none of them twenty yards 
 away from the table. Its only idea is to 
 secrete as much as it can, but where it secretes 
 it does not matter a tittle to the tit. One 
 piece goes into the handle of the ivy basket, 
 the next into the wistaria over my window, 
 46 
 
The Famine in My Garden 
 
 a third into the laurel hedge, a fourth into 
 the holly bush, and all the rest into a great 
 cigar-shaped yew. Into this yew-tree the 
 bird drops its crumbs with as much con- 
 fidence as if it were a safe-deposit or a 
 money-box. That the pieces of bread all fall 
 out at the bottom of the tree makes no differ- 
 ence. The tit has got rid of the piece : that 
 is enough for it. And back it comes for 
 some more. Its only idea is to get all the 
 food it can out of sight. " Clear the table " 
 is its one notion. 
 
 Its conduct here is nearly the same as the 
 squirrel's, which, when the nuts are falling, 
 carries them off at the rate of one a minute 
 by the hour together ; but of this I shall 
 have more to say later. That the squirrels 
 ever find any of the nuts again, during the 
 winter, I do not believe, as I see them 
 every day searching for them, but never yet 
 have I seen a squirrel go straight to a nut. 
 The pheasants and rabbits unearth them in 
 quantities, and then the squirrels come by 
 their own again, but, as I have already said, 
 I do not believe they know where the nuts 
 47 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 are which they buried. They find them as 
 they buried them, fortuitously and at random. 
 
 With the marsh-tit it is exactly the same. 
 So long as it has removed an atom of food it 
 is content ; what becomes of the atom does 
 not concern it in the least. If when flying 
 away with it the morsel drops, the tit does not 
 pick it up, but comes back for another. " As 
 well there as anywhere else," it says. 
 
 It is particularly fond of carrying off 
 maize. Six grains a minute is leisurely work 
 for this absurdly active little bird. Now it 
 is a large hand that will hold more than 200 
 grains of maize, yet that one tit carries off a 
 handful in an hour with ease. Half a dozen 
 of them, therefore, will make away with 
 enough maize in an hour to feed as many 
 pheasants for a day. And what do the tits 
 do with it .'' They are very fond of pecking 
 out the softer matter at the sprouting end of 
 the grain. Now, maize is a very awkward 
 shape to hold, and the consequence is that 
 nine times out of ten the grain slips out of 
 their claws at the first peck, and drops to the 
 ground. But as a matter of fact the marsh- 
 +8 
 
The Famine in My Garden 
 
 tit as often as not flies off with the maize with 
 no intention of eating it but merely of hiding 
 it. And this it will do anywhere, in an ivy 
 stump, a crack in a wall, a fork of a branch, 
 or its favourite " safe-deposit " yew tree. 
 The behaviour of the coal-tit is in marked 
 contrast. It too carries off food, but for the 
 sole purpose of eating it, and though it drops 
 again and again it pursues and recovers it, 
 often finishing on the ground the meal which 
 it began at the top of the tree. The squirrel 
 hides food in summer, and it is plausible to 
 suppose that it does so to eat it in the winter. 
 But why should the marsh-tit hide food in 
 winter ? Surely not in the hope of eating it 
 in summer. The point is a very interesting 
 one as going to weaken the "provident" idea 
 of the squirrel's laying by. 
 
 Another point that has perplexed naturalists 
 from the first is, in miniature, raised by this 
 same little bird, the marsh-tit. 
 
 How does the Vulture discover its food ? is 
 
 a question periodically asked, and as regularly 
 
 answered with a "nobody knows." Audubon, 
 
 for instance, says by sight ; Waterton says by 
 
 49 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 smell ; and where two such observers disagree, 
 it is not likely that anybody else will venture 
 to decide. 
 
 But how do our English tits discover meat ? 
 When the answer to my query is given I 
 think the solution of the vulture problem will 
 also have been found. 
 
 Opposite my study-window, I fasten with 
 wire a bacon-rind or piece of fat on to the 
 posts that support the verandah, or on one of 
 the strands of wistaria that stretch across from 
 post to post. In either case the meat is out 
 of sight of the tits. The ground is plentifully 
 sprinkled with birds, for it is plentifully 
 sprinkled with crumbs. But what happens ? 
 As soon as I come in, the other birds, dis- 
 turbed at their repast, return to the crumbs, 
 but the tits go straight to the meat. As I have 
 said, they cannot see it. And even if they 
 could see it, what would a strip of bacon-rind 
 or a piece of fat suggest to a tit who had 
 never seen such an object before ^ Later on, 
 noticing the tits are enjoying themselves, the 
 sparrow's keen eyes are turned up again and 
 again to see what it is that the others are 
 5° 
 
The Famine in My Garden 
 
 eating. Curiosity tempts them to fly up and 
 examine the morsels which excite the titmice 
 to such enthusiasm, but they can find nothing 
 of sufficient interest to keep them away from 
 crumbs, and so after a second's perfunctory 
 survey of the surroundings they return to the 
 ground. Then the tits come back, and just 
 as with the vultures, the news of the "carcase " 
 spreads with astonishing rapidity, and to 
 travesty Longfellow's lines : 
 
 " Never stoops the soaring titmouse 
 On the bacon-rind or suet, 
 But another titmouse watching, 
 Wonders what he's got and follows, 
 And a third pursues the second, 
 First a speck and then a titmouse, 
 Till the place is full of titmice." 
 
 How do the tits find out the meat .'' The 
 robin seems to be the only bird that shares 
 the faculty with them, and it appears to me 
 that it distinctly marks off these two birds 
 as carnivorous and possessed of a " meat- 
 sense," for which our own senses afford no 
 better explanation than they do of the bee's 
 "honey-sense." 
 
 51 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 Of the other birds who come to the relief- 
 works near the house, there are none with 
 very marked individuality of behaviour, and, 
 on the whole, they are disappointing. It is 
 pleasant to see the little folk at food, but the 
 manner in which they accept your alms, their 
 complete want of confidence in your inten- 
 tions, is depressing. Except the hedge- 
 sparrow and the robin, I know none that 
 really gratify you by their demeanour. Before 
 you are down in the morning all kinds of 
 birds, as the footprints and queer marks in 
 the snow reveal to you, have been round your 
 doors. Here are marks to fit all birds — -jay, 
 rook, missel-thrush, wood-pigeon, hawfinch, 
 jackdaw, starling, woodpecker. But they do 
 not come to the meal. And where are the 
 yellow-hammers and larks, linnets and green- 
 finches, wrens and wagtails .'' They are all in 
 the garden or the orchard or the meadow 
 during the day, and sad as the fact is, though 
 they come up in the early morning to the 
 house and lawn, they will not approach when 
 you are there to help them. 
 
 Yet, if you take the food further away, 
 
The Famine in My Garden 
 
 behind shrubberies and in out-of-the-way 
 corners of the grounds, the news spreads 
 wonderfully quickly that the almoner has 
 been abroad, and your chopped up fat rolled 
 in bread-crumbs and pieces of crust and maize 
 are all gone when you next go out with a 
 fresh supply. A clean-swept space on a 
 frozen pond makes an excellent feeding 
 ground ; the food lies there conspicuous, and 
 you can often get a good view of a strange 
 visitor. In such a place I saw a spotted 
 woodpecker swallowing fat-pills, and helping 
 itself about on the ice with both tail and 
 wing. When rising off the snow, the wood- 
 peckers strike the snow heavily with both 
 wings; you can count the ten quill-marks 
 with beautiful distinctness. And so, too, 
 when flying down to settle on the snow, 
 you can trace the long scrape, sometimes 
 for a foot or more, of their eight or nine tail 
 feathers. 
 
 If your gardener has any manure, or leaf- 
 mould heaps that he can turn over, any 
 collections of small wood for kindling that 
 he can shift the position of, the starlings 
 53 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 will be very grateful, and when they have 
 finished with the insects will gladly empty 
 egg-shells of any scraps and eat soaked 
 dog-biscuits, which are filled with shredded 
 meat. 
 
 Here, too, will come that dearest of birds, 
 the wren. What a little Christian life it 
 leads, the wee retiring bird, and I know 
 nothing in all the story of the famine so 
 pretty as the wren's bright carol of gladness 
 for a meal enjoyed. Sometimes it stops 
 eating to sing. This may be, it is true, only a 
 war song, a challenge to some other wren 
 that you cannot see, but that does not 
 matter. The canticle is sweet and repays 
 you for all you do for the other uncon- 
 fiding birds. 
 
 Oddly enough too, that other saint-like 
 little fowl, the hedge " sparrow," as it is so 
 wrongly called, enchants you with snatches 
 of song, feeble winter versions of spring 
 melody it is true, but very pretty, while 
 it is all agog for battle. The pair that are 
 feeding together— I know no other bird but 
 the chaffinch that is so regularly seen all the 
 54 
 
The Famine in My Garden 
 
 year round in pairs — become aware by some 
 bird's freemasonry of the approach of a 
 third, and it is absurd to see how the little 
 wings twitch and the tail fans in and out, till 
 all its feathers are in a nervous flurry, and 
 then as soon as the stranger appears, down 
 go both heads and, squeaking in a high key, 
 the combatants tilt at one another. 
 
 The robin, too, the " pious " bird, is very 
 quarrelsome, and it exasperates one to watch 
 him wasting the precious hours of food in 
 hunting another hungry robin up and down 
 and round and round, till the sparrows have 
 cleared the board. The blackbirds, too, are 
 very annoying in the way that they snatch up 
 lumps of bread and fly off with them, only to 
 be chased about for the rest of the morning by 
 other blackbirds, while a sparrow makes a 
 solid meal off^ the morsel fallen meanwhile 
 under a shrub. But relentless as they are in 
 pursuit, the curious fact is that they seldom 
 fight. If the pursued turns, the pursuer 
 stops, perks up his tail, and being promptly 
 charged by the other, becomes in his turn the 
 pursued. But woe to both when the missel- 
 SS 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 thrush comes. He is pitiless in pursuit, and 
 I have seen them pass my window time after 
 time in the course of a morning, the storm- 
 cock hard on the " heels " of the blackbird. 
 And when they overtake them what happens ? 
 For myself, as I have often said before, I 
 believe the missel-thrush is a cannibal. At 
 any rate, I attribute some of the dead black- 
 birds and thrushes that one finds about the 
 grounds, to his cruel beak. He watches for 
 birds for hours at a time like a bird of prey 
 and attacks them like one. I have often 
 stopped a chase which I knew could only end 
 one way. 
 
 When the missel-thrushes fight they lower 
 their heads and utter sharp mouse-like sounds 
 and, inapplicable as the phrase may seem, 
 look singularly snake-like. It is interesting 
 to note the different expressions of anger 
 among birds. Some I have already referred 
 to. The great tit makes itself long and thin, 
 raises some head feathers, and dashes with 
 incredible t^lan at the foe. The marsh-tit 
 ruffles up all the head and neck feathers till 
 it looks as if some very little bird had 
 S6 
 
The Famine in My Garden 
 
 borrowed a bigger bird's head. The robin 
 merely flicks its tail, droops its wings, and 
 " clicks." The woodpecker, as I saw it on 
 the ice, where it was at a disadvantage, drew 
 back its head on to its back in a most sur- 
 prising way, and erected all its crest-feathers, 
 making itself reaUy a fearsome and reptilian 
 thing, as the starling, who had no malicious 
 intentions, seemed to think, for it skipped 
 off nimbly to one side with a ' ' Bless my 
 soul ! who'd have thought it .'' " sort of ex- 
 pression that was very comic. So, reader, 
 though I was disappointed with the birds, 
 and would have been glad if they would have 
 trusted us all a little more, I was glad to see 
 that not a scrap of food, wherever it might be 
 put, was wasted. 
 
 And the rabbits .'' Basketfuls of apples, 
 some beginning to "go," some "going," and 
 some already " gone," were taken from the 
 apple room, and the gardeners culled out all 
 the waste from their stores of potatoes and 
 parsnip, carrot and turnips, and one particular 
 place in the orchard was spread with Bunny's 
 viands ; and after the snow had lain a week 
 57 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 you should have seen the place ! It was 
 trampled as hard as ice by the soft feet of 
 the hungry folk; and in this way, with a 
 single half-barrow load of mangolds, a com- 
 pact was made with Brer Rabbit, that if he 
 was fed in the orchard he should not feed 
 himself in the kitchen garden, and Brer Rabbit 
 faithfully kept the compact. 
 
 And there is one more last word that must 
 be said for the sparrow — though the skies 
 should crack our pates, let justice be done 
 even to the sparrow — and that is this, that 
 they are models of punctuality. Do you 
 suppose you could keep a sparrow out of bed 
 by asking him to sup with LucuUus .'' Try, 
 and you wiU find an empty place at your 
 table when you come to sit down. Nor 
 Apician delicacies nor Gargantuan feasts will 
 keep " tschirp " up after sunset. It does not 
 matter to him that there is no sun to set. If 
 it has not set, it ought to have done so, and 
 he Is off " to bye-bye." Crumbs can now be 
 thrown out fearlessly. For no other bird 
 obeys Phoebus his routine, and then the 
 feathered things whom the sparrow has robbed 
 58 
 
The Famine in My Garden 
 
 and hustled all day triumph for a very brief 
 space, while the sparrows are quarrelling for 
 places in their evergreen dormitories. But 
 soon they, too, go off. What mysterious 
 mandate, unrecognisable by us, tells them 
 that the " day " is done ? The snow illumi- 
 nates the scene, making a bright twilight of 
 its own. But no. Nature has whispered, 
 " It is time for bed, children," and away they 
 go, some noisy, some quiet, and the rest of 
 your good things are left to be eaten in the 
 morning. 
 
 59 
 
AFTER THE FAMINE 
 IN MY GARDEN 
 
 WHEN there was snow on the ground and 
 famine in the garden the birds flocked 
 to my food, but the thaw came, and not one 
 of them all has ever been back to say " Thank 
 you." It may be that the blackbird and 
 thrush now singing from the fir-tops are 
 grateful, and that the short, bright chants of 
 the robin are canticles in acknowledgment of 
 a timely kindness. But I wish they would 
 sometimes come back to the tables that I 
 spread for them when they were in need, just 
 to show, now that they are not hungry, that 
 they still look upon me as a friend. But they 
 will not have it so. If I go out, the black- 
 6| 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 birds break cover with hysterical cries — how 
 meek they were when the ground was iron — 
 and long before you can get near them, the 
 tits (they used to eat within reach of my arm 
 in the bitter days) affect a ridiculous alarm at 
 my presence. 
 
 The air is soft, the sun is shining, and the 
 winged folk have all gone back to their 
 routines of life, and, happily, without any 
 remembrance of miseries past. Out in the 
 paddock the rooks are very pompous and 
 self-satisfied. For a fortnight they had not 
 enough spirit among a whole flock of them 
 for a single caw, but now they are joyously 
 clamorous, convening at their Diet of Worms 
 with effusive congratulations, and flying 
 homewards at evening with much discourse. 
 The starlings are with them — and how they 
 eat! The rations of porridge and boiled 
 dog-biscuit that during the frost were served 
 out to them, unsavoury, doubtless, but life- 
 preserving, are forgotten now, while they 
 revel in grubs; and the missel-thrushes, so 
 alert to-day to take fright at your approach, 
 would not believe it if you told them that a 
 62 
 
After the Famine in My Garden 
 
 fortnight ago they drove the sparrows away 
 from the crumbs under your very windows. 
 
 What a pity it is that the birds have no 
 memory in warmer weather of their desperate 
 confidence in man in winter. What a charm 
 it would give to Hfe in the country if they 
 could only recollect that you did not harm 
 them when they came round you in the days 
 of trouble, and understand, when the roses 
 are in bloom, that you are still as harmless 
 and friendly as ever. But the wild things, 
 unfortunately, never recognise a particular 
 human being as a whole. They will come to 
 know a person who is always dressed in the 
 same way or doing the same thing, or they 
 will learn a call, or become accustomed to a 
 regular routine. But their sight does not 
 permit them to discern the same individual in 
 two disguises, nor can they, like the dog, 
 afford to wait till you are close to them, to 
 acknowledge your identity ; and no one, 
 except a Thoreau in his wilds or a Francis 
 of Assisi, can spend his years in uniformity of 
 garb for the reward of the confidence of the 
 little folk in fur and feathers. By going 
 63 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 round the grounds in a particular way, and 
 with certain regular formalities, I once estab- 
 lished in a country place a sort of general 
 understanding with the creatures about me, 
 notably the herons, the wood-pigeons, the 
 game birds, rabbits, and squirrels ; but if any 
 day I wore white gaiters over my shoes, they 
 refused to believe in me. The moving feet 
 of a man are what birds and small beasts on 
 the ground first catch sight of. Those in the 
 air or on trees first detect his face (it is won- 
 derful how conspicuous " flesh-colour " is 
 among foliage) or the touches of white about 
 his clothes. So the would-be observer of 
 wild life should dress like a game-keeper, 
 wear muddy boots, and paint his face "khaki." 
 Above all, he should avoid white. See how 
 conspicuous a little patch of it makes those 
 singularly wary birds the bullfinch and the 
 jay, and note how instantly your own eye 
 catches a single white feather in the wing or 
 tail of a particular bird in a whole flight of 
 sparrows. 
 
 To-day, in the first exultation, as it were, 
 of escape from the constraints of winter, all 
 6+ 
 
After the Famine in My Garden 
 
 the birds seem to be fairly revelling in their 
 freedom to range, and the sudden alternation 
 from universal snow and piercing wind to a 
 balmy atmosphere and mellow breeze. Happy 
 creatures, to take the days as they come, 
 rejoicing in sunshine and plenty, and for- 
 getting at once the frost and famine ! Every- 
 thing seems to be in motion, excited and 
 eager. The linnets sweep in twittering wisps 
 from plough to grass and back again from 
 grass to plough. The larks, as you watch, 
 keep rising and settling as if too full of good 
 spirits to stay still. The restless starlings, 
 the hindermost perpetually flying over the 
 rest to get in front, are travelling hurriedly 
 across the meadow. Woodpeckers cannot be 
 content with any one tree, but flit looping in 
 their buoyant flight from trunk to trunk. 
 The dead leaves in the ditches and under the 
 trees are all twitching and fluttering as if 
 they were alive, but it is the tits that are at 
 work, moving about like mice among the 
 brown foliage and tossing the leaves one by 
 one aside, resuming with all the freshness of a 
 new attack their interrupted campaign against 
 6s E 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 the insects. And look at that wren that is 
 with them. The tiny thing is all agog with 
 revived energy, skipping about from spot to 
 spot excitedly, and suddenly hopping up into 
 the hedge to let off some of its spirits in 
 irrepressible song. The robin, glad of the 
 gardener's return to the flower beds, flies from 
 the spade-handle to the wheel-barrow, keeping 
 its bright black eyes all the time on the 
 mould, and darting down from time to time 
 to seize the torpid creatures turned up to the 
 surface. And it, too, cannot contain itself 
 for glee at the going of the frost, and flying 
 into the tree overhead unloads its heart in 
 a merry roundelay. Lord ! how fast the 
 little songsmith sings. He must out with it 
 or he will die. 
 
 Far oiF, keeping company with solemn 
 rooks and sedate starlings — and it must be 
 said for these birds, they never lost their high 
 opinion of themselves or of the virtues of 
 deportment at the shrewdest pinch of hunger 
 and cold — are the wood-pigeons ; much too 
 distrustful, now that the snow has gone, to 
 come near the house. How different a fort- 
 66 
 
After the Famine in My Garden 
 
 night ago, when the snowdrops, " fair maids 
 of February," were quilted over, and the 
 polyanthus dared not show its pretty petals. 
 
 With dejected aspect and melancholy gait, 
 their feathers all ruffled and awry, see then 
 the unwilling ringdoves come to the place 
 of alms. How changed from the broad- 
 shouldered, plump-breasted birds that carried 
 their portly selves about under the beeches, 
 what time the mast lay thick, with such 
 gravity and self-approbation, looking like 
 dignitaries of the Church sauntering in some 
 Cathedral Close. How exquisitely rounded 
 their contours, how beautifully sleek their 
 surfaces, and how glossy. But during the 
 frost they came, poor birds, to beg, their 
 summer airs and graces all laid aside, regard- 
 less of appearances. How humbly and thank- 
 fully they seemed to eat. There was no sun 
 shining then to make rainbows on their 
 breasts or to necklace their throats with opals. 
 
 On the privet bushes the berries are still 
 
 glistening, quarts upon quarts of them. Why 
 
 have the birds not eaten them ? They all 
 
 like them. Why, too, have they not eaten 
 
 67 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinnev 
 
 the berries on the yellow hollies ? Not a red 
 one is to be found ; but the yellow-berried 
 hollies are untouched. Why, again, do birds 
 that eat berries refuse, when starving, to eat 
 buds? Surely the buds of cherry blossom 
 and plum, peach, apricot, and nectarine are as 
 pleasant and sustaining as the harsh fruit of 
 ivy and holly and privet. How is it that in 
 hard times the blackbird and thrush do not 
 turn to them instead of the crumbs upon the 
 garden path? The pheasants walk about, 
 picking up scraps of green here and there ; 
 but why do they not debauch in the orchard, 
 where there is nearly an acre of currant and 
 gooseberry bushes all prematurely in full 
 bud ? The ways of birds are past under- 
 standing. They devour the red holly berries 
 before winter comes and when worms must 
 be plentiful, and yet, when starving, leave 
 both hips and haws to rot in the frost. 
 
 The owl is abroad early. Poor bird, it has 
 been a sorry Lent with him I fancy. Mice 
 are not in plenty when the snow is deep on 
 the ground, and when they do come abroad 
 they seek their food where they can find it 
 68 
 
^ After the Famine in My Garden 
 
 without wet feet. But now that the snow 
 has gone they are afield with the sunset, and 
 the owl sweeping round the stacks takes toll 
 of their number. The wasp, too, is abroad 
 again ; not brisk as when the wall-fruit are 
 ripening, but dull and slow flying. Kill it if 
 you like. Every wasp killed in the opening 
 year is as good as a nest destroyed in 
 Autumn. The bees have waked up and are 
 very grateful for saucers of syrup. There 
 are no flowers but the Christmas roses for 
 them to search, crocuses, winter-aconites, and 
 squills, snowdrops and hepaticas, and the 
 honey-pots among them are few. It is very 
 pathetic to see how assiduously all day long 
 they besiege the same patches of bloom, the 
 poor hungry bees. 
 
 At the end of our orchard is a deep broad 
 ditch. On the farther side grows a rare old 
 untrimmed hedge of hawthorn and crab- 
 apple, cherry and hazel, with dog-rose clusters 
 interweaving to give everything a closer 
 neighbourly feeling and make them all, so to 
 speak, " connections " of one another. In 
 this tall and tranquil hedgerow the bull- 
 69 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 finches build every year, and, every year too, 
 the turtle doves, that come all the way from 
 Cairo to swing on our clematis, and to rear 
 their golden couplets among the briar- 
 entangled nut-trees. The squirrel and the 
 dormouse planted this hedge, and though I 
 call it old it is really the new one, for once 
 upon a time there was an ancient growth 
 here of holly and laurel. The roots of them 
 are there still, but they died down, and the 
 hips and haws, the nuts and cherry stones 
 and apple pips that the little planters had 
 dropped or buried, sprouted and flourished, 
 scrambling up from among the old mossy 
 stumps and roots, and racing each other into 
 the sunshine. And to-day they are all of a 
 height, full grown, and the creepers run level 
 along their tops and .hang down all their 
 lengths alike so that there is' iio rtijare con- 
 tention in the hedge, but everything grows at 
 its ease, each with its fair share of air and 
 light. And they all of them have the same 
 secrets of bird's nest and mouse hole and 
 humble bees' honey-cellars, of hare's form 
 and rabbit burrow. 
 
 70 
 
After the Famine in My Garden 
 
 And on the near side of the ditch is a 
 shrubbery of laurels out of which there grow 
 in a line five walnut trees, and the boughs of 
 the walnuts arch over the ditch and meet the 
 boughs of the cherry and hazel coming from 
 the other side. And under them the deep 
 ditch runs, and it is the highway of all the 
 creatures of the fields. For half the year it 
 is always dry and beautifully shady. No 
 human being except myself ever goes into it. 
 But there is not a thing in fur in all the 
 neighbourhood that is not familiar with it, 
 using it to cross unseen from the woodlands 
 and pasture on one side of the orchard to the 
 woodlands and the pasture on the other ; for 
 at each end a commodiously ample drain-pipe 
 leads from the ditch into the fields, taking 
 my visitors by a covered way out of the 
 grounds into the outside world. And the 
 birds, too, come there, for at the end of the 
 ditch even in the driest weather there is a 
 pool in which some water is to be found, and 
 so hither travel partridge and pheasant and 
 wood-pigeon and all the host of lesser folk to 
 quench their thirst or to bathe. More than 
 71 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 once I have disturbed the nightjar where it 
 sat asleep in the shade, and have seen the 
 woodpecker busy on the bank at an ant-hill 
 which the tell-tale trail of the tiny colonists 
 across the path on the other side of the 
 hedge had betrayed to their long-tongued 
 destroyer. I often take my camp-stool and 
 ensconce myself at the bend of the ditch, 
 between some overhanging sprays of sallow 
 and an elder bush, and travellers both from 
 right and left pass by me without suspicion of 
 my presence. 
 
 Such a happy lot of little folk they are too. 
 And they look so strangely pretty in the 
 shady ditch — the wood-pigeons especially. 
 They come up from the water waddling in an 
 affected manner and telescoping their beauti- 
 ful necks at every step. One always walks 
 a little behind the other, and it is very fuilny 
 to see the precision with which they keep 
 step, planting their wide-toed feet down flat 
 exactly in time. And so they go by, with 
 a prodigious affectation of caution, but 
 all the same quite innocent of being over- 
 looked. 
 
 72 
 
After the Famine in My Garden 
 
 They are only birds of the year, these young 
 people, and as the old ones have another 
 nursery to attend to, they are shifting for 
 themselves. And very well they do it, for 
 before they parted company the old ones 
 told them all about the vetches and the clover 
 tips and the fields with all kinds of weeds 
 with juicy buds, and told them too about 
 young turnip-tops and the pods of the field- 
 peas. So they are fat and self-satisfied this 
 couple of pigeons, and come promenading 
 along my ditch as pompous and conscious as 
 if they had just built a chapel and endowed 
 it. 
 
 But I could tell them something that 
 would disconcert them if I chose. For one 
 day sitting where I am now, there suddenly, 
 spectrally, appeared in front of me a fox. I 
 had expected a cat, for I heard a long way 
 off a greenfinch give the alarm, shee-eep ! 
 shee-eep ! and a whitethroat, knowing nothing 
 of the cause, began chittering and chattering, 
 and then the blackbird saw the fox and cried 
 frink ! prink ! and by-and-by as Reynard 
 reached the ditch the old wren in the bank 
 73 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 scolded him at the top of her voice, and the 
 other birds all came up and scolded too, and 
 though I could see nothing, I knew that 
 something was afoot that threatened danger 
 to the birds, and was coming nearer and 
 nearer to me. And then right from over 
 my head, within an arm's length of me, a 
 blackcap began, like a little fury, to tell the 
 intruder what she thought of him, and the 
 chorus of protest began to pass by me, in the 
 arching hedge-tops, the laurels behind me 
 and the clematis opposite. 
 
 " A cat," I said to myself. " One of the 
 cats from the farni." 
 
 And lo ! all of a sudden, right in front 
 of me, its eyes fixed full on mine — the 
 fox. 
 
 And where it stood it sank down, as if it 
 were going through the ground, but it kept 
 its eyes on mine, sherry-coloured eyes, full of 
 a terrible fear, and the ears fringed inside 
 with white were towards me, open to their 
 widest, and the fur on the head stood up 
 close and straight making the face look quite 
 round, with the whiskered nose pointing out 
 7+ 
 
After the Famine in My Garden 
 
 at me from the middle of it. So low was it 
 crouching that its hips stood up sharply on 
 either side, and so close was it drawn up that 
 the fur of the neck made a roll on its back. 
 And while I watched it, the eyes never 
 blinked, the ears never stirred, the nose 
 never twitched. But I became aware that it 
 was moving, the pretty little feet underneath 
 the motionless body were at work gripping 
 the ground hard and the body glided past 
 ine as if on wheels. And then, as if it had 
 breathed a sudden relief from fear, the head 
 turned, and with the brush laid straight 
 along the ground, the fox, attended by its 
 noisy detractors, crept up the ditch to the 
 drain-pipe and disappeared into it, taking 
 with it, so it seemed, all the clamour of the 
 birds, for as soon as the fox's tail was gone 
 there was peace in the ditch. 
 
 Only the whitethroat, fidgeting about 
 among the roots of the nettles, and still 
 knowing nothing of the cause of the tur- 
 moil, chittered and chattered as if she had 
 suffered or were about to suffer some 
 grievous personal wrong. But had the fox 
 75 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 met those plump young wood-pigeons by the 
 way, there would have been short shrift for 
 the one and cold roosting that night for the 
 other. 
 
 By the way, how much too little import- 
 ance we attach, when speaking of the lives of 
 beasts of prey, to the enormous difficulties 
 that the watchfulness of birds and their 
 intelligence of each other's speech throw in 
 the way of the flesh-eaters. And yet, it may 
 have been these very circumstances that 
 decided so many carnivores to hunt by night. 
 All day long they found themselves pestered 
 by birds and their intended victims effec- 
 tually warned of coming danger, but as night 
 began to fall, they discovered that the bird- 
 voices became fewer and fewer, and catching 
 their prey unawares more and more feasible. 
 So they gave up hunting by daylight alto- 
 gether. 
 
 For quadrupeds understand the cries of 
 birds. The rabbit, be it never so young, 
 bobs under cover the instant the blackbird 
 sounds its tocsin ; the squirrel skips up the 
 tree ; the leveret raises its head and cocks its 
 76 
 
After the Famine in My Garden 
 
 ears preparatory to flight. Everything in 
 the spinney is at once on the alert and tip- 
 toe ; and I have seen a cat, when thus be- 
 trayed by the birds, express its rage as clearly 
 as possible ; seen it bounce out from the line 
 of currant-bushes it had been creeping under 
 and stand out at full height on the path, 
 wagging its tail in anger, and staring after 
 the vanishing bunny, exactly as the tiger 
 does, or the cheetah, when it is baulked of 
 its chance. In a jungle no dangerous beast 
 can stir for long without some feathered 
 sentry challenging its passage, and the best 
 thing it can do then is to get into hiding and 
 go to sleep there till the birds are in bed. 
 
 In my ditch there are sentries in abundance 
 at either end, and a cat need not hope to 
 surprise a meal there by stealth. For every- 
 thing all round it is shouting out at the top 
 of its voice, cat ! cat ! the moment the 
 creature appears, and so puss, hugely dis- 
 gusted, has to make off. And it is very funny 
 to see a cat, when found out by the birds, 
 put on an afi^ectation of innocence, walk in 
 the centre of the way as if the idea of conceal- 
 77 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 ing itself had never entered its head, stop to 
 wash its face or take a roll on the ground, 
 and in every way try to convey the impression 
 that it is quite indiiFerent to the disturbance 
 going on round it, and in no way connected 
 with or responsible for the hullabaloo. But 
 its little heart is, all the same, bursting with 
 fury and eagerness for revenge, for the move- 
 ment of a frog in the grass, or even the 
 sudden rustle of a falling leaf electrifies all the 
 unconcern out of the small beast, and it turns 
 savagely and swiftly in the direction of the 
 sound. But by-and-by its opportunity comes, 
 for the birds are all asleep, and the rabbits 
 are abroad, by their families, nibbling their 
 perilous way along the edges of the copse and 
 the hedgerow. Poor birds ! poor bunnies ! 
 
 But all this is of other times, when the 
 roses on " triumphant briars," as Bottom 
 says, were abloom and the swifts were shrilling 
 high up in the blue. There are no flowers 
 on the briars now ; here and there a miserable 
 rose-hip, pecked to pieces by the hungry haw- 
 finch during the past fortnight of famine, and 
 in the dull grey sky there is only the rook 
 78 
 
After the Famine in My Garden 
 
 fitfully ejaculating its commonplaces of court- 
 ship and house-keeping. 
 
 And here, as I pass, a word about the rose- 
 hip. Do your know that in the spacious 
 days of great Elizabeth the sweet-briar was 
 called the "heep," and that ladies made of 
 its berries a delightful confection, for which, 
 says Gerard, " the tooth is set in rich men's 
 mouths." The sweet-briar, as it happens, 
 has a very large berry, of which the skin is 
 curiously thick and singularly pleasant ; a 
 conserve of sweet-briar must therefore have 
 been very nice to the taete and, as our old 
 herbalist says, rather costly, for sweet-briars 
 do not grow in such profusion as to make 
 their fruit common. 
 
 The whitethroats are in Egypt — they have 
 vested rights of " occupation " — and no doubt 
 are scolding the sacred mongoose of the 
 Pharaohs with the same indifference to pro- 
 priety as they scolded my Hampshire fox. 
 Gone, too, is the nightingale that lived here, 
 gone to Greece perhaps, or the rose gardens 
 beyond Damascus, the shy, slim, brown bird 
 that sang at high noon, either of sun or of 
 79 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 moon, regardless of the opinions or the 
 manners of other birds. 
 
 My ditch a fortnight ago was frozen over 
 with ice which a cart could have stood upon, 
 and knowing how all our small neighbours 
 frequented it, we made it and called it the 
 soup kitchen. Here it was then, unbeknown 
 to the sparrows, we spread ample banquets 
 for the starving birds, and here that I often 
 saw the shyer birds, emboldened by the quiet 
 of the spot, come for food. The hawfinch 
 was always here, and the jay. Here, too, on 
 the ice, enjoying the scraps of fat, was the 
 woodpecker. Then came the warmer weather 
 and the ice went, and with it all the birds, 
 and my ditch was a ditch indeed, for 
 " February fill-dyke " filled it up to the brim, 
 and the passengers from the spinneys to the 
 meadows found their highway closed. 
 
 And so perhaps it came to pass that I was 
 able to catch " Bunnykin." In ordinary times 
 he could have come and gone by the hidden 
 way of the ditch. But the melting snow had 
 filled the ditch level to its brim, and he had 
 to come round by the orchard. 
 80 
 
After the Famine in My Garden 
 
 It was a very young one, so young that it 
 did not even understand what either "hiding" 
 or " running away " really meant. It had 
 seen its mother do both, and countless genera- 
 tions of bunnies had seen their mothers do 
 exactly the same. When they hid themselves 
 they sat down very close to the ground, and 
 when they ran away they made a short, rapid 
 dash, and then came to a fidl stop. But this 
 bunnykin had not yet realised the fact that if 
 it wished to hide there must be something 
 near in which to hide. Its mother, when it 
 sat down very close, was in tall clover or 
 meadow hay, or in cover of some kind, and 
 when she sat down she became invisible ; so, 
 too, whenever she ran away, it was always in 
 the direction of a hole or a furze bush or a 
 hedge, or something where she was out of 
 sight, and where by stopping very suddenly 
 she misled the enemy into thinking she had 
 gone ever so much further on. But our poor 
 little bunnykin had not grown up to this yet. 
 When it tried to hide it sat down very close, 
 it is true, but on the middle of the path and 
 most pathetically unconcealed. When it ran 
 
 8l F 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 away it was only down the same path a little 
 way, and then it came to a full stop without 
 even a blade of grass to screen it. How it 
 escaped the cats I cannot imagine, but it did, 
 for I saw it twice and the second time I caught 
 it. I took it up to the house and put it into 
 the great aviary in the shrubbery ; for when 
 it saw me coming it hid itself — the pretty wee 
 fool — by crouching down as flat as possible 
 on the close-shorn turf, and when I walked 
 up to it it made a spasmodic little hedgehog 
 sort of dash down the path and squatted again 
 as if it were out of sight. So I picked it up 
 for its own good, knowing that it was not 
 wise enough yet to look after itself, and made 
 a prisoner of it till its babyhood was past, and 
 then we let it go in a spinney ; and as soon as 
 it was let go it ran off as if it was never going 
 to stop, and I am not sure that I ever saw it 
 again. 
 
 But there was one rabbit that we all called 
 " Bunnykin," which used to come on to the 
 lawn almost up to the drawing-room door 
 and eat the campanulas ; and now and again 
 one or other of us would catch a glimpse of 
 8z 
 
After the Famine in My Garden 
 
 a rabbit near the aviary where, at intervals, 
 the gardener's boy had been told to shoot all 
 refuse gardenTStuff, a barrowful at a time, 
 aged cabbages with turnip and carrot tops 
 (here and there an unconsidered rootlet 
 among the foliage — oh, joy for Bunnykin !) 
 and overgrown parsley and lettuces that had 
 run to seed, a veritable Ali Baba's heap of 
 treasures ; and we always said this rabbit was 
 " Bunnykin." 
 
 But by-and-by came a day when we found 
 on the garden path fragments of rabbit fur 
 and two little hind-paws, and Prin, our great 
 Persian cat, came home with two little fore- 
 paws, and carried its trophies into the kitchen 
 to the delirious enchantment of two pug 
 puppies which were there in a box. But we 
 all felt that these were the sad relics of 
 " Bunnykin " betrayed to death by over- 
 confidence, so we chided Prin becomingly, 
 and mourned for "Bunnykin." And the 
 pug puppies kept faithful to those fore-paws 
 till they were so grown up that they scorned 
 their box ; but in case they should ever 
 " unremember " the rabbit, as Tots said, we 
 83 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 christened them Bunkins and Bunnywee. 
 And Tots, sitting in one of her silly little 
 sentimental moods, cuddling the pups on her 
 lap and talking to them, said queerly, " We 
 tried to be good to Bunnykin when he was a 
 baby, and so when he had gone dead he said 
 to Prin, 'You may take my 'ickle paws to 
 the pups to play with. I don't want them 
 any more.' " 
 
 What a very helpless little mite a young 
 rabbit really is whose mother is dead, unable 
 to say a word in its own defence and with 
 nothing that may protect it but its baby- 
 beauty. As it goes out foraging for itself, a 
 responsibility absurdly disproportioned to its 
 size, its every step must be a terror to it. 
 With what deference it treats the blackbird 
 pecking at a fallen apple with such furious 
 energy. "I hope he won't peck me like 
 that," says the bunny. And here is a robin 
 right in front of it, perking up its tail at the 
 tiny grey passenger and chirruping defiance, 
 and the bunny gives the impudent red-coat a 
 wide berth, but lo ! a squirrel in the way, 
 making fearsome noises with nuts. And the 
 84 
 
After the Famine in My Garden 
 
 bunny lays low, and 'lows he'll wait till Brer 
 Squirrel done eating nuts. And there at the 
 corner is a thrush hammering snails on a 
 stone, as awe-inspiring a sound to the bunny 
 as Grumbleking grinding bones to make his 
 bread to Jack. Another bird is tapping 
 hollowly at a tree, and a creature down in a 
 hole is rasping away at something. Very 
 suspicious noises these, and threatening. And 
 poor bunny's ears are twitching all the time 
 with fright, and it hardly dares to nibble a 
 mouthful lest " something" should overtake it. 
 When you pick it up, it lies on your hand 
 as still as a dead thing, with ears laid along 
 its back, and paws tucked in, and only its 
 fast-panting sides — "drawing its breath as 
 short as a new-ta'en sparrow" — to tell you 
 that your pretty captive is in an agony of 
 fear. So treat it tenderly. A drain-pipe 
 half filled with hay makes a sumptuous 
 " burrow " for it, and with a little heap of 
 bran and parsley and lettuce leaves at the 
 open end the bunny finds life more comfort- 
 able than when buccaneering in the orchard. 
 For the creatures in the aviary are all friends, 
 85 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 and it is not long before Bunnykins finds it 
 out, and, though never familiar with the 
 pigeons and the golden pheasants and long- 
 haired cavies, he is no longer afraid for his 
 life, and all his neighbours 'low that Brer 
 Bunny is very 'spectable, and with no mis- 
 behavishness. 
 
 And, who knows, perhaps, he tells his 
 companions about life " out of doors," its 
 incidents and excitements, and be sure that if 
 he did, he did not forget to tell them about 
 the dreadful ailment so incidental to rabbits, 
 which I suppose they call " bang." " It is a 
 very common ailment," he would say, " and 
 dreadfully sudden." What causes it we do 
 not know, but all at once you hear bang, and 
 one of us stops running. Sometimes he lies 
 quite still, sometimes he tumbles head over 
 heels, sometimes he seems to be unable to 
 run and only creeps. And what happens 
 afterwards we cannot tell. Enough that he 
 never comes home again. And, would add 
 the bunny, " there is a very bad form of 
 bang from which you seldom recover. We 
 call it bang-bang." 
 
 86 
 
"BEFORE THE 
 SWALLOW DARES" 
 
 " A ND take the winds of March with 
 l\ beauty." Perdita here speaks of 
 daffodils — " the flowers Proserpina let fall 
 from Dis's waggon " — and men and women 
 ever since have taken the name upon trust 
 and are agreed that she meant the yellow 
 narcissus, the flower we call nowadays the 
 daffodil. 
 
 Yet, oddly enough, I do not know of any 
 Elizabethan who speaks of it as a yellow 
 flower, except Ben Jonson. One calls it 
 white, another silver-white, a third purple. 
 Ben Jonson himself says " chequ'd and 
 purple-ringed daffodillies." Again, why 
 87 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinnev 
 
 should Herrick complain of the daflbdil as 
 being fugitive and " weep to see it haste away 
 so soon," and beg it to last, at least for a 
 day ? The flower we call by the name is by 
 no means quick-withering. However, what- 
 ever it may really have been, the daffodils of 
 Shakespeare are the daffodils of to-day, and 
 though it does not invariably anticipate " the 
 sea-blue bird of March," the punctual swallow 
 that wisely knoweth her seasons like the 
 stork, it comes in the sweet of the year, and 
 is, perhaps, the most welcome of all the 
 flowers of Spring. 
 
 The primroses and violets are at their 
 best to salute the new arrival : where there 
 is elder or dog-rose, privet or wild cherry 
 there is a brave green show of returning 
 April : the sloe-blossom lies on the hedges 
 in patches as when "maidens bleach their 
 summer smocks," In the gardens, the cro- 
 cuses are in full bloom and the squills, the 
 hepaticas and coloured primroses, when the 
 daffodil joins them ; and some snowdrops 
 and " Christmas roses " have lingered to see 
 them. The almonds are in blossom and the 
 88 
 
"Before the Swallow Dares" 
 
 nectarines, and the daphne with clustered 
 bloom on its leafless stems, and in the Inter- 
 vals of sunshine the bees are abroad making a 
 prodigious humming over very little honey. 
 The sulphur butterfly is out, too, hurrying 
 along in the hope, perhaps, of meeting with 
 relatives, but stopping as it passes to see if 
 the dafFodils have any nectar in their cups. 
 Its mealy wings are bran new, with the bloom 
 of their first freshness on them, and the poor 
 old tortoise-shell that comes flickering un- 
 steadily along looks very shabby in its last 
 year's suit, all frayed and threadbare with use. 
 And the veteran, knowing nothing of the 
 ways of Spring, sits upon the ivy, to sun 
 itself, just as it did last Autumn when there 
 used to be a gay company of winged things 
 feeding on the austere-looking blossoms, and 
 the ivied wall, their club, was the best- 
 frequented spot in all the garden. 
 
 Down in the meadow by the water " the 
 faint sweet cuckoo-flowers " are out, and in 
 the warm corner of the copse the first blue- 
 bells are just showing their colour, " sweet as 
 the lids of Juno's eyes." But the cuckoo 
 89 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 itself will not be here till April is well begun. 
 Precocious individuals will, no doubt, be 
 " reported," as usual ; but they will not be 
 "on every tree." Yet whenever it comes 
 it will find " cuckoo-flower " blooming, — 
 whether 
 
 " When daisies pied or violets blue, 
 And lady-smocks all silver-white. 
 And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue 
 
 Do paint the meadows with delight," 
 
 or, later, when the flos-cuculi, the " ragged- 
 robin," adorns the summer banks in June. 
 
 The lines are sweetly pretty, the picture is 
 complete, but its components are hopeless, 
 and therefore for all time a delight to the 
 critical trifler. But flower-names know no 
 rules and shift from one blossom to another 
 with the centuries. The " daisy pied " was 
 once the primrose, or rather one of the 
 "primroses," for several of our earliest 
 blossoms have borne the name of " the first 
 flower," and Primerole and Primula were 
 complimentary names for pretty women. So, 
 too, "lily" meant any flower that was espe- 
 90 
 
" Before the Swallow Dares " 
 
 cially beautiful, and " honeysuckle," one that 
 was sweet. I remember when I first went to 
 Western America being struck by the same 
 generic use of specific names : — " robins," 
 "sparrows," "bugs," "flies," "primroses," 
 and so on ; the fact being that natural his- 
 tory was there being sifted down " far West " 
 by exactly the same process as in Elizabeth's 
 days in England. It is odd that nobody ever 
 called the blackthorn a "primrose," for if 
 any plant thoroughly deserved the pretty 
 praise of Perdita, it is, surely, the brave and 
 fragile flower that challenges "the black 
 winds of March " — the " blackthorn winter," 
 as they call it in the country-side — and, when 
 other boughs are bare, has the courage to 
 deck itself in bloom in defiance of lowering 
 skies. 
 
 And how is it that the poets' violets 
 are always scented .'' Less than two hundred 
 years ago the snowdrop was called violet, and 
 in a florist's vade-mecum, too ; so when 
 we talk of old-world love for modern-world 
 flowers we must go cautiously, as " violet " 
 may mean snowdrop, " lily " mean honey- 
 91 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 suckle, and " primrose " the daisy. I recol- 
 lect that when I first learned this it seemed 
 to me as if the world had suddenly narrowed 
 very much, and as if the sympathies and 
 fancies that we had always cherished as 
 having been English "from the beginning" 
 had all at once dwindled down to a very con- 
 tracted period. It seems somehow to be only 
 waste of sentiment to dwell on, say, Chaucer's 
 pretty touches of nature, if we do not know 
 what he is talking about. What was the 
 " popinjay " he was so fond of listening to 
 and observing .-' The glossary says " parrot," 
 but when were parrots common in English 
 woods ? 
 
 Only the other day I noticed a writer in a 
 magazine using the phrase, "the unlucky 
 parrot," when talking of the folklore of 
 birds. But the quotation, I happen to know, 
 comes from the poet of the " Purple Island," 
 and the complete line is " the unlucky parrot 
 and death-boding owl," and the bird intended 
 is obviously an English species. Now two 
 centuries separate Chaucer from Phineas 
 Fletcher, yet both talk of "parrots" as 
 92 
 
"Before the Swallow Dares" 
 
 birds that every country bumpkin knew all 
 about. 
 
 An Elizabethan, writing about dogs, says 
 such and such a one is good for hunting 
 lobsters — he meant the stoat or ermine In its 
 summer fur ; but an incautious person, 
 coming upon such " lobsters " in literature 
 unawares, might fall into some strange mis- 
 takes if he went about to comment on the 
 accomplishments of Elizabethan dogs. 
 
 Now is the time when the stoat is returning 
 to its ruddier coat, and the squirrel, too, 
 " time out of mind the fairies' coach-builder." 
 The blackbird's beak is already orange, and 
 the bullfinch has put on his rosy vest. 
 March, when fine, is a month of great 
 interest, usurping, as it does, upon April's 
 privileges. The squirrels are still together 
 by their families, but in another month will 
 have scattered, each couple starting on the 
 year's life independently. It is a charming 
 sight to watch a couple of squirrels on some 
 old wall, where, in a hole underneath the 
 ivy, they have chanced upon a field-mouse's 
 hoard of beech-nuts that were put by in the 
 93 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 Autumn — the pretty way they sit up and 
 eat, and the delightful good-humour with 
 which one gives up to another the half-eaten 
 nut which is asked for. I have seen two 
 squirrels sitting together, the one nearest the 
 hoard taking out acorns and beech-mast, the 
 other helping itself every time it had finished 
 with a morsel from its companion's paws, and 
 never troubling to go to the hoard itself. 
 Every time it took anything the other made 
 the funniest little sound imaginable, but 
 easily translatable into " Oh, bother ! But, 
 never mind, take it," and from first to last 
 there was never the semblance of a squabble. 
 When squirrels bury their food, do they do 
 it, I wonder, with any thrifty sense of pro- 
 vision for the next year, as something put by 
 against hard times? The amount of eatables 
 they carry oiF and secrete is prodigious, and 
 yet in the Spring you will see them creeping 
 about the tree-trunks looking for chance 
 insects, rummaging at the roots of nut-trees 
 for fallen nuts, or among the dead leaves for 
 old fir-cones. If food is offered them, they 
 come to it with alacrity. But why should 
 94 
 
"Before the Swallow Dares" 
 
 they put themselves about so much for a 
 meal, or run the risk of accepting treacherous 
 charity, if they know of larders of their own 
 well stocked with provisions ? At Virginia 
 Water I once laid out on a board a handful of 
 nuts in the sight of two squirrels with whom 
 I was on excellent terms, and the rapidity 
 with which the little creatures made away 
 with the whole of them was astonishing. 
 They had only to run about six feet to reach 
 a soft piece of bare ground, and in this, one 
 by one, at random all over it, and not together 
 in any selected spot, they buried all my nuts. 
 When every one was out of sight the squirrels 
 crept about for some time all over the ground 
 with their noses to the mould, giving one the 
 idea that they were sniffing it, as if to assure 
 themselves that other squirrels coming that 
 way could not detect the buried treasure. 
 When they were satisfied, they skipped up 
 into a tree, and, as their custom was, lectured 
 me for being so ill-mannered as to sit and 
 watch them. It was my custom to sit in the 
 same place daily, and though 1 never failed 
 to have squirrels for companions, I never 
 9S 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 detected even a gesture that led me to think 
 the small creatures knew of nuts being buried 
 in the ground upon which they were romping, 
 or sat munching the scraps of biscuit that I 
 threw to them. Now, in February that bare 
 piece of ground was thickly overgrown with 
 the yellow-flowered celandine, and it was 
 impossible for the squirrels to have found their 
 nuts. 
 
 Other animals put away food, but they do 
 it in a way that show^ a positive idea of fore- 
 sight, for they store it as close to their 
 winter-homes as possible. The dormice 
 make, so it is said, their larders close to their 
 winter sleeping-nests, and I have myself 
 found the husks of grains and seeds that they 
 had eaten in waking intervals in and about 
 their nests themselves. But the squirrel 
 seems to have only the instinct to hoard 
 without any guiding intelligence. It will 
 keep on travelling backwards and forwards 
 from the nut avenue to the spinney for a 
 whole morning, going each time with a nut 
 and coming back without one. But if you 
 follow it you will find that it does not go to 
 96 
 
"Before the Swallow Dares" 
 
 the same one spot every time. It buries the 
 nuts here, there, and everywhere, and always 
 with such an expression of feverish haste as 
 gives you the idea that all it is thinking of is 
 to get rid of the nut on hand as quickly as 
 possible and to go back and get another. 
 But their nests, in which they sleep out the 
 winter, were never, in the cases I refer to 
 from personal observation, within at least a 
 hundred yards of their feeding-grounds, and 
 it seems incredible that they can ever make 
 their way to and distinguish, in the bare and 
 leafless winter-time, with the ground strewn 
 thickly with sodden foliage, the spots where, 
 when everything was green, they scattered 
 their provisions. And even when we find 
 hoards in the hollow of a tree, or a hole in a 
 wall, it is evident that the animal which made 
 the hoard, be it squirrel or field-mouse, has 
 forgotten the place, for who has not found 
 these mouldy stores, evidently never needed 
 by the owners or forgotten by them ? 
 
 I remember once in the roots of a tree 
 coming upon a prodigious accumulation of 
 food-stuflF which had obviously been collected 
 97 G 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 in at least two, if not several, different years ; 
 so that I am half inclined to think that the pro- 
 vident instinct of the squirrel — supposing it to 
 have been a squirrel — inherited perhaps from 
 ancestors who lived in an England that was 
 as arctic in winter as Canada, has degenerated 
 into a miserly and unreasonable passion for 
 accumulating acorns and nuts, beech-mast, 
 cherry-pips, and laurel-kernels, that it will 
 never make any use of. But it is a very 
 delightful little animal, and of all the symbols 
 of approaching Summer none more positive or 
 
 gay- 
 
 The hedgehog is now abroad again after 
 its winter sleep. It lays up no stores against 
 the Winter, for it never wakes till Spring is 
 come. I knew one quite well last year. Its 
 winter nest was in a hollow at the roots of a 
 very old laurel which grew in a hedge. I 
 was going to have it stubbed up and came 
 upon the " urchin" fast asleep, so I let him 
 and his laurel-tree alone. The nest seemed 
 to me only a collection of the nearest leaves, 
 with some scraps of moss that had got mixed 
 therein in the gathering ; but inside them he 
 98 
 
"Before the Swallow Dares" 
 
 was certainly so completely asleep that 
 handling did not disturb him. On St. 
 Patrick's Day I saw him abroad ; but how 
 had he got rid of all the leaves that were 
 stuck on his back when I found him on that 
 frosty day in January ? For when I picked 
 him up half his nest seemed to come up with 
 him ; but here he was as leafless as possible 
 and as cheerful. Had another hedgehog 
 combed him out? 
 
 It is a curious little animal, for it will 
 come straight towards you along a path, 
 and even go over your foot as you stand 
 motionless in its way ; or you may walk 
 behind a hedgehog for ever so long without 
 its detecting your presence. I used to sit 
 quietly by its run along the bottom of the 
 hedge and listen to it pufiing and snorting 
 to itself, and watch it rooting among the 
 leaves for chrysalids and woodlice, which it 
 ate with a loud munching noise that was 
 irresistibly comic. I put pieces of apple in 
 its usual pathway, and tiny scraps of meat, 
 and either the hedgehog or some other 
 creature made away with them punctually. 
 99 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 At one time it used to be generally believed 
 that the " urchin " sucked cows that lay out 
 in the meadows at night, and that they 
 climbed fruit-trees, bit off the fruit and then, 
 climbing down again, rolled upon them, 
 carrying off the prizes on their spines. It is 
 quite possible there are plenty of people who 
 still believe these things, for I know myself a 
 Hampshire shepherd who believes that horse 
 hairs turn into eels that are poisonous to 
 cattle, and that a shrew-mouse running 
 across a limb will give either man or beast the 
 " cramps." 
 
 By the waterside, where the willows grow 
 " aslant the stream," and the bees are so busy 
 among the palm, you can see the water-rats 
 diving to the bottom to fetch up the shoots 
 of sedge and flag which they eat, sitting up 
 like little prairie-dogs on the platforms by 
 their strongholds. It is a pretty little animal 
 in all its movements, and, except for such 
 damage as it may do by burrowing into 
 banks, a perfectly harmless one. And to-day 
 sitting, as I saw one, beside a tuft of prim- 
 roses in full bloom, it looked a very charming 
 
 100 
 
" Before the Swallow Dares " 
 
 little person, and nibbling its crisp salad a 
 delightful touch of innocent wild life. 
 
 Another little winter sleeper is abroad and 
 foraging — the dormouse. The sun is beauti- 
 fully warm, and he goes about with the same 
 engaging little loitering way he has when it 
 is Midsummer and there is food in abund- 
 ance. But to-day he is content with the 
 unfolding croziers of the ferns ; and great, 
 no doubt, would be his satisfaction if he could 
 come upon a nut with its shell softened to 
 his weak teeth by snow and frost. It is one 
 of the few animals that are " tame " as soon 
 as caught ; a delicious little philosopher 
 whose religion is one of peace and rest — its 
 ideal of a perfect life, nuts ready cracked for 
 it, and, between nuts, sleep. It would not 
 do, perhaps, for men to live up to a doctrine 
 of doing no work between meals ; but with 
 the dormouse it is diiFerent, and I think the 
 furry little Sybarite is to be much com- 
 mended in having resolved existence into the 
 simple formula of eating when it can, and 
 sleeping when it cannot. I know, of course, 
 that " life is real, life is earnest," and all the 
 
 lOI 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 rest of it, and that sluggards ought to go to 
 the ant, but somewhere about most of us 
 there is a sort of lurking sympathy with the 
 dormouse, who, when the day is not sunny 
 and food is not in plenty, simply rolls itself 
 up and goes to sleep inside its own fur, com- 
 pared to which bedclothes are mere sackcloth 
 and ashes, and in a nest so exquisitely soft 
 that a baby's cradle is by comparison all 
 potsherds and flints. 
 
 In the bird-world there is little sense of 
 rest in March ; on every side there are signs 
 of returning life. While the hedgerows were 
 only faintly green the hedge-sparrow had 
 already been busy with moss and hair, and the 
 pretty nest, one of the prettiest that a bird 
 makes, held its beautiful eggs. How seldom 
 one hears the hedge-sparrow's song spoken of, 
 and yet it is wonderfully sweet, a charming 
 " descant " to the robin's bolder lay. 
 
 The missel-thrush, too, that strange bird 
 so shy of itself that it will be seen as little as 
 it may, and yet so confident of its nest that it 
 piles it up in most conspicuous places, one of 
 the boldest of builders, and often leaving 
 
 102 
 
" Before the Swallow Dares " 
 
 pendent streamers of wool or hay to attract 
 the eye. It will come into the orchard, and 
 within reach of the hand of passers-by build 
 its nest and lay its eggs, and yet never have 
 been seen at work. It is a beautiful bird, and 
 the easiest of all to bring up by hand, its 
 natural courage making it bold to take food 
 where others refuse, and its hardiness helping 
 it over difficulties to which both the blackbird 
 and thrush will succumb. These, too, have 
 already built, and even hatched. But they 
 choose, where they can, the shrubbery of ever- 
 greens, or the thickly-ivied wall. Nor is 
 there any reason why they should not be 
 early, for their food is abundant, and the 
 earth-worms, now at the surface again, are 
 everywhere in evidence. 
 
 Birds, it is said, cannot count beyond one. 
 Why is it, then, that the blackbird and thrush, 
 when they are feeding their young ones, never 
 go to the nest with only a single worm in 
 their beaks ? Though they may not be able 
 to count, they seem to know that it is no use 
 taking one worm back to five hungry nestlings, 
 and, albeit ignorant of addition, appear to 
 103 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 have made a shrewd guess at the principle of 
 short division. 
 
 The wood-pigeon, too, has nested, the 
 wariest of birds that then becomes the most 
 stupid — that having young ones in its nursery, 
 must needs throw the egg-shells down on to 
 the ground, to tell everybody of the fact, and 
 that sits cooing to its mate on the same bough 
 that holds the nest. What exquisite plumage 
 it is in just now, and how beautiful its voice 
 in the woods ! It is among Shakespeare's 
 oddities that he never mentions the ringdove 
 once nor its cooing. But, then, he never 
 mentions the woodpecker, nor the kingfisher, 
 though he lived his youth among woods and 
 by streams. None the less the purring of the 
 culver is a poem. 
 
 And here, again, as to names of birds that 
 we all know, and think have been always 
 known: what were the blackbird and the 
 thrush ? " The thrush replies ; the mavis 
 descant plays," says Spenser. So the thrush 
 is not the mavis ? " The throstle " and " the 
 mavis eke," says Gascoigne. So the throstle 
 is not the mavis. " The woosell near at hand 
 104. 
 
"Before the Swallow Dares" 
 
 that hath a golden bill " (Shakespeare's " ousel 
 cock with orange-tawny bill ") and " upon 
 the dulcet pype the merle doth only play," 
 says Drayton. So the blackbird was not the 
 merle. 
 
 Is it true, as some have surmised, that the 
 golden oriole was once common in England ? 
 It has an " orange tawny " bill, and its note 
 is exquisite. However, it is a stranger now, 
 though still classed as " a British bird." 
 
 Other strangers are with us in March, and 
 " before the swallow dares." For the chifF- 
 chafF is already everywhere crying out his 
 name vigorously from the tops of trees, but 
 perpetually moving on, in quest, perhaps, of 
 a mate ; and the pretty lisping note of a sylvia 
 may be heard from the hedge where the hazel 
 catkins shake out their mellow dust with 
 every puff of wind that blows in this " roaring 
 moon of daffodils." 
 
 But look up at the elms how they swing 
 and sway, and at the rooks that, just as if they 
 were hung in the air on strings, swing and 
 sway above them. It is a grand old bird the 
 rook ; one of the very best of our birds, 
 los 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 Have you to be up in the morning early? 
 The rooks are before you, and as you ride 
 along, the bright eye of day just showing 
 through the grey, they are passing overhead 
 to where the men are busy in the fields. 
 They are the agricultural labourers of the 
 birds, following the peasant in his work, 
 whatever it may be, and, like him, returning 
 when the day is done to the same place, with 
 the same companions. The farmer has no 
 better friend than the rook. I have seen acres 
 of potatoes black with rooks, and, walking 
 along the furrows, have seen where their 
 strong beaks had been at work, and yet the 
 crop of potatoes has been magnificent. Up 
 in the morning before the dew is off the grass, 
 before the lark has left her " moist cabinet," 
 and when probably the only bird-voice to be 
 heard is the robin's, tipsily carolling, as if 
 homeward bound from a jovial supper-party, 
 the rooks are hard at work, scrutinising every 
 foot of ground for the early worm or the 
 night-enjoying grub that has stayed out too 
 late. As soon as the men are afield the rooks 
 are there, waiting for them and for the plough 
 io6 
 
"Before the Swallow Dares" 
 
 and the harrow ; and there is no appeal from 
 the inquisition of the rook. He holds his 
 sessions where he chooses, and they may look 
 for summary procedure, beetle, grub or cater- 
 pillar, that comes before this rural justice. 
 In their wicker nests, high up in the topmost 
 elms, there are already young ones, here and 
 there, and in all the rest are the full com- 
 plements of eggs, and life is almost at its 
 busiest, for they have often far to go for food, 
 and, while one is away " marketing," the 
 other sits upon the eggs. Not that I think a 
 rookery particularly " edifying " as an object 
 for contemplation, and certainly not more 
 exemplary in its "moral," than the beehive 
 of which we hear so much, and of which 
 the inmates are slaves for all their lives, and 
 wholesale parricides on occasion. But the 
 rook is, all the same, the most human of all 
 birds, and the most English in its character. 
 
 The jackdaw, its companion, and now, too, 
 very busy, is rather a gamin, but its voice is 
 delightfully in sympathy with long undis- 
 turbed repose, and most significant of 
 antiquity, and of the statelier forms of peace. 
 107 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 All through the year they keep near, or pay 
 visits to, their old nests, as the rooks, but 
 scarcely any other birds, do, thus showing an 
 appreciation of " home " which is almost 
 altogether absent in the bird-world. The 
 result is that their nests become enormous, 
 and, as a schoolboy, I have stepped from nest 
 to nest, and often sate on a nest while I blew 
 the eggs. 
 
 That Spring was over thirty years ago, 
 but the jackdaws, it may be, build there still, 
 and if they do, there must be a continuous 
 roadway along the boughs of the firs. When 
 I had nothing else on hand, I often used to 
 go there to rob the jackdaws' nests. But not 
 only for that : on the way there was a hollow 
 in the Downs, littered, and in places heaped, 
 with "aerolites," balls of metal that, when 
 they were broken, smelt of sulphur, and were 
 beautifully rayed in prismatic colours. Then 
 there was a little landslip on the crest of a 
 wave of the chalk, in which we found sharks' 
 teeth. Besides, on the road that went past it 
 was to be caught V. antiope and a "hair- 
 streak," found nowhere else in the neighbour- 
 io8 
 
"Before the Swallow Dares" 
 
 hood. In a word, it was an excursion that 
 always yielded a satisfaction of delights — 
 " out of bounds," of course, but when " im- 
 positions," all ready written, were to be 
 bought from other boys with birds' eggs, 
 what did impositions matter to the successful 
 bird's-nester ? And of all our delights, the 
 jackdaws' grove " never failed to please." 
 We, one sworn companion and I, used to 
 reconnoitre the grove — it was of dwarf firs — 
 and, assured that there was no enemy in 
 view, would go In on all fours like weasels. 
 The branches grew close to the ground, and, 
 let it be never so sunny outside, the grove 
 was always in a dim religious light amounting 
 to absolute gloom. Not a ray of sunshine 
 ever reached the ground, which was strewn, 
 feet deep probably, with " needles " from the 
 firs, the softest, most sumptuous carpet boys 
 ever crawled upon. The trees were planted 
 in straight lines, and we used to lie down and 
 look along the ground to see if any keepers' 
 feet and leggings were visible. But all we 
 ever saw was rabbits sitting up to look at us, 
 and jackdaws parading up and down ; over- 
 109 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 head was the deep foliage of the firs, made 
 denser in places by the huge platforms of 
 jackdaws' nests. On all fours we used to 
 crawl along, picking up as we went squirrel 
 skulls or jackdaws' heads, beautifully bleached, 
 and, I remember, empty shells of the great 
 " Roman " snail, till we found ourselves 
 under some specially large agglomeration of 
 nests, and then up to it we went. The jack- 
 daws immediately affected by our spectral 
 appearance through the boughs from under- 
 neath of course made a great to do, but in 
 the general clamour of the grove their expos- 
 tulations went for nothing, and we used to 
 make ourselves quite at home. Sitting on 
 the platform, we would find round us, all 
 within arm's reach, perhaps a dozen nests, 
 each furnished with eggs, and, taking our 
 drills and blow-pipes out of our pockets, 
 would proceed to blow them as we sate there, 
 for as every boy knows, eggshells are easy to 
 carry when the eggs are not — and as for us, 
 had we not the whole afternoon before us ? 
 No keeper could find us, even if he walked 
 below us where we sate, and in the con- 
 
 IIO 
 
"Before the Swallow Dares" 
 
 tinuous babel of jackdaw voices the few out- 
 raged parents who were aware of our presence 
 gave no cause for suspicion. So there we 
 sate, in the fir-trees, at our ease, blowing the 
 eggs which by-and-by would be paid away 
 to other boys for the impositions which we 
 should have to produce for not being in 
 school to answer to our names at the roll-call. 
 And having so many to select from, what 
 curious and beautiful eccentricities we used to 
 get. I can still see one of them, as I first 
 saw it lying in the nest, a perfectly round 
 spotless marble of, apparently, green jade. 
 And — the rascality and delight of it ! — we 
 put the lining out of a hedge-sparrow's nest 
 into a wren's, and therein put our jackdaw's 
 marble, and so sent all the other bird's- 
 nesters of the school temporarily idiotic try- 
 ing to explain the bewildering combination. 
 But at last one day they beguiled my chum 
 into a study, and there privily tortured him 
 till he made confession. For the which we 
 had our revenge by-and-by, in the matter of 
 the owl and the meat on a string. But that 
 is quite another story. 
 
 Ill 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 That Spring is many, many years away in 
 the past, but Spring this year seems just 
 the same as it was then. That sulphur 
 butterfly going by now is precisely like the 
 other that, as a schoolboy, I threw my cap 
 at, the daffodils are still the same, and now 
 as then 
 
 "from the neighbouring vale 
 The cuckoo, struggling up the hill tops, 
 Shouteth faint tidings of some gladder place." 
 
 112 
 
THE FIRST NEST 
 OF A ROOKERY 
 
 IT is one of the compliments that Nature 
 pays the dweller among tall trees that 
 rooks shall come and tenant them. Chief 
 among the honours in her gift is to send 
 herons to your groves ; but then there must 
 be a lake or mere hard by, or long reaches of 
 water ; and the estate must be so large that 
 no public ways can intersect the solitude with 
 noisy lines of traffic. With the heron a 
 certain etiquette must be observed ; its taste 
 for peace must be studied, and the place of 
 its sojourn fenced round with sacred quiet. 
 
 Not so the rooks. Having honoured one 
 of your trees by selecting it for their abode 
 
 113 H 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 and built their nests in it, they take every- 
 thing else as it comes. They do not haggle 
 with you as to observances, or split straws 
 over the ethics of reciprocity. They have 
 made their bed and intend to lie on it. The 
 bargain is struck, " and there's an end on't." 
 They did not come in a hurry or by mistake, 
 and now that they have come they are going 
 to stay. It is a robust philosophy this of the 
 rook's. He does not expect more than he 
 gets but, content with very little, he protests 
 against any nibbling at what he has. Though 
 your tenant, at your pleasure, he is also your 
 neighbour, and never allows you to forget 
 that in the country there are neighbourly 
 obligations on the one side as well as on the 
 other, on yours as on his. He is perpetually 
 reriiinding you — whenever he sees you, in 
 fact — that you are to let him and his house- 
 hold alone ; that you and yours may make 
 any disturbance you like anywhere else, but 
 that his tree is his tree, and you will please to 
 let it alone, and respect such privacy as a tree 
 top affords. When he catches sight of you 
 far off he passes the remark to his wife, 
 11+ 
 
The First Nest of a Rookery 
 
 "There he is ! " and she replies ofF-hand, " So 
 he is ! " And there the matter drops. But 
 should you come under their tree, the con- 
 versation assumes quite another tone, and if 
 we could only understand what birds say we 
 should know what rooks think of the vulgar 
 manners and lack of taste of those who go 
 poking about the ground floor of a place that 
 is already inhabited up above by a decent 
 couple. 
 
 I must confess I have a solid admiration for 
 " the honest rook," as Prior calls it. Some- 
 thing like the dog among quadrupeds — which 
 by nature is just as gregarious as the rook — 
 it has attached itself to man. And though it 
 is still persecuted by that mutton-headed 
 minority of yokel-farmers which kills hedge- 
 hogs and owls and other useful creatures, and 
 though the owners of rookeries once a year 
 carry fire and slaughter among the burghers 
 of the airy cities in the elms, it never swerves 
 from its preference for the neighbourhood of 
 human beings. There is no such thing as a 
 " wild " rookery. They are all attached to a 
 house, even though, as at Peveril, the house 
 IIS 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 itself is gone. Their sunset flight is always 
 towards the abodes of men ; their sunrise 
 flight towards his fields. If better understood 
 they would be called " domestic," and as such 
 might be protected by law. As it is, those 
 who know them best think of them as the 
 " agricultural labourers " among the birds. 
 
 And, how they toil. All other birds, even 
 the conscientious starlings, seem to make 
 holiday half the time, relieving their snatches 
 of work with long spells of play. But who 
 ever saw idle rooks .'' When they sit swinging 
 on the tips of trees they are on sentry duty 
 tor their comrades in fields below. Nor, 
 when we see them assembled in that curious 
 parliament which they sometimes hold in the 
 meadows, are they idle. They are obviously 
 most seriously busy, about something. Why 
 or wherefore these black republicans should 
 thus convene is a puzzle yet unsolved, but 
 the rooks evidently know what they are there 
 for, and when the business before the meeting 
 is despatched they all go their ways : not 
 standing upon the order of their going, but 
 going at once and all together. Sometimes 
 ii6 
 
The First Nest of a Rookery 
 
 the convention ends with the putting to death 
 of one of their number, and eye-witnesses of 
 such executions assert that the whole affair 
 had the air of a deliberate judicial process. 
 At any rate, they were not idling. Nor when 
 at evening, the light failing even the rook's 
 crepuscular sight, the colony joins in strange 
 good-night evolutions in the air before going 
 to bed, can the reproach of idling attach to 
 them, for this parting frolic may be the hard- 
 worked bird's one relaxation, like the hard- 
 worked man's rubber at whist. No, the rook, 
 I fear, errs, if anything, upon the side of 
 making life a " demnition grind," and, like 
 that very terrible insect the honey-bee, one of 
 the few miserable " moralities " in nature, 
 looks too much upon the graver side of 
 existence. 
 
 Many writers have described the rookery 
 established, but, so far as I know, nobody has 
 yet described the commencement of one, the 
 coming of the first pair, the building of the 
 first nest, and the rearing of the first family, 
 nor written of the original " natives " of the 
 new rookery, the Deucalion and Pyrrha of 
 117 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 the peopled shade that is to be, the founders 
 and Patres of another " black republic " of 
 the future. And, turning to Seebohm's great 
 work on British Birds, in which the article 
 on the rook commences with the words, 
 " Few birds are better known than the rook," 
 I am interested to find that I can add from 
 personal observation several missing links of 
 knowledge and suggest some new readings of 
 old facts. 
 
 One Bank holiday on April 3, I noticed a 
 small party of rooks " prospecting " in a 
 clump of trees about a hundred yards from 
 the house, and, watching them, saw that 
 several of the birds were pulling off, or tugging 
 at twigs. The clump was composed of various 
 trees, beech, elm, and Spanish chestnut, all of 
 them very tall but "weedy," from being 
 grown so close together. But on either side 
 was an elm of truly venerable proportions, a 
 century or more older than the intervening 
 growth. That year (1896) these elms seeded 
 with amazing profusion, and on April 3 were as 
 green as if they had already broken into leaf. 
 The others, except for the buds that studded 
 118 
 
The First Nest o^ a RookerV 
 
 the twigs, were as bare as in midwinter. Yet 
 it was the young lanky beech-tree without a 
 sign of green upon it, and not the 
 " immemorial elm " of the rooks' proverbial 
 preference, that the birds chose for their 
 home. The reason, I take it, was one of 
 pure heredity. Rooks, as every one knows, 
 build in elms for choice, but when they build 
 the elms are quite bare. Now, the birds of 
 which I am writing were a month later in 
 their housekeeping than they should have 
 been, and the elms being fledged with green 
 struck them as unsuitable, and so they chose 
 the barest tree they could find — the beech. 
 
 Why were they belated ? I cannot say. 
 Perhaps there had been a quarrel in one of 
 the rookeries (one half a mile, the other two 
 miles away) and they had been expelled ; or 
 perhaps the keepers, who had been shooting 
 rooks — the weather, that memorable year, was 
 tropical, and the poor birds, hard pushed for 
 food, were doubtless glad of partridge and 
 pheasant eggs — had shot their mates, and these 
 may have been the unpartnered birds from both 
 colonies which, having no home affections in 
 119 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 common, had compounded by starting afresh 
 in a new place. This I fancy was the reason. 
 For when I first saw them there were five 
 birds, and it is unlikely that so many would 
 be expelled from one rookery for misde- 
 meanour all together. 
 
 A very little observation sufficed to show 
 that there were two " pairs " and one " odd 
 one," hereinafter spoken of respectively as 
 " the pair," " the idiots," and " the outsider." 
 
 The pair evidently meant business, for they 
 carried their twigs all to the same spot and 
 were very much in earnest as to the way they 
 laid them. The idiots were just as busy, but 
 did nothing with their twigs when they had 
 got them. They often selected those that 
 would not come ofF, and after struggling with 
 them like lunatics, sometimes even hanging 
 on to them by their beaks only, and flapping 
 as they hung, would pick up some ridiculous 
 little scrap and parade about with it, climbing 
 about among the branches very much like 
 magpies or parrots, and eventually dropping 
 it. While these absurd under-studies of " the 
 pair " were thus fooling their time away, the 
 
 120 
 
The First Nest of a Rookery 
 
 others were hard at work, and on the fifth day 
 the first egg was laid in their finished nest. 
 
 The modus nidificandi was interesting. 
 First of all, they laid a platform as founda- 
 tion and then built up the sides in skeleton, 
 as it were, to the full height the nest was 
 eventually to be. Being clear against the 
 sky, and the tree only forty yards off, I 
 could watch them working inside their wicker 
 basket with the greatest accuracy. The 
 male brought from the paddock pieces of 
 moss and tufts of grass, which he dropped 
 into the nest and flew off, the hen, with 
 laborious industry, working the material into 
 the platform and sides. By degrees the 
 wicker skeleton began to fill up and, at last, 
 for three-quarters of its depth the nest was 
 made quite solid. But all round the rim 
 several inches of thinner lattice-work were 
 cleverly left so that the bird, while seated on 
 her eggs, could command a view " from 
 behind the purdah " of all the country round 
 her. On the fifth day the first egg was laid, 
 and on April 1 2 the hen commenced to sit in 
 earnest. 
 
 121 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 The idiots meanwhile had never placed a 
 single twig in position, but continued at 
 intervals to struggle with branches and to 
 fuss about with odds and ends in their beaks. 
 As for the outsider, its time had been passed 
 in making overtures of assistance to the pair 
 and of affection to the hen idiot, overtures 
 that were In either case most unceremoniously 
 repulsed. It repeatedly took twigs to the 
 nest, but only got assaulted in return for its 
 proffered contribution ; and at other times 
 when It approached the growing edifice with, 
 I am convinced, the best of intentions, a dab 
 on the back from the bird on guard sent it 
 off. 
 
 Every book tells us that the members of 
 a rookery are all thieves alike, and that no 
 pair leave their unfinished nest unguarded 
 lest other birds should steal some of the 
 material, but that when the nests are quite 
 finished and the eggs laid, suspicion is 
 unanimously abandoned, and by common 
 consent the greatest possible confidence In 
 each other is reciprocally established. All 
 this may be as It may. In the present case 
 
 122 
 
The First Nest of a Rookery 
 
 the outsider had no nest of its own for which 
 to pillage sticks, and so, I suppose, it must 
 have been hereditary suspicion of visitors 
 while the nest was building which made the 
 nesting pair so cantankerous, and the solitary 
 bird had to suffer for amiability misunder- 
 stood. With regard to the idiots the case 
 was different, and the male bird had the 
 gravest ground for his suspicions of the out- 
 sider, who often fed the female and was un- 
 mistakably paying court to her, showing her 
 how wide he could fan out his tail, how high 
 he could raise the feathers on his head, how 
 gracefully he could bow, and altogether what 
 a very fine and attractive rook he was. The 
 hen idiot did not actively discourage his 
 attentions, but the poor outsider was so often 
 dropped upon unexpectedly by the male bird 
 and buffeted off the premises by him that, at 
 last, he found the situation unendurable and 
 left the place altogether, as much, no doubt, 
 disgusted at the humdrum respectability of 
 the pair as at the selfish affection of the 
 idiots ; and I am not certain that he ever came 
 back. 
 
 123 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 The hen of the pair was by this time 
 sitting on her eggs, and at all times of the 
 day such curious things happened that, after 
 much puzzling, I came to the conclusion, 
 from what I considered absolutely accurate 
 observation, that rooks were polygamous and 
 polyandrous ! It must be remembered that 
 all rooks are very much alike to the human 
 eye, and that in their swift and silent move- 
 ments when nesting it is extremely difficult 
 to keep the different individuals correctly 
 assorted. But, on the other hand, the note 
 of the male is very easily distinguished from 
 that of the female, the former being core, 
 and the latter, car, so that, with my four 
 birds, there was no difficulty as to the sexes, 
 while as to the two males of the party, the 
 one belonging to the pair was distinctly 
 marked by having lost several feathers out of 
 each wing, and being therefore a ragged, 
 shabby-looking bird when flying. So, weigh- 
 ing one against the other, I had fully made 
 up my mind, after many hours of patient 
 watching, at sunrise, noon, and sunset, 
 and after many pages of careful note-taking 
 124 
 
The First Nest of a Rookery 
 
 on the spot, that the hen bird of the 
 pair had two husbands, and the male idiot 
 two wives. 
 
 As an example of the incidents upon which 
 I founded the belief that I had made a dis- 
 covery, let me quote from my note-book : 
 " Bird sitting on nest. Visitor arrives ; hen 
 darts out at him : he makes a show of retir- 
 ing, but only a foot or two, and immediately 
 comes sidling up again ; out she darts again, 
 and again he pretends to be rebuffed ; eight 
 times the performance is repeated, but the 
 last time the hen, instead of waddling into 
 her nest again, perches on the edge of it ; the 
 visitor wheeled round the tree once or twice, 
 then dropped down on to the nest by her side 
 and fed her." Now, who was the visitor ? 
 The male idiot ? Certainly not the male of 
 the pair. And here is how the note goes on : 
 " Visitor then flew away ; hen went back to 
 nest ; suddenly, with a deep core, up comes 
 the mate of the pair ; hen, with an eager car, 
 hops on to edge of nest, and, with open 
 beak and flapping wings, begs for food, and 
 her mate feeds her." Now what had 
 125 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 happened ? Obviously the hen had been fed 
 by two birds within three minutes. The 
 first she had received at the point of the beak, 
 but without uttering a sound (this silent 
 attack of the hen, inconceivably rapid, too, is 
 always disastrous to inquisitive strangers, 
 some of them being actually knocked ofF 
 their perch by her swift and unexpected 
 attack), but eventually she accepted his food. 
 Her own mate she received as usual with a 
 joyous cry, and at once asked for food. 
 
 Take another incident : " All four birds 
 together ; the idiots courting or wrestling 
 with unbreakable twigs, the outsider perched 
 a few feet above nest eyeing the sitting hen ; 
 suddenly and without any warning her mate 
 flies at him and sends him about his busi- 
 ness ; then goes off himself ; the idiots 
 follow ; hen now alone ; back comes a bird 
 and proceeds to feed her ; all of a sudden a 
 third bird descends upon them while in the 
 act of exchanging food ; there is a great 
 scrimmage for half a second, both apparently 
 feeding her at once, and then one bird flies 
 away ; the other follows, and this is the 
 126 
 
The First Nest of a Rookery 
 
 mate." Now, who was the third bird ? Was 
 it the mate arriving just in the nick of time 
 to catch his wife taking food from another 
 male ? Such, and there are a score of them 
 on my notes, were the observations upon 
 which I theorised, and not, perhaps, alto- 
 gether without some justification. 
 
 But one morning, when watching as usual, 
 I saw something happen. It was the key to 
 the whole problem, and gave me a lesson as 
 to the difficulty of certainty in facts of 
 natural history that, at my time of life, I 
 little expected to have to learn. My note- 
 book records as follows : " Wednesday 6th, 
 7.30 A.M. Hen sitting ; her mate arrives ; 
 feeds her ; she flies away ; idiot hen, sitting 
 in adjoining tree, goes to nest and sits : mate 
 of the pair flies away ; idiot hen left in pos- 
 session." Two hens incubating ! " Twenty 
 minutes later male of pair returns ; feeds sit- 
 ting bird and flies away ; twenty minutes 
 later hen of pair comes back and takes the 
 place of the other hen on the nest ; the latter 
 flies away . Correct all previous notes by 
 above r 
 
 127 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 Here was a lesson in observation indeed. 
 One single straightforward occurrence had 
 explained away the whole of a fortnight's 
 note-taking ! But if I had lost one " dis- 
 covery " I had made another. Rooks might 
 not be polygamous, but two hens were incu- 
 bating the same clutch of eggs, and two 
 husbands indifferently were feeding the bird, 
 whichever it might be, that happened to be 
 sitting at the time. So much for my sus- 
 picions of the monogamy of rooks. 
 
 But why did she repulse the other male 
 eight times before she accepted his food ? 
 Perhaps because it was his first time of 
 feeding her, and she required to be pressed 
 very hard to do so before she would take 
 food from a stranger's beak. Delightful 
 rook ! And wherefore the scrimmage on the 
 other occasion ? Simply because the second 
 comer, the real mate, wanted to feed first. 
 What more natural ? However, the fact is 
 established that hen rooks will combine, at first, 
 for incubation, and their mates for feeding 
 the sitting birds, and it is a fact, I venture to 
 think, of considerable interest. Subsequent 
 iz8 
 
The First Nest of a Rookery 
 
 events went to prove that the eggs belonged 
 to one pair only, and the co-operation of the 
 second pair must therefore have been quite 
 disinterested and without any view as to 
 resultant nestlings. 
 
 For, extraordinary as It may seem at first, 
 this community of interests ceases when the 
 young are hatched, and the pair, when they 
 most need help, are then left alone. But, 
 after all, an explanation suggests itself. If 
 two birds continued to divide a mother's 
 duties between them after the brood was 
 hatched, the young birds' ideas as to relation- 
 ship, discipline, and all the duties of life 
 would be disastrously confused. 
 
 And here I found that for the first six 
 days after they are hatched the young are fed 
 by the mother alone. The male brings the 
 food from the field and feeds the mother. 
 She retains the food for a while and then 
 transfers it to the young, the food being thus 
 doubly peptonised. After the first week or 
 so the father feeds the young direct as well as 
 the mother, who now joins him afield, but 
 only for very short intervals. And with 
 i2g I 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 regard to this a very interesting fact became 
 apparent. The young, when the father ap- 
 proaches with his gruff croak, never utter a 
 sound, even though he perches on the nest 
 with food. But the coming of the mother, 
 even though she is silent, is the signal for 
 clamorous joy. I think this a very pretty 
 touch. It arises, of course, from their first 
 experiences, when the coming of the father 
 meant nothing to them directly, but the 
 return of the mother to them meant food. 
 And so to the end they receive the one with 
 silence, it may be with mistrust, "even 
 though bringing gifts," but the other always 
 with rejoicing confidence. 
 - In the return of the parents to the nest I 
 was witness on several occasions of a beautiful 
 sagacity on the part of the old birds. Passing 
 rooks, seeing a nest, would sometimes loiter 
 about the grove. Both parents might be 
 away, but on the instant they become aware 
 of the loiterers, and, should the latter settle, 
 they start at once flying at panic speed home- 
 wards. One flies high in mid-air, the other 
 skims the meadow-grass, and, as they reach 
 130 
 
The First Nest of a Rookery 
 
 the grove, the latter shoots swiftly up the 
 side of the trees, almost perpendicularly, and, 
 totally unsuspected, dashes in like a fury 
 through the side boughs upon the intruders 
 who, utterly "flummoxed" by this attack 
 from beneath, rise into the air in confusion 
 just in time to meet the onslaught of the 
 other bird. It is a splendid piece of con- 
 certed tactics, and, as it deserves to be, invari- 
 ably successful. 
 
 While she is sitting the reception given by 
 the hen to passers-by, or visitors, seems very 
 capricious, but no doubt the bird understands 
 much better than we do the manner of rook 
 it is that she is addressing. For instance, a 
 most inoiFensive-looking fowl coriies flying 
 overhead, and says " quah " to her as he 
 passes, when out she darts, and turns his slow 
 march into double-quick. The next minute 
 another rook, for all the world the exact fac- 
 simile of its predecessor, flies by and says 
 " q^uah " to her, and she never budges from 
 her eggs. Sometimes she will let a single 
 stranger even stop upon the next branch 
 without any outward and visible sign of pro- 
 131 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 test, and a little later she comes hurtling out 
 of her citadel like a bird demented at a party 
 of pilgrims who have apparently no intention 
 whatever of stopping ! But, after all, it is 
 not for " the likes of us " to lay down rules 
 for rooks. 
 
 The language of the rook is curiously self- 
 explanatory, almost humanly intelligible. 
 When the father returns with his crop full of 
 food, and something in his pouch besides, he 
 can only croak in a thick mouth-full way, 
 and he perches. She at once assails him with 
 importunate clamour — car! car! car! crouch- 
 ing like a fledgling, and with open up-turned 
 beak and quick-flapping wings, begging for 
 what he has brought. His behaviour is 
 human to the point of absurdity. He has 
 brought the food home for her, and for her 
 alone. But do you think he is going to give 
 it her, even though retaining it gives him 
 great discomfort, simply because she asks for 
 it ^. Not he. His coming home full of pro- 
 visions is not to be taken every time as a 
 mere matter of course. He wants to have a 
 fuss made about it first, and to impress upon 
 i3» 
 
The First Nest of a Rookery 
 
 her what a good, kind, provident husband 
 she has got, and so, with his crop full of 
 wire-worms and vegetable oddments, and a 
 cockchafer in his pouch, he hops about from 
 one point to another, making the hen follow 
 him as best she can, flapping and screaming 
 and begging at the top of her voice. Some- 
 times he flies away without giving her any- 
 thing, and circles in the air, the hen following 
 him, and clamouring loudly all the time. On 
 occasion he even alights, and feeds her on the 
 ground. Once I saw him go several times 
 round a ten-acre paddock, so closely followed 
 by the hen that their wings kept striking 
 together, before he let her have what he had 
 expressly brought home for her. Isn't this 
 all funny ? 
 
 What usually happened was this. He 
 would come home with a grufF " Here I am," 
 and up she would scramble, and begin crying 
 at once, " Give it me ; give it me." And 
 then he would look as solemn as a savings 
 bank that knew it was fuU of good things 
 but was not going to part with any of them. 
 And while she importuned him he would 
 '33 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 stare straight ahead, as if he had only come 
 home to think, saying every now and then, 
 " Stuff and nonsense." But she wouldn't be 
 denied, and in the end, with much gurgling 
 and choking, the transfer is effected. But 
 this does not satisfy her ; she has a suspicion 
 that he is keeping something back. Isn't 
 there something more in the other pocket ? 
 And he keeps sidling away from her with a 
 "Don't make a fool of yourself"; but the 
 hen, scrambling after him, cries " Give it 
 me ; give it me." " Oh, bother ! " says he, 
 preparing to fly, and " Give it me ; give it 
 me " goes on the importunate hen. " Then 
 I'm off," quoth he, and as he rises she stops 
 
 in the very middle of a " give it ," and 
 
 begins to preen herself! A.nd, as she does 
 so, she interjects remarks in an explanatory 
 soliloquy, " Just as well to get all I could " ; 
 ruffles herself up, and adds, " No harm in ask- 
 ing, anyhow " ; scratches her head vehemently, 
 "Believe he kept something back all the 
 same," then hops meditatively back to her 
 nest, and settles down with a pretty liquid 
 note kiloop, translatable by — " So far good.^^ 
 »34 
 
The First Nest of a Rookery 
 
 I soon translated the rooks' vocabulary. 
 They have several words, and their mean- 
 ings alter according to the intonation. The 
 matter-of-fact affirmative core of the male as 
 he comes flapping homewards at his ease 
 becomes lord-and-masterful when he is at 
 home ; changes to the interrogative when he 
 espies another rook in the sky, to a note of 
 urgent warning as he catches sight of a 
 human being near the nest, to the gravity of 
 remonstrance and reproof when bothered by 
 his wife. But it is always core, though 
 with varying pronunciation. The hen says 
 car, and whatever the emotion of the 
 moment may be that prompts variation of 
 accent, the word is still car. But when 
 with her mate she has a confidential cul-cul- 
 cul-cul like the sound of water bubbling in a 
 hurry out of a small-necked bottle, and on 
 occasion each uses the liquid note kiloop 
 already mentioned. This is expressive of 
 complete happiness, and, however boisterous 
 or emotional the preceding incident has been, 
 the hen closes it, if settled to her satisfaction, 
 with a quiet kiloop. Sometimes she utters it 
 135 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 on the wing when flying with her mate, and 
 on one or two occasions I saw both for perhaps 
 a quarter of an hour together sitting side by 
 side kilooping, ducking their heads and fanning 
 out their tails, at such utterance. In addition 
 there is the quah, the commonplace of formal 
 salutation, the " how-d'ye-do " of the rooks, 
 the " ka-wah " of conflict or hostile pursuit, 
 a dissyllable capable of many inflections, the 
 croak and krahk of the homeward flight at 
 sunset, curiously expressive of " Wish I was in 
 bed " and " Come along ; don't waste time." 
 These last are the words with which, as 
 Bunyan says of the pilgrims, they " feel for 
 each other in the dark," and keep their 
 company safely together, and so as not to get 
 out of the habit they always, even when it is 
 light, keep in touch with one another by 
 constant ejaculations. And there is one note 
 more to which I must refer — the curious 
 creak of the rook. Coleridge speaks of 
 the birds flying " creaking " overhead, and 
 elsewhere I have read in a commentary on 
 the poet's lines the phrase, the rook's 
 " wicker " wings — an excellent expression — if 
 136 
 
The First Nest of a Rookery 
 
 the creaking is really made by the wings. I 
 confess that I have myself always thought 
 that it was the wing that creaked, but during 
 my observation I repeatedly heard the noise 
 when the birds were sitting motionless. 
 
 The rooks' household is awake before sun- 
 rise, and the father spends most of the day in 
 searching for food and in journeys to and 
 from the nest. Twice a day, at least, he 
 remains on sentry over the eggs, while the 
 hen goes abroad " to stretch her legs," but I 
 have never once seen him actually sit down 
 upon them. My rook certainly did not, and 
 on three occasions only did I see him go 
 inside the nest at all, and then, though he 
 may have been keeping the eggs warm, he 
 was very busy with his beak all the time, 
 arranging the eggs apparently, and doing 
 some odd jobs about the floor and sides of 
 the nest. When returning to relieve the hen 
 he flies up to the nest with " It's only me, my 
 dear," and sits down and says gruffly, " Now 
 go and have a fly." Out she tumbles with a 
 shrill car of " all right," and shoots down 
 like an arrow into the paddock. He gets on 
 137 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 to the edge of the nest and fusses about, or 
 if a stranger passes jousts with him in mid- 
 air. In less than a minute she is back with 
 an " All right ? " " All right ! " he replies, 
 and then she waddles into the nest and he 
 flies off. Several times, too, during the month 
 I saw the male drive the hen out of the nest 
 rudely. She complained, but as soon as she 
 was out set to work at an elaborate toilette. 
 This points to an instinctive appreciation of 
 compulsory sanitation. When she has quite 
 finished she pops back into the nest with a 
 sharp, " Now get out ! " and settles down. 
 Satisfied that everything is all right for a 
 while the male spreads his broad wings and 
 sails off. 
 
 Every now and again the male takes a rest 
 in the tree, perching near the nest and keeping 
 up the most vigilant scrutiny of the ground 
 below, of the trees around and the sky above, 
 his head perpetually moving as this, that, or 
 the other attracts his attention. The longest 
 period I have known him to remain thus was 
 two hours, the fact being, I fancy, that " some 
 one with a gun " was afield. But I am inclined 
 138 
 
The First Nest of a RooKER-i 
 
 to think, from watching them, that the male 
 is given to sound the alarm without always 
 having sufficient cause for it, and that the hen 
 has found out that he need not always be taken 
 very seriously. Perhaps he will espy a labourer 
 crossing the field, and he is up at once, shouting, 
 Fire, Thieves, Murder, Help ! The hen slips 
 quietly off the nest, joining him where he is 
 wheeling above the tree-tops and crying. Be- 
 gone, Be off, Avaunt ! to the assassin, bandit, 
 or ghoul his uncommon vigilance has dis- 
 covered ; and on seeing the inadequate cause 
 of his immoderate conduct, she remarks drily, 
 " That all ! " and returns to her eggs. Some- 
 times the male visits the nest just to see 
 apparently that all is well, or to make some 
 mysterious confidential communication. At 
 any rate, I have seen him fly silently on to 
 the nest, give his wife a tap with his beak, as 
 much as to say, " Just come up here, I want 
 to tell you something," and when she has com- 
 plied with his request and is by his side he 
 finds he has nothing more to say, and flies ofi^, 
 leaving the hen to go back pensively to her 
 
 eggs. 
 
 139 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 I have frequently referred to the silence of 
 the rooks' comings and goings, and considering 
 how noisy a rookery is, the expression may 
 require explanation. But it is a fact that the 
 rook is singularly stealthy, appearing at the 
 nest so spectrally and vanishing so suddenly 
 that I found it very difficult to follow its 
 movements. While building they scarcely 
 ever exchanged a remark, and it was only 
 under excitement that they became clamorous. 
 
 The hen's life was a very monotonous one, 
 for from the day that she began to sit until 
 the young were about ten days old she virtually 
 never had any change of scene. Though re- 
 lieved by the female idiot it was only for very 
 short intervals, while the exercise which she 
 took daily under her husband's directions was 
 of the most perfunctory kind. The comings 
 and goings of her mate, whom she often 
 flew out to meet, and the hunting away of 
 passers-by were the only excitements of her 
 day. Except on one occasion. That was when 
 a fracas took place in an adjoining spinney, 
 and she heard her mate in angry altercation. 
 Up popped her head ; she listened for a second 
 140 
 
The First Nest of a Rookery 
 
 and then was gone. A minute later both came 
 back, very full of conversation, and long after 
 she had settled back to her duties, he sat 
 swinging on the tip of the tree making what 
 I should say were uncomplimentary remarks 
 about certain other rooks and recovering his 
 own composure. 
 
 Whether the male slept at home or not I 
 could not be certain, but, strange as it may 
 seem, I think he went to the nearest rookery 
 to roost. At any rate, on two nights, after 
 seeing him leave the tree at about six o'clock 
 and fly due east in the direction of the rookery, 
 instead of south-west, where his journeys for 
 food always took him, he never came back. 
 For, at intervals, up to half-past nine, I went 
 out and made demonstrations on the open 
 space before the tree, always taking a gun with 
 me. Had he been there he would certainly 
 have announced his presence. But there was 
 no sign of him. So I take it he slept at the 
 rookery, keeping open, as it were, his rights 
 to a roosting-place among the community, 
 which his family might by-and-by require and 
 of which in the winter they might avail them- 
 141 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 selves. But the loneliness of the hen bird, 
 hers the only nest within half a mile, must 
 have been very trying, especially during the 
 stormy nights that followed her commencing 
 to sit, when the tall, lithe beech-tree whipped 
 its neighbours to right and left under the fury 
 of the gale, and bent its head so low that if 
 there had been young birds in the nest they 
 must surely have fallen out. I fully expected 
 in the morning to find the nest gone, but its 
 foundation had been well and truly laid, and 
 there it was, as compact as ever. 
 
 After the eggs are hatched she is not so 
 jealously on guard, often leaving the nest to 
 perch close by, and when the young are about 
 ten days old she confidently goes away to feed. 
 Strangers pay inexplicable visits to the nursery, 
 keeping respectfully distant, and are no longer 
 molested as dangerous. Is it conceivable that 
 these can be visits of congratulation ? They 
 are certainly meant and accepted in a friendly 
 spirit, and, remembering the extreme sociability 
 of a rookery (after the eggs are hatched), it is 
 really no absurd stretch of the imagination to 
 suppose that a kindly curiosity tempts the 
 142 
 
The First Nest of a Rookery 
 
 passers-by to step in and look at the isolated 
 family. During such a visit I have seen both 
 parents fly away, leaving their young at the 
 mercy of the visitors. 
 
 At first the voice of the nestlings is a mere 
 feeble exclamation, resembling no note ; but 
 in four days it is very like the jackdaw's, 
 rapidly develops into a caw, and before they 
 fly the difference of sex by the voice can be 
 distinctly distinguished. 
 
 While their parents are absent they awake 
 periodically, clamour, and fall asleep again ; 
 but the first sound of the mother's voice, and 
 she always calls out to them that she is com- 
 ing, arouses every little inmate of the nest. 
 Of the father they take no notice. I have 
 seen him come to the nest, and, finding the 
 mother away, rise high into the air, circling 
 round and round. Then he settled, and care- 
 fully scrutinised the shrubbery below. Satis- 
 fied that she was nowhere near, and tired of 
 waiting, he went up to the nest and fed the 
 brood. And all this time they never said a 
 word. The father then sat down to wait, 
 and it was, I thought, a charming incident 
 H3 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 that as soon as her distant car was heard, 
 every little voice was uplifted in a chorus of 
 joy. After they were about a week old they 
 were often left alone — the severity of the 
 weather may have been the cause of this — and 
 only the mother came back with food. The 
 male had, no doubt, given her in the field 
 his contribution towards the household, and 
 she returned to the nest with the result of 
 their joint labours in the iron-bound and sun- 
 cracked soil. What a toil it must have been ! 
 But the youngsters were well fed, and just a 
 month after they were hatched they found 
 their wings strong enough to leave their 
 birthplace. 
 
 There were only three of them — and no 
 addled eggs in the nest — so that the supple- 
 mentary incubation by the second hen might 
 really have been an amiable concession on the 
 part of the mother to the maternal cravings 
 of a barren bird, rather than the expression of 
 any necessity for such co-operation. The 
 idiot — as I have called her throughout — had, 
 perhaps, when she lost her first mate, been 
 compelled by hunger to leave to their fate a 
 144 
 
The First Nest of a Rookery 
 
 nestful of hard-set eggs, and though she and 
 her second companion could not resist the 
 spring-time instinct of twig-collecting and 
 the formalities of courtship, they neither of 
 them really had any serious hopes of " keeping 
 house " themselves. So they did the next 
 best thing and helped their friends to keep 
 theirs. And it is very curious that both the 
 males should to the last, until, that is, the 
 eggs were hatched, have considered that the 
 auxiliary hen was deserving of as much atten- 
 tion as the mother. Though she was never 
 on the nest for many minutes at a time she 
 was regularly fed by them. Her mate made 
 no pretensions of any part-proprietary rights 
 in the nest, and beyond helping to feed the 
 hens, never gave himself any airs as the hus- 
 band of the "understudy." In fact, he 
 consented to be snubbed. But the hearts of 
 the idiots, as I have had to call them, were in 
 the right place, and they did their duty by 
 their neighbours. 
 
 On the last day of May two of the young 
 birds flew from the nest, and the third one 
 took flight on June i. I was standing, 
 
 145 K 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 watching it restlessly skipping from nest to 
 branch and from branch to nest, the father 
 sitting cawing overhead, when suddenly, as If 
 at some preconcerted signal, both flew away 
 together. I went quickly to an opening 
 between the trees and watched their flight. 
 The father was making for a poplar on the 
 other side of the meadow, about 200 yards 
 away, and the young bird, flapping vigor- 
 ously but Irregularly, was following bravely. 
 But the distance was too great, and just as 
 the father reached the tree and curved up- 
 wards in his flight to settle on it, his off^sprlng 
 gave up the struggle, and slanted down, with 
 outstretched wings still beating, into the tall 
 grass. And for hours afterwards the parents 
 were calling to the youngster to get up and 
 try again. That he did so eventually and 
 succeeded I know, for I saw all three young 
 rooks, next day, perched in a row upon the 
 poplar ; and, later on, the old pair came back 
 for a last look, for many months, at their 
 nest, and with a slow, subdued flight circled 
 once or twice over the beech-tree, and then, 
 the rites performed, sailed off, sliding down 
 146 
 
The First Nest of a Rookery 
 
 on the wind to where their young ones sat, 
 with an air of placid self-content, as became a 
 reputable pair of rooks who had brought up 
 a family decently and launched them respect- 
 ably upon the world, 
 
 I had the nest afterwards examined and the 
 materials were twigs, leaves, moss, and grass. 
 There was no "lining of mud or turf." In 
 spite of the extreme drought of the weather 
 the rooks, if they had wanted mud, could 
 have found plenty in the pond, at the bottom 
 of the paddock which their nest-tree over- 
 looks, and at which they drank ; and I am 
 therefore inclined to believe that " mud and 
 turf" are not essentials to a rook's nest. 
 Owing to faulty architecture the young must 
 have had a narrow escape from a tragic end, 
 as it was found that the side on which they 
 perched had completely given way, and the 
 nest was on such a slope that it was impossible 
 for them to sit except on the upper edge. 
 All the thin twigs had been put into one side, 
 all the thick into the other. 
 
 During the September gales -the nest was 
 blown out of the tree, only a few sticks 
 147 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 of the foundation remaining to mark the 
 site of the first nest of my rookery. 
 
 In the following March the rooks came 
 back, and with them five other pairs. Six 
 nests were soon in progress. But the beech 
 tree had been deserted. Two of the nests 
 were in a slim but lofty elm next to the 
 beech, two in one of the elms, and two, to 
 my surprise, in a Scotch fir next to it. 
 
 148 
 
SUNSHINE 
 AND RAIN 
 
 A MEMORABLE Spring and Summer.* Feb- 
 ruary closed the Winter tempestuous 
 and bleak as it should do, for " all the moneths 
 of the yere hate a fair Februeir " ; and then 
 came March, windy, but warm and dry, and 
 the first week of Spring saw all the flowers in 
 bloom. " A peck of March dust " was once, 
 if proverbs may be believed, " worth a king's 
 ransom," but this year it went a-begging down 
 the lanes in clouds, and nobody made their 
 fortunes by it. Thereafter, four rainless months 
 of tempered sunshine, ideal weather for health 
 and pleasure. The farmer too began the year 
 
 • 1893. 
 
 149 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 with rosiest hopes. Never had crops started 
 more bravely, nor had hay weather more to 
 its liking. But under the unbroken sunshine 
 that followed these promises melted away. 
 
 June came to a close with hardly grass enough 
 in the meadows to hide a lark. The ox-eye 
 daisies were all dwarfed, and the cornflower, 
 that had to be two feet high last year to show 
 its blue stars above the swathes, lorded it at a 
 few inches over the creeping trefoil and stunted 
 kingcups. The thrushes and blackbirds and 
 starlings, out foraging in the pasture for their 
 young, could look across the whole field by 
 standing on tiptoe ; and as for the partridges, 
 they showed above the grass and clover as 
 bison or eland might do above the yard-high 
 pasturage of the prairie or the veldt. The 
 weasel found it uncanny going and a profitless 
 quest to cross the meadow, for the field-mice 
 had proved the ground too hard to tunnel in and 
 were off to the ditches and the shady spinney- 
 banks, where the moss grows thick. Besides, 
 there was a hawk hanging in the cloudless sky, 
 and what weasel so bold as to launch himself 
 upon the bare field with the windhover's eye 
 150 
 
Sunshine and Rain 
 
 searching the surface ? So he kept to the 
 herbage under the hedge. 
 
 Even this was scanty, for the campions, 
 pink and white, that should have been beauti- 
 fying the banks, were sun-smitten, and 
 the stars of Bethlehem, for want of water, 
 were ghosts of their proper selves. The 
 hedgerows, indeed, were curiously barren of 
 flowers, but the shrubs and trees, in their 
 foliage, bloom, and promise of fruit, were 
 wonderful. Not for many years had the 
 blackthorn, may, and guelder-rose flowered so 
 profusely or set such quantities of berries, 
 while the horse-chestnuts, sycamores, and other 
 trees had crowded the Spinney with bloom. 
 
 So, too, in Orchard and Garden. The fruit- 
 trees were loaded with blossom, and their pro- 
 mise had held good, and St. Swithin had blessed 
 them, and Frankum's Night passed without 
 malign interference of witches. So the har- 
 vests of the orchard promised to be prodigious. 
 The hazels and filberts were laden with ripening 
 nuts, and if all the walnuts upon the trees 
 grew full, surely the boughs would break with 
 their burdens. The sunny months of March 
 151 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 and April brought nothing but good to the 
 trees, for their roots, deep-searching among 
 hidden waters, were independent of rainfall and 
 throve magnificently ; and though in the 
 country it is a proverb that fruit will not set 
 unless the blossom has been rained on, there 
 were bumper crops of cherries and bush fruit 
 — raspberry, gooseberry, currant and straw- 
 berry. There were but few plums, and among 
 the wall-fruit the morellas dropped nearly all 
 their fruit. But the peaches, apricots, nectarines, 
 and greengages were laden handsomely, and 
 trees that had not borne for several years were 
 this year in full fruit. Had April ended and 
 May begun with heavy rains, it would have 
 been an annus mirabilis for the farmer also ; 
 but as it was, the Spring and Summer will 
 live in memory as a marvel of unbroken 
 sunshine and gracious English weather. 
 
 In years gone by I have camped out in many 
 countries, but until this June had never slept 
 in the open air in England. There are many 
 people who, when they go into camp, think 
 it correct and necessary to "rough it." But 
 there are others, and I am one of them, who 
 
 1S2 
 
Sunshine and Rain 
 
 have had enough of roughing it, and who 
 keep as many comforts about them as they 
 can, and as long as possible, and who only 
 begin to discard superfluities when they are 
 compelled to. So I say that camping out in 
 England is better than camping out any- 
 where else in the world. To begin with, there 
 are neither snakes nor mosquitoes, and, to go 
 on with, you can keep in touch with all those 
 details of civilisation, the elegances of exis- 
 tence, which collectively constitute " comfort " 
 in its completest rotundity. 
 
 It is at night especially that the superiority 
 of " roughing it " at home is most pleasantly 
 indisputable. But the opportunity does not 
 often occur. This June was the exception, 
 with the temperature over fifty every night, 
 and no dew. So I took my bedding down to 
 a charming spot, where a rustic summer-house 
 marks the end of the orchard and the begin- 
 ning of the woodland, and here I turned in. 
 Snug under my eider-down I lay, with the 
 sky and its young moon hardly visible through 
 the dense foliage of an overhanging walnut 
 tree, and with a beautiful stretch of green 
 IS3 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 sward before me. And before I blew out my 
 lantern there came a tiger moth to it, its 
 " deep-damasked wings diamonded with panes 
 of quaint device ; " and as I put my head on 
 the pillow a white moth, probably one of 
 those "with ermine cape" that Tennyson 
 watched, went fluttering across the grass — a 
 venturesome excursion for so conspicuous an 
 insect when the night-jars are abroad. In 
 such weather as we had this month the 
 night-jars are a-wing until midnight, and the 
 sward in front of me was a favourite meeting 
 ground for them. 
 
 The spinney and the shrubbery are car- 
 peted with dry leaves, and in the wonderfully 
 still night air nothing can be on foot without 
 betraying itself. The mouse makes as much 
 noise as a rabbit, and as for the hedgehog out 
 hunting, its footstep sounds like a man's. In 
 India how these rustlings and stealthy creep- 
 ings would arouse you ! But here there is 
 nothing more ferocious to expect than a fox. 
 A whitethroat in the ditch is wide awake, 
 and scolding something that has passed ber 
 nest, perhaps a water-rat, and every now and 
 IS4 
 
Sunshine and Rain 
 
 again from the spinney comes a cry of alarm 
 from wakeful birds, as the hares go by from 
 the clover field to their homes. In other 
 weather, when the ground is damp and a 
 breeze is stirring, the steps of the wild things 
 are hushed, and the birds sleep on ; but to- 
 night a spirit of unrest is abroad ; for the 
 twigs are as brittle as glass, and the leaves so 
 dry that they crackle even under the weight 
 of a travelling caterpillar. So the birds with 
 their young broods perched beside them are 
 uneasy in their slumbers, and mistake the 
 friendly bunny for an enemy, and the rustling 
 of the shrew mouse for the approach of a 
 " wikked sucke-egge wesel." 
 
 An owl comes up from over the paddock, 
 and dips under the walnut boughs, and flies 
 over me where I lie. I see the faint shimmer 
 of its wings as it beats along the side of the 
 orchard ; and as I fall asleep a bat comes to 
 keep away night-wandering gnats from me, 
 and I hear the crumple of its wings as it 
 passes backwards and forwards above me. 
 
 ^SS 
 
In Gardin, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 It was a pheasant crowing that awaked me. 
 He was only six feet ofF my head, and I could 
 feel the strong pufFs of air as he clapped his 
 wings after crowing. As I sat up he caught 
 sight of me. " Well, did you ever ! " he 
 said as plainly as a pheasant could, and 
 crouched down. What a lovely creature it 
 is, the pheasant we all like to eat. I remem- 
 ber reading in some poet — Cowper, I think — 
 a contrast between the pheasant as a type of 
 " Christian humility," and the " self-applaud- 
 ing " peacock as a " sumptuous Pharisee." If 
 the poet had only known ! In India I have 
 seen the peacock, quite as humble as the 
 pheasant, slip away into cover with a modesty 
 and self-effacement that were eminently Chris- 
 tian, even in a heathen fowl. And here in 
 England, by getting out of bed early, I have 
 seen the pheasant " self-applauding " in the 
 most grotesque manner. Thinking that no 
 one but his own wife was looking on, he was 
 a Pharisee of the Pharisees. 
 
 " Ye meaner fowl give place, 
 I am all splendour, dignity, and grace." 
 156 
 
Sunshine and Rain 
 
 It makes a great difference in a bird's 
 demeanour whether it is going to be shot or 
 not. The jungle peacock and the covert 
 pheasant are equally " humble " when the 
 sportsman is afoot. And when they are re- 
 tained as pets and ornaments there is not 
 much to choose in sumptuousness and pride 
 between the peacock on the terrace and the 
 pheasant on the lawn. But to come back to 
 the particular pheasant crouching under the 
 walnut tree. I remained quiet, and the bird, 
 thinking that it had eluded observation, 
 slipped out of sight into the undergrowth, and 
 for ever so long after I heard it nervously 
 clucking to its wives. To take its place 
 came a rabbit, which washed its face so much 
 and so hard that I was afraid it might do its 
 features a mischief. So I coughed — ahem ! — 
 and Bunny vanished. 
 
 It was only five o'clock, but the bird folk 
 had evidently been up long before. I could 
 hear the cherry trees all a-flutter with plunder- 
 ing blackbirds and thrushes. Young birds 
 were at breakfast in all directions, and at no 
 other hour of the day have I ever heard a 
 ^S7 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 garden so full of bird-life voices, A long 
 experience had taught them that at that early 
 hour the pleasaunce was all their own, and, 
 innocent of my presence, they deported them- 
 selves with a natural freedom which was very 
 engaging. There was no hurry about the 
 feeding of the young ; no hurry in the toilets 
 of the elders, A squirrel came down on to 
 the grass to pay its respects, but the birds 
 were very distant and discouraging in their 
 behaviour. Wherever the squirrel went the 
 birds decamped, and very soon " the small 
 creature that sits in the shadow of its tail " 
 (as the Red Indian calls it " for short ") had 
 the lawn all to itself; but, bored at being 
 alone, it skipped up into a tree, and, discover- 
 ing me, launched out into uncomplimentary 
 remarks. 
 
 Sleep was out of the question, for, one after 
 the other, in quick succession, the guests of 
 the garden came out before me. A turtle 
 dove, that had come all the way from Syria 
 to build its nest in a filbert tree in the orchard, 
 brought two young ones, and, oddly enough, 
 chose an almond tree for their perch. She 
 158 
 
Sunshine and Rain 
 
 had filled her crop with clover tips and plan- 
 tain seeds, and in the most leisurely way 
 possible fed her nestlings before me. Did 
 she think me, lying there on the ground, a 
 Syrian or an Arab on his charpoy, and, re- 
 membering how the Moslems revere the 
 " bird of the tamarisk," imagine that she was 
 as safe with me as with them ? And did the 
 almond tree remind her of the land she had 
 left ? 
 
 A family of tits, a score all told, flitted and 
 gossiped in the nut trees opposite, and on the 
 porch of the cottage sat a wren with seven 
 little wrenlets all of a row, sitting on the bar 
 below. She knew my appearance was unusual, 
 and did not hesitate to say so, and a bullfinch 
 came to see what was the matter, and agreed 
 with her. This aroused a stupid old green- 
 finch to the situation, and he passed on the 
 alarm to a blackbird, who cried chirk ! chirk ! 
 and flashed out of sight ; and then the missel- 
 thrush took fright and screeched. In a 
 twinkling every bird was gone ; and the 
 sun was bright in the sky. The labouring 
 man was already in the field, and a robin, 
 159 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 coming home late from somewhere, was 
 carolling in the pear tree. It was time for 
 me to go. I had spent a night in the open 
 air, but I could not conscientiously say that 
 I had a good night's sleep. 
 
 And so July came and passed. Before its 
 time the purple scabious, easily over-topping 
 the dwarfed barley, was in flower ; the yellow 
 bedstraw (one of the most beautiful and long- 
 lasting of wild flowers when put in a vase) 
 was in full bloom, and the hedges had been 
 hung for a fortnight before their time with 
 the white convolvulus, and festooned with the 
 tufted vetch. The horehound, which should 
 not have been in blossom for another month, 
 was already going to seed, and the yellow 
 flowers of the avens had dropped, and its 
 points were all tipped with spiky seed-balls. 
 A few familiar plants had not flowered at all, 
 the early orchis, for example, or only very 
 poorly, as the ragged robin, the stitchwort, 
 forget-me-nots, and the bladdered campions. 
 But the rest have done well, in spite of no rain, 
 and notable among them were the meadow- 
 i6o 
 
Sunshine and Rain 
 
 sweet, the knapweed, and the teazles. The 
 foliage of the trees is everywhere unusually- 
 full, but the signs of early autumn colouring 
 are already showing in lime and chestnut. 
 The trees have been affected curiously, but 
 not alike. Some, as the ash, poplar, plane, 
 and lime, have seeded or set their seed very 
 well. But the oaks have no acorns, the 
 beech-trees no mast, the horse-chestnuts few 
 chestnuts. The supply of wild birds' food 
 threatens to be very scanty. The mountain- 
 ash and elder are heavily laden, but these are 
 eaten up long before the pinch of winter 
 comes, and are not important " crops." The 
 hollies have no berries ; the hips and haws are 
 dropping off the hawthorns and the roses with 
 the drought, and there is no fruit on the 
 yews. The privet is thickly set, but the 
 blackberry harvest will be very poor. 
 
 This year St. Swithin was not at all certain 
 of his own intentions, and used his watering- 
 pot in a purposeless and undecided fashion. 
 But St. Swithin has of late degenerated into 
 something of an impostor. In his general 
 moral aspect he still, no doubt, remains the 
 
 l6l L 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 " rich treasure of all virtues " which monkish 
 biographers assert he used to be in the flesh, 
 and as good a " saint" as ever — though never 
 having been canonised by a Pope he is really 
 only a home-made saint ; but as a barometer 
 the venerable gentleman has of recent years 
 been only so-so. Indeed, in the matter of 
 rain-augury he has now fallen, in some parts 
 of the country, far behind the woodpecker, 
 and cannot, in Welsh estimation at any rate, 
 compare for a moment with the Prophet 
 Jones who, after an exemplary life as a 
 minister, has left behind him in the Princi- 
 pality a reputation as an exemplary rain- 
 predicter also. As a fact, it will be found 
 that the greatest number of rainy days have 
 followed when St. Swithin was dry, and this, 
 too, in spite of the saint having selected for 
 his purpose a season of the year when such 
 pi ognostications had all the meteorological 
 odds in their favour. I would not on that 
 account impute to the respected monk any 
 wilful intention of trifling with the pubHc, 
 but at the same time would point out that 
 should any modern Zadkiel prophesy cold 
 i6z 
 
Sunshine and Rain 
 
 weather for January if it were cold on 
 Christmas Day, there would not be sufficient 
 audacity in the prediction to make its fulfil- 
 ment a matter for any great enthusiasm. 
 Yet St. Swithin's prophecy was almost as safe 
 a one to venture on, for it appears from 
 published observations that when spring is 
 dry summer is as a rule wet, and that when 
 the spring is wet the summer is generally 
 wetter still ; so that any day will do for 
 reckoning the forty days from as well as the 
 15 th of July, or better, and it does not much 
 matter either whether we reckon backwards 
 or forwards. 
 
 This saint, when on earth, which was 
 scarcely a thousand years ago, was an ecclesi- 
 astic of recognised ability, Privy Council- 
 lor to two kings, and tutor, it is said, to 
 Alfred the Great. But he seems to have 
 had a most unwholesome liking for the wet, 
 for when he died he was buried, at his own 
 request, out of doors, so that the sweet rain 
 might fall upon him, while some chroniclers 
 say that he was buried " beneath the eaves " 
 so that he might constantly be dripped upon. 
 163 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 Under the rain-spout he lay accordingly for 
 nearly a hundred years, when St. Dunstan, 
 who seems to have had an unconscionable 
 habit of meddling in other people's affairs, 
 covered his burial-place with a shrine, at 
 which St. Swithin was so incensed that he 
 caused a violent thunderstorm to burst over 
 the heads of the company and to continue for 
 forty days. And it was for this that he was 
 made the Pluvial Saint of England, and July, 
 his month, the month of augury. 
 
 Yet if one date is to have the same weight as 
 another, there is not a single month in the year 
 that is not as rain-making as July, and besides 
 St. Swithin there are eight other saints who 
 claim the watering-pot. Each month in 
 turn, as well as July, has been supposed to 
 influence the weather of its successor, and 
 these at any rate. Saints Matthew, Paul, 
 Simon, Jude, Medard, Gervais, Martin and 
 Goddieve, can claim equal powers. More- 
 over, observations of the rainfaH have 
 exposed St. Swithin's incompetence so com- 
 pletely, that if we must have an Aquarius in 
 our calendar, why not try one in a later 
 164. 
 
Sunshine and Rain 
 
 month, say, St. Simon and St. Jude, who are 
 two sloppy saints that fall together in Octo- 
 ber ? If it does rain after that, it can hardly 
 make November worse than it is, while if it 
 does not, it will mend the month. 
 
 But St. Swithin christened the apples ; not 
 heartily, but still sufficiently ; and as all the 
 other rustic rites which the proper culture of 
 pippins demands have been complied with, 
 the owners of orchards await the harvest of 
 the trees with assured complacency. St. 
 Barnaby sent the groves fair weather when 
 the trees were in bud, and St. Dunstan let 
 May pass without a blight. For it should be 
 known that the pious blacksmith in his 
 unregenerate days speculated in a brewery 
 and made a corner in malt, intending to hold 
 the market, and that Beelzebub came to him 
 and offered, if the saint would sell himself 
 to the Prince of Darkness, to blight all the 
 apple-trees in the parishes round, so that 
 there should be no cider in the country-side, 
 and beer be more than ever in demand. 
 Dunstan, it is said, agreed to this scandalous 
 arrangement, and his purchaser straightway 
 i6s 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 set forth and blighted all the orchards, for 
 which reason St. Dunstan's Day is held to be 
 a critical one for the trees which are then in 
 full bloom. But, as I have said, this year 
 passed without harm, and so did Frankum's 
 Night, when the three witches, in vindictive 
 recollection of the abominable proceedings of 
 one Frankum — who dabbled in witchcraft 
 himself, and tried to steal a march on his 
 neighbours by his incantations and spells — 
 are said to go round with a malevolent 
 " pepper-box " and sprinkle mildew, smut, 
 rot, canker, and every other noxious thing 
 they can, upon the trees with the young fruit 
 just reddening. 
 
 Ripe fruit, all doctors allow, forms a healthy 
 food for young and old, and it is pleasant to 
 know that the apple does not suffer from 
 their special commendation. Do you remem- 
 ber how, when the Pilgrims were at the Inn, 
 the party had apples set before them, "and 
 they were very good tasted fruit " .'' Then 
 said Matthew the boy, " May we eat apples, 
 since they were by such that the serpent i 
 j66 
 
Sunshine and Rain 
 
 beguiled our first mother ? " To which 
 Gaius replied, in one of those appropriate 
 couplets of which the sententious old inn- 
 keeper showed always so curious a com- 
 mand : 
 
 " Apples forbad, if ate, corrupt the blood ; 
 To eat such when commanded does us good." 
 
 Upon which Matthew the boy changed his 
 ground and went on to explain that the reason 
 he " made the scruple " was that " a while 
 since he had been very sick when eating 
 fruit." It is not often, fortunately, that we 
 meet a boy who argues about the propriety 
 of eating apples that were given him. But 
 with August passing, the season of green 
 fruit is — let the guardians of the groves be 
 thanked — nearly over. 
 
 August is the month of the lapwing and 
 the hedgehog, as September is of the partridge 
 and squirrel. All Arctic folk call August 
 " the lapwing month," and here in England 
 too the bird is much in evidence, " scattering 
 o'er the heath and singing its wild notes to 
 167 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 the listening waste," ere the guns get to work 
 and while the destinies of grouse still admit 
 of peace in solitude. It has a weary voice, 
 " piping o'er the lea," or " crying along the 
 purple moor," and it flings itself across the 
 sky at sunset as if it had no aims left in life, 
 a homeless, hopeless bird. 
 
 The Scotch have never forgiven it for the 
 part it innocently played in the betrayal of 
 Covenanters to their enemies. The perse- 
 cuted worshippers used to meet for prayer in 
 the most secret valleys, on the most unfre- 
 quented hill-sides, just where the plovers had 
 their haunts and nests, and as long as the 
 intruders stayed, the birds kept complaining, 
 flying to and fro above them. The soldiers 
 sent out to harry the conventicles soon got 
 to understand the meaning of the birds— just 
 as in South America the hunters know where 
 the pumas are feeding by the wheeling of 
 vultures above them, and in India the leopard 
 may be tracked by the clamour of monkeys 
 around it as it moves. So Scotch poets have 
 nothing but reproach for the beautiful bird 
 " of ill omen," which 
 
 i68 
 
Sunshine and Rain 
 
 " Hovering o'er the panting fugitive. 
 Through dreary moss and moor has screaming led 
 The keen pursuer's eye ; oft has it hung 
 Like a death-flag above the assembled throng 
 Whose lips hymned praise." 
 
 Another little wild ra'in-predicter is the 
 " urchin," the " prick-backed " hedgehog, 
 "that doth foreshew ensuing storms." Yet 
 the hedgehog, I take it, is a very pleasant 
 little beast. Poets do not like it because it is 
 prickly. They call them " ugly" urchins and 
 "thornbacks dull." Why ugly and why dull, 
 I cannot say. They have very pretty, in- 
 telligent faces, the little ones especially, and 
 the only dulness that I have noticed in those 
 I have caught and kept as pets was their 
 sleepiness during the daytime, though if kept 
 without food all night they were often as 
 brisk as possible in the morning. They dis- 
 like the sunlight, but on cloudy days, or 
 towards evening they were always abroad, 
 and if their box is thoroughly shaded, they 
 seem to make very little difference between 
 day and night. 
 
 Their docility is astonishing, and a very 
 169 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 little handling is sufficient to teach them to 
 like being scratched between the fore-legs or 
 stroked between the eyes. Nor when among 
 friends do they curl themselves up. I used 
 to carry them about on my hand open, or 
 they would lie across my knee open when I 
 stroked their backs, and I am half inclined to 
 think the curling up is a procedure that is 
 uncomfortable, and only resorted to from 
 caution. Young ones cannot do it, and old 
 ones, when ill, lose the strength necessary for 
 contracting the skin. When disturbed asleep 
 they are found curled up, though I have often 
 seen them lying quite quiet at full length as 
 if asleep ; but when torpid during winter they 
 are also found in a ball. But has any one 
 ever seen a hedgehog, when it was peacefully 
 at its ease, roll itself up ? I have never 
 caught one in the act of curling up, except 
 when it had just been alarmed. And how do 
 you account for it that when you take a 
 hedgehog out of its nest it often has a leaf or 
 two cuddled up inside it? Surely no animal de- 
 liberately settling itself to sleep in a ball would 
 do so with such uncomfortable things as dead 
 170 
 
Sunshine and Rain 
 
 leaves and sticks in the middle of its body. 
 Who would think of taking their boots into 
 bed with them when they wanted to be snug ? 
 They never remain rolled up more than a 
 quarter of an hour, and, as a rule, if they 
 are left alone they uncurl in three or four 
 minutes. When rolled up their respiration is 
 regular and in deep, long-drawn breaths, but 
 you can tell when their alarm is over by the 
 breathing becoming rapid and fluttering. As 
 soon as the eyes come up above the fur they 
 are opened ; then comes the nose, twitching 
 nervously. The little creature gives a start, 
 and then gets on its legs by a series of short 
 cautious jerks, and when fairly on Its feet 
 takes often a very careful survey of its sur- 
 roundings before making off to cover. 
 
 They recognise no danger from the presence 
 of man, and when escaping will crawl over 
 your foot or squeeze through between your 
 heels. If when it is on your foot you stir it, 
 the small thing's puzzlement is very comic. 
 But the disturbance does not alarm it. It 
 accepts it doubtless as of the nature of an 
 earthquake, and humbly concluding that 
 171 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 little hedgehogs have nothing to fear from 
 seismic convulsions, goes on its plodding way 
 without any symptoms of panic. Still more 
 odd is the fact that you may walk close behind 
 a hedgehog as long as you please, and it will 
 not take fright. If you are standing still in its 
 path, the hedgehog will keep straight on and 
 go over your boots. But if you cross its 
 path, or come unexpectedly upon it at very 
 close quarters, it will make a short, sudden 
 rush of about a yard or more in a very stupid 
 way, often on to an open pathway or the turf, 
 and there curl itself up. From all which I 
 conclude that, though its eyes, ears, and 
 nostrils are so well developed, it has really no 
 quickness of sight, hearing, or smell. It relies 
 entirely upon its power of contraction and 
 the knowledge that when it is in a ball it is 
 safe. 
 
 I never saw them fight, but when in 
 company they were in a continual state of 
 explosiveness, puffing and snorting in a most 
 delightful way. At the distance of a few 
 yards it sounded as if some small steam-engine 
 were at work. When they meet and touch 
 
 I7i 
 
Sunshine and Rain 
 
 noses each snorts and starts back, again 
 advances, snorts and retires, until eventually, 
 giving one another a wide berth, they pass 
 without touching. Sometimes one would 
 make a rush under the other, upsetting it, and 
 the puffing then would be prodigious. They 
 must pufF or burst. But they did not fight. 
 This manoeuvre, I take it, is a hostile one, 
 and certainly not without its merits, for if the 
 one that charges under the other erects its 
 bristles as it goes it must make it very un- 
 comfortable indeed for the one above. But I 
 never saw any retaliation nor any use made of 
 the teeth. When at peace with each other 
 they do not seem to be incommoded by each 
 other's spines, but crawl over one another as 
 unconcernedly as if their backs were velvet. 
 In their movements, when wild, they are very 
 noisy, treading heavily, eating their food 
 with a great deal of munching, and going 
 through their toilet with loud lickings. 
 They have no real taste for fruit either ripe 
 or unripe, but will nibble it, and as for 
 plantain roots (" the hedgehog underneath 
 the plantain bores," Tennyson notes, in 
 173 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 " Aylmer's Field "), said by Gilbert White to 
 be a special favourite of theirs, I never found 
 them to eat it in captivity. That they eat 
 eggs is beyond doubt, but how they do it I 
 could never discover. I have seen them roll 
 them about till the eggs got accidentally into 
 a corner or against some obstacle and then 
 attack them, but without any results, with 
 their teeth. Next morning, however, the 
 shell was there smashed up into tiny fragments, 
 but no vestige of the contents. 
 
 Now hedgepigs are of the nature of things 
 that cause places to be bewitched. They are 
 very occult. Some time ago (" Leave out the 
 date entirely, Trim," quoth my Uncle Toby) 
 my friend Anthony Partiger confided to me, 
 smoking very slowly as his wont is when 
 about any matter of moment, " that he had a 
 thought that his garden was bewitched." 
 Why ? Because, said he, the tulips bought 
 for double all turn out single, and the 
 hyacinths guaranteed " mixed " are all a livid 
 white. " The candytuft comes up chickweed 
 and the lobelia groundsel, and instead of the 
 'warranted finest lawn-grass,' I have sow- 
 17+ 
 
Sunshine and Rain 
 
 thistles and fool's-parsley." " But these," 
 said I, " are mere details." " Not a bit 
 of it," he replied, "they are circumstantial 
 evidence." 
 
 I was delighted at the turn affairs were 
 taking, as I had long had a whim in hand 
 which I knew not how to gratify, so knowing 
 Tony to get more confirmed the more he was 
 contradicted, I pooh-poohed the idea of 
 witchcraft. But he overwhelmed me with 
 his " reasons," and ended up by asking me, 
 which was not to be disputed with any 
 honesty, if I had not seen that the shrubberies 
 were haunted by whining hedgepigs and the 
 spinney by death-boding owls ; and went on 
 to tell me how only last week a brindled cat 
 (much given to mewing at midnight) had 
 spirited away the tabby of the house and 
 taken its place. By this time he had become 
 so positive that the place was bewitched that 
 I did not hesitate to agree with him, and 
 said, " We can soon put the matter right." 
 "How.?" he asked. "By planting," I 
 replied, "a small garden of such things as 
 witches cannot bear, and setting out in another 
 '75 
 
In Garden, Orchard, And Spinney 
 
 part another garden of such things as they 
 take most delight in. The one will serve to 
 conciliate the more malignant, and the other 
 to terrify the weaker-minded." " We will 
 do it," said Tony, " and let us plan it out at 
 once." 
 
 And so, while it was raining, we did. Of 
 course the first garden, that which was to 
 scare the witches, had to be a pentangle ; and 
 as there happened to be a poplar tree upon 
 which there was mistletoe growing — witches 
 dare not come near the mystic plant — just 
 where there was a space of ground suitable 
 for our purpose, we made it one point of the 
 pentangle ; and at each of the others we set, 
 on paper, an elder and an ash tree, a hazel 
 and a mountain-ash, the four most potent 
 trees against evil spirits that there are. At 
 the foot of one was to stand bracken, of 
 another St. John's wort, of the third vervain, 
 of the fourth foxgloves, and against the poplar 
 was to be trained black-briony. In the 
 centre of the garden were to be white lilies 
 and sweet-briar (which Satan hates), and the 
 rest was to be overgrown with ground-ivy,. 
 176 
 
Sunshine and Rain 
 
 roots of anemone and pimpernel being thickly 
 set in amongst it. And against the poplar 
 tree was to be nailed with cross-headed nails a 
 board with the old prayer upon it : 
 
 " From witches and wizards and long-tailed lizards, 
 And creeping things that run in hedge bottoms. 
 Good Lady, deliver us ! 
 
 " That should greatly conduce," said Tony 
 thoughtfully, " to the profligation of witches." 
 
 And then we designed the other, though 
 the rain had stopped, and the young speckled 
 robins were out on the path, and the red- 
 admiral sat sunning its wings on the holly- 
 hock opposite. In a corner of Tony's garden 
 was a little pool in which lived newts and 
 frogs (to which witches were ever partial), 
 and over it hung black alders, the favourite 
 tree of such as ride on broomsticks. What 
 more suitable and convenient for the hags' 
 pleasure ground than this corner.'' And 
 when we came to examine it we found the 
 pipy hemlock growing there and a noble 
 plant of hellebore, all hung with green bells. 
 
 Surely just the place, 
 
 177 M 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 " By the witches' tower. 
 Where hellebore and hemlock seem to weave 
 Round its dark vaults a melancholy bower, 
 For spirits of the dead at night's enchanted hour." 
 
 " They have been planting here already," 
 said Tony, "and this is no doubt their 
 rendezvous." 
 
 " We shall please them then all the more 
 if we beautify the place with some more 
 noxious plants." 
 
 " We will make it abominably charming." 
 
 " First of all, nightshade. You cannot 
 have too much of that. Witches make 
 their tea of it, and use the foaming juice 
 of aconite for cream. There is plenty of 
 that, too, in the garden, the beautiful blue 
 * monkshood.' " 
 
 " Too good for witches," said Tony. 
 
 " Hush ! nothing can be too good for 
 those whom you are compelled to propitiate. 
 Then there must be henbane and betony, and 
 we will give them a juniper bush, for without 
 this they cannot send brides mad. Yews are 
 here already, and the red-berried arums — 
 ' lords and ladies,' the children call them, but 
 178 
 
Sunshine and Rain 
 
 in Worcestershire we know them as < bloody 
 men's fingers ' — and we must add the mallow 
 that softens men's bones and makes them 
 cripples, and the clammy plantain that causes 
 the black sweat in man. For the rest, Tony, 
 do not trim the witches' garden except round 
 under the yew where they sit, but place 
 against the alder ready for their use wands 
 of bay with a tuft of leaves at the end, and 
 hemlock-stalks, and, if you have them to 
 spare, an old broomstick or two. 
 
 ' Some nags were of the Brume-cane framit, 
 And some of the griene Bay-tree ; 
 And mine was made of ane Humloke schaw, 
 And a stout stallion was he.' 
 
 You will then have done your best, and if at 
 any time you find a dead shrew or bat about 
 throw it into their garden. Witches have 
 their whims, you know. And Tony," I 
 added, "when you have done all this, I 
 think, if I were you, remembering what you 
 said about your flowers not coming up true to 
 name, I should also change my seedsman." 
 
 " I was thinking," said Tony. " whether I 
 should not do that first." 
 179 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 Raining again, in a soft warm shower I 
 Listen to the garden talking while it rains, a 
 patter of voices, quick, eager, multitudinous, 
 full of hopes and projects of what they will 
 do " now that it rains." How they will 
 grow and shoot forth and bud and blossom ! 
 The roses only are weeping their pretty 
 flowers away, drip, drip, drip, one petal at a 
 time, and then, on a sudden, a whole sob-full. 
 Pan has asked for them : they give them to 
 Pan. And the sweetbriar is worshipful with 
 fragrance, and like incense to Indra, " Lord 
 of the Rain," goes up the scent of lavender 
 and southernwood and thyme. The lilies, of 
 great goodlihead, divinely tall, sway with a 
 stately languid grace ; the Canterbury bells 
 are all ringing. 
 
 The birds are under shelter, but scarcely 
 out of sight, for the rain drives out a multi- 
 tude of flying creeping things. The thrush 
 and blackbird make short excursions to see 
 how the worms are coming out ; the fly- 
 catcher, as if on a pendulum, swings across 
 an open space, intercepting the fluttering 
 rain-impeded moths ; the wagtail paddles 
 i8q 
 
Sunshine and Rain 
 
 along the edge of the path busily feeding ; 
 the sagacious robin, comfortably under a 
 bush, watches for the caterpillars that drop 
 by long threads off the wet leaves and dangle 
 in the air. The cat, too, sits dry under the 
 clematis that grows against the house, but 
 now and again one big drop falls upon her, 
 soaking slowly to the skin, and shoots sudden 
 tremors along her furry sides, little zigzag 
 lightnings of cold shiver. And the drenched 
 spider slings herself hand over hand up the line, 
 and, cuddled up under a leaf, sits cat-elbowed 
 watching the rain-drops strike her slanting 
 web and catch in it — useless captives these. 
 
 The rain makes flat finicking patterns on 
 the path, all specks and dots, like Benares 
 brass-work, but becomes bravely confluent 
 where, under an overhanging fern, it sweeps 
 in mimicry of a torrent round the corner of 
 the rockwork to the grating, where its tiny 
 Niagara disappears. And, lo ! the toad with 
 its dandified swaggering crawl, its elbows out 
 like a beau's, and resting every now and 
 again to look about at nothing. Why not 
 pick it up and cross its back with silver ? It 
 i8i 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 brings good fortune. " He who is not for- 
 tunate must provide himself with a toad, and 
 feed it in his house on bread and wine, 
 inasmuch as they are either 'lords' or 
 • women from without,' or ' uncomprehended 
 genii,' who have fallen under some maledic- 
 tion. Hence they are not to be molested, 
 lest when offended they should come at night 
 to spit upon the offender's eyes, which never 
 heal, not even if he recommend himself to 
 the regard of Santa Lucia." The " slow soft 
 toad," as Shelley calls it, is a special favourite 
 of mine. I like him because he carries a 
 precious jewel in his head that nobody has 
 yet found, and because he knows how to 
 hatch cockatrices,* and because he eats gnats. 
 He is a charming person altogether, "the 
 full-blown toad," and never, perhaps, more 
 so than in Spenser's immortal couplet : 
 
 " The grisly toadstool grown there might I see 
 And loathed paddocks lording on the same." 
 
 * If it finds a cock's egg it sits upon it and hatches 
 it. The result is a cockatrice, which by-and-by grows 
 a crown on its head and becomes a basilisk, which kills 
 by merely looking. A considerable beast. — P. R. 
 i8z 
 
Sunshine and Raii* 
 
 The worm, too, is now abroad, telescoping its 
 way along the soft ground, and sucking down 
 into its burrow all the leaves it can reach. 
 When the thrush is asleep it will be busiest, 
 this terrible little creature that is responsible 
 for the disappearance of cities and for the un- 
 doing and unmaking of all that man sets up. 
 But will it, when daylight comes, remember 
 about " the early bird " .'' 
 
 And here see "the compendious snail" upon 
 his travels. He pays no rent and fears no 
 brokers. For, except when he is inside it, his 
 house is unfurnished. There is nothing to 
 levy upon : 
 
 " Wherein he dwells, he dwells alone, 
 Except himself has chattels none, 
 Well satisfied to be his own 
 Whole treasure." 
 
 It is Davenant who calls it the "nimble" 
 snail, " hast'ning with all his tenements on his 
 back." And why not .? How fast would a 
 squirrel go if it had to carry its nest on its 
 back ? Or the house-sparrow ? And it is 
 truly delightful, when looking at the creature, 
 so apparently harmless, so much to be pitied, 
 183 
 
In GARDE^f, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 to remember, as De Gubernatis says, that 
 "the snail of popular superstition is demoni- 
 acal." And there is no doubt that in the 
 folk-lore of every country the snail is treated 
 as an accomplice of the Devil in all his wicked 
 works. 
 
 And then the rain stops, and except here 
 and there for a little puddle fast sinking into 
 the ground and the glittering of the drops 
 hanging at the tips of the leaves, there is no 
 sign of the summer weather having broken. 
 The sky is clear blue, and the sun is bright. 
 The swifts are wheeling and screaming round 
 the house-tops, and from fir-tree and elm the 
 birds are singing. And look at them on the 
 lawn, in the field, everywhere. Listen to the 
 humming of the wasps in the trees. People 
 stop and say, " Listen to the bees " ; but if 
 they will look they will see there are no flowers 
 overhead for the honey-seekers. It is the wasps 
 who are at work, crowding on the sprays of 
 silver fir and spruce, and scraping together 
 the resin which they need for making the 
 paper of their nests. For the wasp is no more 
 184 
 
Sunshine and Rain 
 
 an idler than the bee, and though it often 
 finds a short cut to honey by plundering the 
 laden workers of the hive, it is always busy, 
 and terribly in earnest. 
 
 A majority think unkindly of the wasp. 
 They cannot forget its sting. The prejudice 
 is not an admirable one, as some prejudices 
 are ; race prejudice, for instance, which is the 
 making of nations. But not this one against 
 wasps. For it is really only a protest against 
 a vigorous personality, against the assertion 
 of individual power. In the human species 
 there are wasps — strong-flighted men whom 
 most fear, and many, out of sheer weakness, 
 hate, for their robustness of mind and their 
 intellectual aggressiveness. Such do not work 
 in wax, nor store honey. Yet the workman- 
 ship of bees, as compared with that of wasps, 
 is the workmanship of blind mutes imitating 
 a pattern by the touch of fingers as compared 
 with that of uncrippled and independent in- 
 tellect. The life-history of the wasp, too, is 
 far more worthy of self than that of the hive- 
 folk. Sting .^ Of course they do, if the 
 necessity arises, and often, grateful to Provi- 
 i8s 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and SpinneV 
 
 dence for the weapon, they make the necessity 
 for themselves. Ought they to keep their 
 talents wrapped in napkins ? 
 
 No one likes bees better than I do. I have 
 kept hives. But, after all, are they not the 
 cattle and poultry of the insects .'' They are 
 the sheep, while the wasps are the wild deer. 
 The one represents Routine, the other a pro- 
 test against Routine. What poetry is there 
 in the lives of bees as compared with that 
 of wasps — in the tame citizenship of the 
 artificial hive, the machine-made honeycomb, 
 as compared with the romance of the woodland 
 comb-maker? Both bee and wasp need honey; 
 but the latter, when it has not the leisure (or 
 the will) to gather it for itself, goes after the 
 former. "What ho, there ! " it cries. "You 
 bumbling fellow, in your jerkin of woolly 
 brown, stand and deliver ! " — and the bee 
 does. 
 
 A pirate of the air? a highwayman of skyey 
 roads and heaths ? No, no ; not at all. This 
 is the way of courageous genius, that knows 
 how to take the bricks which the diligent 
 mechanical student has been piling up into 
 1 86 
 
Sunshine and Rain 
 
 regular heaps in his brickyard, and to build 
 beautiful houses with them. Left alone, they 
 would have been piles of bricks, and nothing 
 more, for ever and a day. But a better man 
 comes along and bravely possesses himself of 
 them. " You can go and rummage for more," 
 he says to the toiler among the clay : " that 
 is your life-work — to make bricks. Mine is 
 to build with the bricks which you make." 
 Of course the bee buzzes and says, "You 
 mustn't ; you really ought not. I want the 
 honey myself to fill a cell with." The wasp 
 replies, " Deliver, or you are a dead bee." Or 
 suppose they argue more calmly. "What 
 are you doing ? " demands the wasp. " Going 
 home with my honey-bag," replies the other. 
 « What for ? " " To fill a cell with." " Well, 
 what then ? When the cell is filled what shall 
 you do .? " " Shut it up and begin another," 
 is the reply. " And then ? " " Fill that up 
 too and begin another." Imagine the generous 
 fury of the wasp ! " Oh, thou mutton-headed 
 fly ! And is that the end of life — to fill cells 
 with honey and eat none .? To sweat all the 
 summer through and have no harvest of your 
 187 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 toil ? Oh, thou gross one ! Thou honey- 
 grubber ! Thou miser of honey-bags ! Per- 
 petually filling for others to void — and with- 
 out the wit to see that thou art the sport of 
 spendthrifts. Out of this ! Give up your 
 honey, or, 'od zooks ! this rapier at the end 
 of me shall rid the world of a numskull varlet." 
 But, like the sturdy good citizen that he is, 
 the bee often refuses to surrender ; and then 
 woe to him, the poor honest fellow in his 
 fustian coat. For my gentleman whips you 
 out his bodkin, and there is an end of the 
 bee. 
 
 In short, there is a great deal to say about 
 the wasp, and in its favour. Its soldierly ways, 
 s6 " smart " and alert : the lancer in the field, 
 a gladiator at need. When they go abroad it 
 is with military motions — scouting, skirmish- 
 ing, foraging, fighting. And the nest is a 
 citadel. There is no " bumbling " variety of 
 the wasp, no "bumble-wasp." They make 
 very little fuss about what they do. Yet 
 sometimes, when they go by, there is slung 
 past your ear a sound like a tiny bullet ; not 
 like the bee's of "a full content," but an eager 
 i88 
 
Sunshine and Rain 
 
 racing voice that has an objective point before 
 it. Thus they keep life from getting stagnant. 
 Many insects would go to sleep altogether if 
 it were not for the wasps, who are for ever 
 reconnoitring other people's premises. Just 
 as Nature keeps a hawk hung up in the air to 
 teach the groundlings that " life is not all beer 
 and skittles," so she always has a wasp on 
 hand to repress the idea of perpetual gaiety 
 among insects. It is the falcon of the dipterous 
 folk. So, too, when it is not at work, there is 
 a delightfiil idleness about the wasp; a 
 thorough complete vacancy which is enough 
 to send a honey-bee mad to see. But for 
 myself I hold perpetual labour in abomination, 
 and believe my hatred of it just. 
 
 The centre figure of the home-life of bees 
 is of coiu-se the queen-bee, one of the chiefest 
 wonders of the animated world. Volimies of 
 facts have been published of the almost in- 
 credible life-history of this insect, of its crea- 
 tion artificially by the drudges of the hive, of 
 its terrible life. A truly awful insect; a made- 
 up monster, as it were, with a body complete 
 189 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 in all its parts, but no soul, no heart. Of the 
 idolatrous devotion of the hive to this tyrant, 
 literally of their own construction, endless 
 fanciful prose has been written. 
 
 For a long time it was supposed that the 
 sovereign of the hive was a male, "the king ;" 
 and I think this sentence from Pliny is worth 
 quoting, " Hath the king of the bees alone 
 no sting, and is he armed only with majesty ? 
 or hath nature bestowed on him a sting and 
 yet denied him only the use thereof? For 
 certain it is that this great commander over 
 the rest does nothing with his sting, and yet 
 a wonder it is to see how readily they all obey 
 him." Virgil has a king bee, and he describes 
 how his subjects defend their monarch : 
 
 " Onward they troop, and brandishing their wings, 
 Fit their fierce claws and point their poison'd 
 
 stings ; 
 Throng to the imperial tent, their king surround, 
 Provoke the foe, and loud defiance sound." 
 
 That the queen bee has a sting is abundantly 
 proved every year by her using that weapon 
 to kill her possible rivals ; but it is one of the 
 190 
 
Sunshine and Rain 
 
 curiosities of bee-life that, however irritated 
 (and her subjects treat her with the scantiest 
 possible ceremony on occasion), she never uses 
 her sting against them. " Majestate tantum " 
 (by majesty alone) was therefore a favourite 
 motto of principalities and powers. Among 
 others it was the motto on the breast of Louis 
 XII. of France, " Pere du Peuple." But the 
 fancy was surely stretched to the snapping- 
 point when the Maid of Orleans was given 
 a queen-bee for her impress. 
 
 There, too, is the drone, with his big head, 
 and his eyes meeting atop and giving him a 
 queer, blank-eyed look. Watch him come out 
 of the hive on a fine morning. How cautiously 
 he pokes out his feelers to see if it be cold or 
 not ; how he stops up the doorway against 
 the industrious neuters, who have been up 
 and at work since daybreak ; how he loiters 
 on the ledge, elaborating his toilet, exasperating 
 the laden folk who cannot find room to settle. 
 And then he thinks of breakfast, and flies off 
 with a slow, heavy, droning flight to the 
 nearest flowers. Among these he spends his 
 days, or goes ofi^ to court some queen out on 
 191 
 
In Gardekt, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 her nuptial flight and summoning her suitors. 
 Then the season of courtship and nuptials 
 comes to an end. But the poor drone does 
 not know it, and comes blundering into the 
 hive as usual, and goes to sleep full of honey 
 and fatigued with pleasure. And the wretched 
 awakening ! The hive is all astir, and the voices 
 of the workers are hot and hoarse. They are 
 rushing about in all directions, searching 
 out the drones from where they lie asleep, 
 stabbing them to death, and dragging their 
 bodies on to the sunny ledge, drop them over 
 on to the ground beneath. The massacre 
 does not take long. For the drones have 
 no stings, and can do no more when the 
 poisoned poniard slips in between their scales 
 than shrill for mercy, which is never granted. 
 So they die in the midsummer of their 
 pleasure. 
 
 When the hive is over-crowded, the con- 
 servative party of the community secedes from 
 the parent stock, taking the old queen with 
 it, to found a new colony. As soon as the 
 owner or a friendly neighbour hears " the 
 murmuring sound of the swarming bees," he 
 192 
 
Sunshine and Rain 
 
 comes out — the practice is still almost universal 
 among the country-folk — and striking a key 
 on a pan, or jingling the fire-irons together, 
 " calls " the swarm. 
 
 It has been a busy year this for everything, 
 for nearly all the birds have second broods, 
 and the flowers are trying to blossom twice. 
 The heat of May and June tempted them to 
 flower, but they were only half-hearted, and 
 now that July has given them rain they are 
 making fresh growths. The bright blue stars 
 of the chicory are reappearing ; they had 
 almost dwindled away for want of rain, and 
 the wild campanulas have picked up heart of 
 grace. The willow-herb, which in Canada 
 follows the track of the forest fires, filling up 
 all the black spaces along the railway lines — 
 they call it the " fire-weed " — has its roots in 
 moist places and is lusty and tail ; and the 
 foxgloves that have had shade are in the prime 
 of their beauty. But the mulleins, the beautiful 
 plants with soft downy leaves and noble spires 
 of yellow bloom, the pride of the copse, are 
 dwarfed, and so is the toad-flax that makes 
 193 w 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 the hedgerows lovely, and the pretty rest- 
 harrow spread out along the ground brighten- 
 ing the waste corners of the fields is deeper 
 in colour and much smaller than in other 
 vears. 
 
 This deepening of colour is very notice- 
 able. Whole fields of bird's-foot trefoil have 
 this July been fiery orange, while in other 
 years children found it a morning's work to 
 gather a handful of the darker flowers. The 
 campions too were not pink, but rich rosy 
 red. 
 
 The hawks are out of their reckoning, and 
 beating the hedges they found none of the 
 partridge chicks they expected. The birds 
 were well grown in July and quite able to 
 take care of themselves, and now, with August 
 in its second week, they are as strong of wing 
 as ever they were on the fatal First. What a 
 charming bird it is, this bold little yeoman of 
 our country-side, and in all the home-life of 
 birds can there be anything more engaging 
 than the partridge's care of her eggs and 
 young ones ? Live happily with your family 
 while you may, little bird, for the day of your 
 194 
 
Sunshine and Raii* 
 
 trouble is close upon you, when the covey you 
 have loved so well will be scattered, and even 
 if you live yourself to call them to you, you 
 will find your voice unheeded, perhaps by 
 both mate and chick. 
 
 '95 
 
THE LOOTING OF 
 THE ORCHARD 
 
 A NOBLE nut avenue down the centre. On 
 either side an old orchard, with broad 
 open stretches of turf between the rows of 
 gnarled grey fruit-trees, all set with beds 
 filled with standard roses. They are now in 
 their second bloom, standing up to their 
 knees in asters, violet and pink and crimson. 
 A broad turf path — how beautiful they are, 
 these green grass-ways of our old English 
 gardens, as compared with the gravel of the 
 new ! — runs along either side, and the apple 
 and pear, cherry and plum trees meet over- 
 head all along. They make an aisle of 
 
 beauty the whole year through, whether in 
 197 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 the full glory of bloom, pink and white ; or 
 in young leaf ; or, as now, in dark foliage 
 studded with bright-cheeked fruit ; or in 
 winter, when there is no green but the tufts 
 of mistletoe, and the lichened boughs are 
 traced out in snow. Always lovely, and the 
 abiding-place of peace. No gardeners dis- 
 turb it much. In the very early morning 
 they go round the rosaries, trimming and 
 weeding and tying up, and once a week the 
 turf is cut close down to a velvet pile. 
 While the machine goes whirring up and 
 down the paths, and round and round the 
 rose-beds, the blackbirds sit in the shrubbery, 
 impatient of the interrupting of their looting ; 
 the squirrel, from his post of observation on 
 the tall acacia, overlooks the operation and 
 the nut avenue he wishes to return to, with 
 ill-concealed annoyance at the intrusion ; the 
 purring of the doves in the surrounding 
 spinneys stops for a while. Only the green- 
 finch lifts up its voice. 
 
 That Cowper should have spoken well of 
 the greenfinch ! Many is the time it has 
 driven me from my seat where, quietly seated 
 198 
 
The Looting of the Orchard 
 
 with a book and a pipe, I had meant to spend 
 my morning. The wretched bird, thinking 
 that it, and it alone, has " discovered " you — 
 you, sitting fully exposed to view on a garden 
 seat — perches itself as near you as it dares, 
 and commences its monotonous lament. Is 
 there anything in Nature more exasperating 
 than the note of the greenfinch when it is 
 complaining ? It will go on repeating the 
 same one note till it drives you into a passion. 
 If you get up and hurl a stone at it, it only 
 flies a little farther off and begins again. 
 And the most miserable note a bird ever 
 uttered. You would think it was the 
 wretchedest thing in the garden. And with 
 it all an indescribable undertone of hypocrisy, 
 of affectation, that robs its dolorous voice of 
 all pitifulness, and makes its lament an in- 
 tolerable impertinence. What have you 
 done ? Nothing but seat yourself down near 
 its nest. Yet the miserable little fowl at 
 once commences to tell all the garden of 
 the intolerable burden of your tyranny, the 
 monstrous oppression under which it suffers. 
 There is one method of self-defence if you 
 199 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 ever wish to sit on that seat with enjoyment, 
 and that is to get up and walk across to the 
 bush or tree the bird is on, find its nest and 
 pull it out. It will at once go away and 
 begin building another, where, perhaps, it 
 will not be in your way. If it is, pull it out 
 again, until the greenfinch has gone out of 
 earshot of your favourite retreat. No bird, 
 not even the house-sparrow, is so persistent 
 in nest-building. For one thing, the edifice 
 is what the poets would call " artless " ; what 
 we may call, without offending the green- 
 finch, slovenly. An untidy foundation is 
 laid of fine twigs — by preference birch — and 
 into the hollow are put flocks of wool, moss, 
 and dead grass. A rough lining of horsehair 
 is added, and the nursery is complete. It is 
 begun and finished in a day. You will find 
 an egg in a greenfinch's nest on the day after 
 the foundation of the nest was laid. 
 
 The worst of it is, that this prolific creature, 
 one of the very prettiest of English birds, is 
 perhaps the only one that can claim no merit, 
 beyond the plumage of the male. It is 
 mischievous from its birth. Fed on flower- 
 
The Looting of the Orchard 
 
 buds and sprouting seeds, it grows up to 
 devastate the fruit and ripening produce of 
 the kitchen garden. It picks the tiny lettuces 
 to pieces, nips off the fine tender sproutings 
 of the spinach, and lays waste the peas just 
 showing above ground in their first faint 
 green. Deterred from these by netting, or 
 driven from them by the pestilent voice of 
 bird-scaring youth, it ravages the setting 
 berries, and plays the Vandal (destroying 
 what it cannot devour) among the unripe 
 fruit. What does it give in return .-' 
 Nothing, but now and again a glint of 
 green and yellow plumage. It seldom eats 
 an insect, never sings a note. It is, like all 
 thieves, unsociable and evasive. But it builds 
 with a fearless confidence that is absolutely 
 wonderful. My host here, who is surely one 
 of the tenderest of all men living towards the 
 wildings whom his pleasure-grounds harbour 
 and protect, has issued a ukase against all 
 disturbance of birds. He knows their faults 
 and their virtues, and he keeps open house 
 for all. For all but the greenfinch. Their 
 nests are piled up in an arbour a dozen 
 
 201 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 together, most of them with eggs. These 
 go to feed a beautiful Persian cat with fur 
 like a thunder-cloud. It eats eggs. And 
 yet the garden is full of greenfinches to-day, 
 and in the nut avenue alone there were, early 
 in September, at least two nests with young 
 ones. " They can hatch them now if they 
 like," says my host, " for by the time they 
 are grown there will be nothing left in the 
 garden that they are not welcome to." 
 
 They are wonderful little birds, truly ; 
 accepting the destruction of their homesteads 
 with an invincible indifference, and not 
 repining by as much as a twitter at the 
 dragging forth of their egg-treasures. And 
 yet, when no offence is offered, when there is 
 not even a demonstration of ill-will, they will 
 sit whining, murmuring, drivelling, within a 
 few feet of you, as if you were the cruellest, 
 cat-heartedest wretch in the world. One 
 thing is certain : when the greenfinch begins 
 to complain you must either get up and go, 
 or murder it. Albeit the woful cry is only 
 uttered when they are nesting, and as a 
 protest against your presence, yet they always 
 
 202 
 
The Looting of the Orchard 
 
 sit as near their nest as possible, as if to tell 
 you where it is. But the head of the green- 
 finch is flat atop, and it has the receding fore- 
 head of the fool. 
 
 Far away, on the other side of the grounds, 
 is a spacious kitchen garden, with walls where 
 the peach and nectarine, apricot, greengage 
 and morella ripen, and along the trim 
 gravelled paths are set choice fruit-trees, prim 
 little pyramid apples, and pears on cordons. 
 In these the birds are allowed no possession. 
 Gardeners are always moving about, and " the 
 bird-boy " is busy with his recurrent maniac 
 shout and strident clapper. Cats sun them- 
 selves upon the garden walls which are the 
 highways of the mice. 
 
 But in this old orchard here the trees do as 
 they please, and so do the birds. By-and-by 
 will come a day when the household will come 
 down to a man, and the boy, with wheel- 
 barrows and baskets, and the orchard will be 
 formally looted of its harvests. Only the 
 winter pears will be left, and the medlars, the 
 bullaces, and the damsons. All the rest will 
 be wheeled away to the house, and the maids 
 203 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 will lay them out in the apple-room against 
 the coming winter, and for the privy delecta- 
 tion of certain rats, who wot of the fragrant 
 store and circuitously from the stables find 
 their way to the fruit. So the old trees grow 
 as they will. 
 
 They were originally planted in straight 
 lines, and a foot from the ground may be 
 said to be still all of a row. But above that 
 they have leaned away to one side and to the 
 other, taken queer fits and starts of growth, got 
 knobs on them, and, to the everlasting delight 
 of the nest-building chaffinch and goldfinch, 
 are shagreened with grey lichens that lie flat 
 like lizard's skin or are tufted all over with 
 grey mossy growth, so that if you stroke the 
 tree it is like stroking a goat's back. 
 
 Wise fruitmen and apple-prigs shake their 
 heads over these old trees, and prod them, as 
 they go, with their sticks, just to show how 
 the scientific gardener despises aged vegetables. 
 They talk about " canker " and " moss," and 
 tell you for how much " a hundred " you can 
 buy " good sound plants " — small precocities 
 with no bodies and one huge fruit atop, like 
 204 
 
The Looting of the Orchard 
 
 a misgrown child with water on the brain — 
 which are "excellent table-fruit and always 
 marketable." Perish the markets! If it 
 were mine, I would not exchange an acre of 
 this shady orchard, with its shaggy trunks 
 and mistletoed boughs, for a square mile of 
 those prim miniature market-table prodigies 
 that you can throw your leg over passing by. 
 And as for a seat in the shade of them ! A 
 toad might lord it on his stool. But that is 
 all. 
 
 Nor, apart from beauty, and to meet 
 Goodman Apple-prig on his own ground, am 
 I convinced of the superior value of his 
 disciplined dwarfs. This old orchard, without 
 any care except its biennial nourishment of 
 manure, bears every year, without fail, apples 
 enough, and pears, to satisfy the household 
 handsomely, until what time the rhubarb and 
 green gooseberry shall come to their relief. 
 What will your scientific grower do more for 
 you ? Give you larger fruit ? True. But 
 go to California, where some of the largest 
 fruit in the whole world grows, and you will 
 find the beautiful painted bulk is all pith and 
 205 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 water. A single little warted English russet 
 from the old orchard here has more fragrance 
 and more flavour than a barrow-load of San 
 Franciscan monsters. Children are very wise 
 in some matters. Let them go up to the 
 apple-room to help themselves — and what do 
 they bring down ? The largest fruit ? Never 
 — unless it be to roast. 
 
 Ah, then the joy of it ! To sit on the 
 floor in front of the nursery fire, the tall brass 
 guard being put into the corner for the while 
 — that alone a joy — and to watch the fruit 
 twirling, each on its own bobbin-thread, and 
 blistering, and fizzing, and dripping juice into 
 the sugared saucers all arow beneath them. 
 And the sleet is driving against the nursery 
 windows, and outside it is dim and cold. 
 And the nursery, how bright and fragrant ! 
 Next year, the children say, we will pick 
 all the big apples with long stalks. 
 
 Oh, those beautiful old apple-trees ! Look 
 at them now : some with only here and there 
 a red apple, others bending their branches 
 almost to the turf. In the middle a wondrous 
 crab : its every branch thickset with little 
 206 
 
The Looting of the Orchard 
 
 golden-orange fruit, exquisite in flavour, as 
 close as figs on the banyan-boughs. Next is 
 a wizened old pear-tree — a hawfinch built 
 this year high up in its straight up-pointing 
 boughs. Those boughs are now hanging to 
 one side and another with weight of brown 
 fruit : so hard that the blackbirds get tired of 
 those that have fallen on the turf, and leave 
 them to the wasp the excavator, and the ant 
 the annihilator. Next is an old plum, from 
 which the gardener picks for the children 
 great lumps of clear cherry-coloured gum, 
 with ants imbedded in it, teaching us how 
 kauri was made, and how the old-world ants 
 and flies got sarcophagused in amber. 
 
 And look at the chequered shadows that are 
 thrown on the turf, dappling the path like a 
 deerskin. Does not the view, looking down 
 the line of quiet trees arching in the pathway, 
 possess you with repose .'' It is here, lying in 
 a hammock, you should read the " Earthly 
 Paradise." Even the wind can hardly come 
 here. On three sides the spinney shields the 
 orchard ; on the other, a tall hedge, beyond 
 which the pasture slopes down to the stream. 
 207 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 To this enclosure, I really think, come all the 
 birds of the parish. For miles round there is 
 only corn-land and meadow, and the hedges 
 are stubbed down so low that only the wren 
 and the robin and the nettle-creeper can build 
 there, or a chance chiiF-chafF; and the trees 
 that are left standing in the hedges are nearly 
 all pollarded. So that between the garden I 
 write of and the High Woods, lying like 
 blue-green clouds along the uplands yonder, 
 there is no sylvan refuge for the feathered 
 folk. And they come here with the confi- 
 dence of many years of protection, and behave 
 when here as if the garden was their own. 
 And so it is for most of the year. 
 
 They eat up first all the red currants, and 
 then all the white. The house hardly ever 
 gets a dish of either. But they cannot eat up 
 all the black — there are too many of them ; 
 and one fine morning the small plunderers, 
 assembled for the usual looting, are astonished 
 by the appearance of a company of village 
 children, who strip the bushes for the great 
 jam-making. No house can have too much 
 black currant jam in it in winter-time. And 
 208 
 
The Looting of the Orchard 
 
 how the children hasten to report the first 
 symptoms of a sore throat, when they know 
 it means a dose of black currant syrup sweet- 
 ened with honey ! And when the small 
 village folk are trooping down the lane, 
 chattering over their pence and their pottles 
 of berries, going along, as children when 
 happy cannot help going, in alternate steps 
 and skips, the birds are in sulky convocation 
 among the empty bushes, picking up the 
 occasional berry that has fallen, the other that 
 has been overlooked on the bough. But they 
 are ill-tempered, and inclined to bandy tu 
 quoques. 
 
 A thrush flattens itself upon the ground, 
 stretches its head out as far as its neck will 
 let it, and cries " Keek-keek " at another 
 thrush. This aggravates the other thrush. 
 The blackbirds puff themselves out, droop 
 their wings, and spread and shut their tails 
 like fans, and proceed to blows. The green- 
 finches open their beaks, and, with outspread 
 wings, hiss at one another ; and the robin, 
 
 "Always of an equal flame, 
 To fight a rival or to court a dame," 
 
 Z09 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 falls In with the prevailing humour, and, 
 spying another redbreast, flies full tilt at him, 
 and thereby commences a feud which will last 
 all the morning, with intervals of defiant 
 challenge-singing from opposite apple-trees, 
 and much pretty tournament work upon the 
 turf, and infinite chasings of each other in 
 and out the shrubbery. I know no other 
 birds of ours that will keep up a quarrel at 
 such a level of pugnacity, for such a long 
 time, as two cock-robins. I never see this 
 bird without remembering the delicious 
 legend, universal in England, of the intrigue 
 of the robin with the wren : 
 
 "Ol Robin, joly Robin ! 
 Tell me how thy leman doth." 
 
 Nor, seeing the wren — surely the sweetest of 
 our birds, with its charming song and its 
 lovely plumage and fascinating ways, and yet 
 so exquisitely funny — can I help laughing 
 when I think of that scandal. Not that bird- 
 society was shocked out of all sympathy, for 
 when Redbreast is killed and Jenny follows 
 his corpse in tears to the grave, " all the birds 
 of the air " 
 
The Looting of the Orchard 
 
 " fell a-sighin' and a-sobbin' 
 For the sad, sad death of poor Cock Robin." 
 
 But the birds soon give up bickering over 
 the gleanings of the black currant bushes, 
 and abandon such exiguous pastures. The 
 gooseberries are better worth their attention, 
 and the cherries are softening into pink. 
 Besides, all said and done, they had a month 
 at the bush-fruit before anybody interfered 
 with them ; so that they have had their share. 
 
 As for the cherry-trees, they bear enor- 
 mous crops, but not for the house. Every 
 morning by sunrise the birds are there, 
 and the boughs are searched for such fruit 
 as have ripened ^ sufficiently to be eaten, 
 and all day long there is always a blackbird 
 or two scrutinising the tree. For weeks this 
 will go on, and then, once and for all, a 
 ladder will be carried down, and the scanty 
 residue of the crop be garnered. But, after 
 all, there were cherries and to spare on the 
 walls in the other garden. So no one be- 
 grudges the birds their month of the first- 
 fruits, and in one way they have repaid It, 
 for, near the cherry-trees and the plums, the 
 
 211 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 spinney is thickened with an undergrowth of 
 cherries and plums, very beautiful in the early 
 spring when in blossom, and at all times 
 pretty. In the same way, a tall hedge of 
 filbert-trees, on the other side of a ditch at 
 the end of the orchard, is due to the field- 
 mice, who stored up nuts in the bank, and 
 forgot where they put them. After the 
 cherries comes a long gap for the birds, for 
 the strawberries and raspberries are not for 
 them. Albeit, they sometimes get under the 
 netting, and are caught, paying for the fear- 
 ful joy they had snatched by captivity in the 
 aviary. But the mountain-ash is in full bear- 
 ing, and the hawthorn has reddened ; and 
 now, with October coming on, there is a 
 feast of plenty. In many of the apple-trees 
 there are some that are ripe enough for the 
 birds, and the earlier pears are pecked upon 
 the sunny side. The plums are everywhere 
 soft, and the birds leave but few — the hornet 
 and the wasp helping in the loot. 
 
 Have you ever noticed how very often 
 wall-fruits are eaten behind, from the face 
 near the wall ? Sometimes they are quite 
 
The Looting of the Orchard 
 
 hollow, the fair skin only remaining. On 
 trees, too, you will frequently find that, when 
 two plums or greengages are growing together, 
 they are attacked on the sides that are touch- 
 ing. This is not the work of the birds, but 
 of slugs and winged insects. Even the blue- 
 bottles assist by sucking up their small 
 portions of juice. It is wonderful how a 
 fruit will conceal the secret of its emptiness, 
 and will dissimulate. The original wound 
 heals up all round, the edge of it hardening, 
 and the stone inside remains attached to the 
 stalk. But between the skin, still with its 
 bloom on it, and the picked-clean stone inside, 
 there is nothing. Tiny pincers have nipped 
 it all away with exquisite precision, but with- 
 out betraying their exploitation, and the fruit 
 goes gravely on through the process of matur- 
 ing, and, " over-ripe," drops off. You pick 
 it up. It is a purple husk, with only a brown 
 stone sticking to the skin, inside it — and a 
 family of most comfortable earwigs. 
 
 But do not say, " Confound those black- 
 birds." Yellow bills had no share in the 
 excavation. They are not cheats, whatever 
 213 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 else they are. If they prey on the damask 
 cheek, they do not do it like the canker- 
 worm, but boldly from the outside, where 
 the fruit is easiest to get at. Look at that 
 one now on the pear-tree. Its foothold is 
 only indifferently secure, but it can reach the 
 best pear of the bunch, and it is pecking it 
 exactly in the middle of the rosiest bit. 
 When the bird finds itself reaching the 
 harder part, it will probably leave the fruit 
 for another, and the hole it has dug in the 
 pear catches the eye at once. There is 
 nothing of the hypocrite about the blackbird. 
 When he goes into a fruit-tree it is to eat the 
 fruit. There is no pretence of prospecting 
 for insects in the bark, or attacking only the 
 diseased fruit. Not a bit of it. He scrambles 
 about boldly on the outside of the tree ; 
 picks out the best apple he can see, and 
 begins eating it at once. If he knocks it off 
 in the process, he looks at it on the ground 
 with head awry, and for a second or two 
 argues with himself as to whether it were 
 better to go down and finish the fruit he had 
 begun or begin another. As a rule, he stays 
 214 
 
The Looting of the Orchard 
 
 where he is, and commences afresh ; because 
 on the ground the apple rolls about every 
 time it is pecked, giving a great deal of 
 trouble. 
 
 And here on the ground the ants and ear- 
 wigs find it, and the red admiral butterfly 
 and the gamma moth. You can always tell 
 which the insects have eaten. They nibble 
 round and round the seed-column, hollowing 
 out the fruit and eating the rind, often with 
 mathematical accuracy, in a circle ; so that, 
 when it is nearly finished, a pear looks so like 
 a toadstool that you might pass it round for 
 one. The seed-column is the stem, and it is 
 capped by a circular umbrella, toadstool 
 shape. 
 
 Birds, when they eat fruit, go straight to 
 the middle, and pick out and eat the seeds ; 
 and, if you will notice it, you will see how 
 many apples and pears are left half-eaten by 
 birds. But their seeds are gone, which looks 
 as if the feathered plunderers looked upon 
 the seeds as an end in themselves, and the 
 rest of the fruit a means thereto ; upon the 
 core as their objective point, and the pulp 
 
 215 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 only a necessary, though agreeable prelimi- 
 nary. 
 
 For bullfinches and chaffinches and bud- 
 eating birds, it is often said that they injure 
 a tree for its own good, destroying insects 
 which would eventually have done more 
 harm than they. This may be as it may be. 
 But I never heard any one suggest that 
 blackbirds and thrushes have any ulterior 
 beneficence in mind when they visit an 
 orchard. Nor do I think, if frankly asked 
 the question, that those birds would hesitate 
 to give a straightforward answer. There is 
 nothing in their demeanour to lead you to 
 suppose that they afFect any more virtuous 
 intention than the satisfaction of their own 
 appetites. They squabble in the trees with- 
 out any pretence of concealment, and if dis- 
 turbed in their looting, only fly a short 
 distance, and wait for your departure, in 
 attitudes that are positively impertinent. 
 
 Is there no good in them, then ? Are 
 
 they marauders ; nothing more ? Do not 
 
 think so. Come out here into the orchard 
 
 after a shower, and see the turf dotted with 
 
 216 
 
The Looting of the Orchard 
 
 blackbirds and thrushes. Look at them hard 
 at work among the worms. Was there ever 
 such conscientious work being done before, 
 without overseer ? Tempted by the shower, 
 the worms and snails are abroad, but the 
 word has gone round, and scores of terrible 
 little eyes are watching, little feet are fidget- 
 ing, little beaks are waiting. If you could 
 only chalk the birds' feet and trace their 
 course, you would find every inch of ground 
 had been traversed, not once, but a dozen 
 times. Every bird is busy at once, either 
 watching or catching, and with such a single- 
 heartedness of purpose as does you good to 
 look at, and makes you forget the pilfered 
 plums, and the brigandage among the cherries. 
 Or sit quietly on any of the seats : this one 
 by choice with the tall foxgloves on either 
 hand, and see them under the nut-trees, 
 among the gooseberries. There is no fruit 
 left, but how desperately hard they are work- 
 ing, these small fanatics ! Every dead leaf in 
 the shrubbery will be turned over in the 
 twenty-four hours ; all the borders of the 
 beds patrolled ; and the whole ground searched 
 217 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 for full-fed fallen caterpillars, hurrying off to 
 find a soft burial-place wherein to turn to 
 chrysalids. No, they are not mere marau- 
 ders ; for even in the sunny fruit-time, these 
 first mellow days of October, they are doing 
 good half the day, and by-and-by will come 
 months of inclement weather, when there are 
 no orchards but those of hedgerow and copse, 
 and when all their time is spent in the inces- 
 sant benefit of man. 
 
 Nor forget the three months of the year 
 when these little tithe-gatherers make your 
 gardens and your pleasure-places so beautiful 
 with song, and " for their quiet nests and 
 plenteous food pay with their gentle voice." 
 
 The nuts, too, are being plundered, and as 
 you sit here between the screens of foxgloves, 
 heavy with pods of seed, you can hear the 
 squirrel plunge from one filbert-tree to 
 another, and the tapping of the nut-hatch on 
 the cobnut fixed in the deep-creviced bark of 
 the acacias. If you were nearer you might 
 hear the mice at work ; small teeth rasping on 
 the brown shells. 
 
 Under the nut-trees, one hot, still after- 
 218 
 
The Looting of the Orchard 
 
 noon, I remember hearing a queer, crisp 
 noise among the leaves, and, following the 
 sound, I surprised a colony of buff-tip cater- 
 pillars — forty feeding like one — all upon a 
 small branch, and each with its leaf held by 
 the edge between its feet, eating prodigiously, 
 as if by contract, and with the same sound, 
 in miniature, as rabbits make nibbling up a 
 lettuce-stem. 
 
 The nuts are now full ripe : If you bend 
 down a bough with a jerk to pick a bunch, 
 the odds are that your hand grasps only 
 empty husks ; the nuts themselves have 
 slipped out, and are lying among the tinted 
 leaves, a puzzle to find again. How hand- 
 some the husks of the great " filbeards " are, 
 now they are scorched by the sun ! The 
 " cobnut " husk has shrivelled back, leaving 
 only the thick juicy calyx, and this even is 
 mellowed into honey-yellow. The " soft- 
 shell" has parted with its nuts, leaving its 
 pretty husk still green. Is this last a common 
 nut ? I have met with It nowhere else, but 
 once met there Is no mistaking it, either grow- 
 ing or on the table. Its catkins are longer and 
 Z19 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 thinner than those of the filbert. The husk 
 is very fine in texture, deeply fringed and 
 incut, and not long enough to cover the nut, 
 which, unlike all others, is highly glazed 
 when ripe, and from its polish distinguishable 
 at once in a plateful of others. The shell is 
 so thin and soft that it can often be cracked 
 between the finger and thumb ; while the 
 kernel, which is invariably as large as the 
 shell will let it be, is as smooth-surfaced as a 
 billiard-ball. If you look at a filbert or a 
 cobnut, you will see upon the kernel the im- 
 pression of the brown woody lining of the 
 shell, but in the " soft-shell " this lining is 
 itself so soft and keeps moist so late, that 
 the kernel expands to its fullest size, and is 
 quite polished. It is incomparably the best 
 of all the nuts, and my host and his family 
 know this so well that the children are not 
 allowed to loot the soft-shell trees, and on 
 the table they command, like the nuts of 
 Avella of old, a respect which is never ex- 
 tended to their more imposing comrades with 
 the longer beards. 
 
 The mice, who are curiously unintelligent, 
 
The Looting of the Orchard 
 
 judged by human ideas, as to nuts, have not 
 apparently found out these admirable " soft 
 shells." The nut-hatch is wiser than they, and 
 so is the maggot's mother. How does this 
 small weevil know which nuts are going to be 
 good when she leaves her egg on the spot where 
 the nut is to be .'' When the egg is laid the 
 nut that is to come is merely a soft bud-like 
 thing, and it may grow up full or may grow 
 up empty. Does she ever make a mistake, 
 and leave an egg inside a nut that belies its 
 promise, and never has anything else inside it .'' 
 How disgusted the small maggot must be 
 when he hatches and looks round at the 
 unfurnished larder in which, poor little 
 wretch, it has been born only to starve to 
 death. And if one could only convey to the 
 maggot's mother the intelligence of what she 
 had done, what distraction of maternal 
 feelings should ensue, to think that she had 
 shut her offspring up inside a shell which was 
 too hard for her to get into, and too hard for 
 her babe to get out of ; the tiny prisoner 
 helpless to escape, and she helpless to assist 
 it ; and all her own doing, too. But some 
 
 221 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 instinct no doubt guides the mother, for the 
 nut-grub, as he is usually found, is a very 
 pottle-bodied person, looking like one who 
 has fared well all his life, and carefully 
 abstained from doing any work between 
 meals. Do you remember Southey's lines on 
 the filbert ? 
 
 " Nay, gather not that filbert, Nicholas, 
 There is a maggot there — it is his house — 
 His castle — oh, commit not burglary ! 
 Strip him not naked, 'tis his clothes, his shell. 
 His bones, the very armour of his life ; 
 And thou shalt do no murder, Nicholas. 
 
 " Enough of dangers and of enemies 
 Hath Nature's wisdom for the worm ordained ; 
 Increase not thou the number ! him the mouse. 
 Gnawing with nibbling teeth the shell's defence. 
 May from his native tenement eject ; 
 Him may the nut-hatch, piercing with strong bill. 
 Unwittingly destroy, or to his hoard 
 The squirrel bear, at leisure to be cracked." 
 
 And then the poet suddenly bethinks him 
 of the reverse of the picture of the maggot's 
 life: 
 
The Looting of the Orchard 
 
 " Man also hath his dangers and his foes 
 As this poor maggot hath, and when I muse 
 Upon the aches, anxieties, and fears 
 The maggot knows not, Nicholas, methinks 
 It were a happy metamorphosis 
 To be enkernelled thus ; never to hear 
 Of wars, and of invasions, and of plots. 
 Kings, Jacobins, and tax-commissioners, 
 And in the middle of such exquisite food 
 To live luxurious ! The perfection this 
 Of snugness ! It were to unite at once 
 Hermit retirement, aldermanic bliss. 
 And stoic independence of mankind." 
 
 It is a delightful piece of humour. Nor does 
 it matter that the naturalist might object that 
 no one could tell if a maggot were inside a 
 nut or not without cracking it. The hole 
 which Southey saw is only used by the 
 maggot once, and that is when it leaves 
 the nut for the first and last time in its 
 life. 
 
 223 
 
OF NUTS AND 
 NUT-CRACKERS 
 
 IF my host were to ofFer to make me a 
 present of any one portion of his pleasure- 
 grounds that I might select, I think I should 
 prefer a request for his Nut Avenue. It is 
 over a hundred yards long, and between the 
 two rows of trees runs a broad turf walk. 
 
 Twenty springs have come and gone since 
 that turf was laid, and thirty since those nuts 
 were planted, and to-day the path is of 
 wondrous pile and texture, and the trees, each 
 of them beautifully symmetrical and of even 
 size, some fifteen feet in height and twenty in 
 depth, form a hedge so luxuriously soft in 
 contour, so beautifully thick and cool, that 
 225 p 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 merely to look down the green aisle is repose- 
 ful to eye and brain. 
 
 A broad rustic seat, comfortably low, set 
 against a thick hedge of laurel, and over- 
 shadowed by a walnut tree, stretches across 
 the path at either end, and halfway down 
 on one side is another seat cunningly set 
 back between two of the filbert trees, and 
 so o'er-canopied and curtained in with 
 leafy boughs that from no point of the 
 orchard can you be seen as you sit there. 
 
 Rabbits and blackbirds and thrushes only 
 find you out when they come suddenly plump 
 upon you, and as often as not do not find you 
 out even then, but pursue their ways of 
 pleasure or business, exquisitely innocent of 
 being overlooked. Travelling along the line, 
 the families of tits, reconnoitring the boughs 
 — of all boughs, those of nut-trees are fruitful 
 of insect life — come scrambling and in full 
 talk into the trees above your head, and, 
 without hesitating in their quest or abating 
 their conversation, pass on, utterly un- 
 conscious that you have overheard them and 
 have had them one and all within easy arm's 
 
 2Z6 
 
Of Nuts and Nut-crackers 
 
 length. The bullfinch, shyest of birds, 
 betrays his inmost self to you as you sit there. 
 I have even known the highwayman jay to 
 come and take up his wicked ambush in 
 the very tree in front of me ; and it was 
 thoroughly satisfying to hear the chuckle of 
 horror with which the would-be assassin flung 
 himself out of the tree as soon as he discovered 
 that a detective had his eye on him. 
 
 Here comes a squirrel along the path, on 
 business bent. How strangely all its beauty 
 of form disappears when the creature is on the 
 ground. Like the swan it has its proper 
 element, in which alone it looks beautiful. 
 Running along the turf, with its front legs so 
 ridiculously wide apart, it looks like some 
 sort of bushy-tailed rat ; its skipping is 
 scarcely graceful ; and when it goes sniffing 
 round the roots of the trees — for insects, be 
 it noted, as well as nuts — it is a very common- 
 place little beast. But attract its attention, 
 arouse its suspicion by a low whistle, and how 
 suddenly it becomes beautiful ! It sits erect, 
 its tail is flung up interrogatively along its 
 back, its ears are cocked, its little fore-paws, 
 227 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 in the most delightful attitude of surprised 
 attention, are held up, the tips of the "fingers" 
 just touching each other across the snowy 
 whiteness of its breast. Was ever anything 
 more bewitching than its expression of annoy- 
 ance ? And not because it can see you, but 
 because it cannot. It chirrups with irritation, 
 and the tail flicks out a question at every 
 chirrup. It looks all round to discover 
 whence your whistle came, drops on all fours, 
 runs a foot and sits up again, runs another 
 foot and again sits up, chirruping " in anger 
 insignificantly fierce," and flicking its tail 
 every time it sits up, till on a sudden it catches 
 sight of your foot. 
 
 Run away ? Not a bit of it. It proceeds 
 to scold you ; draws itself up to its full 
 height, and holding up its short fore-paws 
 before it looks like a miniature kangaroo. 
 And then, taking alarm all at once from 
 your uncanny silence rather than from your 
 presence, it leaps into the nut-tree opposite, 
 springs from bough to bough, and, fairly 
 facing you, tells you at the top of its 
 voice, what it thinks of you and your mean 
 228 
 
Of Nuts and Nut-crackers 
 
 habit of hiding under a tree and coming 
 frightening squirrels by low whistlings, and it 
 emphasises all the hardest words it uses by 
 stamping with its feet and flirting its tail 
 about in a delirious tirade of flourishes. It is 
 evident you are " no gentleman." And there 
 it will sit, giving you the same bit of its mind 
 over and over again almost as long as you 
 have the patience to remain and submit to its 
 aspersions. But suddenly, in the very middle 
 of a rude sentence, it stops short, lies down 
 flat across the bough, and, with the funniest 
 caution imaginable, looks down at the ground 
 beneath. 
 
 While you have been watching the squirrel 
 up the tree, another, its mate, has come 
 along the turf path, and is now sitting up on 
 its hind legs under the tree, closely watch- 
 ing you. The scolding of the one above 
 and the direction of its gestures told the other 
 where you were, and there, within a yard 
 of your feet, it sits looking at you with its 
 bright eyes, and asking you how you like 
 what is being said of you. But now that 
 there are two together they soon tire of you. 
 229 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 They have found out all about you, and are 
 not going to waste any more time over you. 
 At any rate, you seem harmless, and so they 
 commence to romp. And such romps ! You 
 get almost dizzy watching them as they flash 
 round and round the tree and up and down 
 the boughs. Surely no other creature living 
 has such agility, such amazing powers of 
 evolution, whirligig and fandango in so 
 confined a space. And then they are off — 
 splash, splash, into the leaves of the next tree 
 — and so away, all down the avenue. 
 
 There have been harsh things said of 
 squirrels, and I am afraid it is beyond dispute 
 that they will kill little birds. They have 
 been seen to do so. It has also been said 
 that they will eat birds' eggs, but of this 
 there is not at present any recorded eye- 
 witness, and I prefer to hold the little forester 
 excused. And for this reason, that my friends 
 have an aviary, a beautiful piece of wired-in 
 shrubbery, in which squirrels and birds live 
 and breed. Greenfinches, hedge-sparrows, 
 canaries, and bullfinches have all hatched 
 broods this season, which could never have 
 230 
 
Of Nuts and Nut-crackers 
 
 happened had the squirrels been egg-eaters. 
 Moreover, to test the squirrels, two thrushes' 
 nests, filled to the brim with house-sparrows' 
 eggs, were temptingly displayed near their 
 " drey," for their special delectation. Into 
 one of these a squirrel, no doubt in the 
 course of a frolic, had incontinently and pro- 
 miscuously jumped, with disastrous results to 
 many of the eggs, and evidently such dis- 
 agreeable consequences to itself that the other 
 nest was carefully avoided. At any rate, it 
 was never disturbed. From which, I think, 
 it is " accurately well " evident that those 
 squirrels did not make omelettes — except by 
 accident. But they are great insect-hunters, 
 and this is why you see them creeping along 
 the branches, making such microscopic search 
 of the bark, and why they are so fond of 
 wandering about over turf, peering so closely 
 into the grass. 
 
 Here, of course, they also find grass-seed 
 and other minute food. It is very pretty to 
 see them eating millet, for instance, for they 
 pick up the tiny specks of grain with both 
 paws at once, and crack each seed separately 
 231 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 and drop the husks. The rapidity with which 
 they do this is delightful to watch, for 
 nothing can be funnier than the spectacle of 
 half a dozen squirrels round a little patch of 
 millet or rape, bobbing up and down at the 
 rate of about twenty bobs a minute. You 
 would think they would prefer to eat ofF the 
 ground, and save themselves the trouble of 
 sitting up every time, just for the sake of an 
 infinitesimal morsel. But not a bit of it. Up 
 they sit, up go their tails, up go their paws — 
 crack ! — and down they go, down go the 
 tails, and down go the paws. And as each 
 squirrel is manoeuvring independently, the 
 sight of so many little bodies bobbing up and 
 down, like the hammers in the back of a 
 piano, and the perpetual flourishing and 
 whisking of tails, is ludicrous exceedingly. 
 
 Few animals are so fearless of man as the 
 squirrel. I have had them, caught one day 
 and left unfed the next, absolutely dispute 
 with me the possession of a plate of nuts. I 
 would spread these out on the swinging 
 feeding-tray, and rattle them together with 
 my hands. The squirrels would at once 
 232 
 
Of Nuts and Nut-crackers 
 
 come down to the challenge, and sitting on 
 the tray, make such ferocious charges, grunt- 
 ing as they did so, at my hands, that it was 
 impossible at first to resist the impulse to 
 snatch one's hand away. But these charges, 
 like all their other expressions of anger, were 
 *' make-believe," the real object being simply 
 to snatch up a nut and make ofF with it. 
 That they relied upon the extraordinary 
 suddenness of their charge and snort to dis- 
 concert the enemy, and thus let them get off 
 with a nut, was indisputable, for afterwards, 
 when I used to keep my hand where it was, 
 they never touched it, but would simply dash 
 forward, pick up a nut, and be off with it 
 like lightning. The nut eaten, they would 
 at once come down for another. And what a 
 very short time it took them to eat one ! 
 In a couple of pulls, with the big end of the 
 nut towards them, they unhusk it, and then, 
 turning it small end upwards, adze a little 
 hole in the shell, just sufficient to give their 
 front teeth a firm hold, and then, by a 
 sudden backward jerk of the head, they 
 wrench off, or prise up, enough of the shell 
 233 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 in one piece, for the kernel to come out 
 whole through the opening. Sometimes the 
 hole is not large enough, and they then 
 wrench off another piece. The kernel once 
 out, they nibble through it, rejecting the 
 inner skin, with amazing speed. 
 
 Of traps they have absolutely no fear. I 
 have caught the same squirrel seven times 
 during the afternoon of one day and the 
 morning of the next. It had once been a 
 prisoner in the aviary, but the rats got in, 
 and by the hole through which the rats got in 
 the squirrel got out. As it went no further 
 than a fir-tree that grew outside the aviary, 
 we set a trap for it — a wine-case with the lid 
 made heavy by a brick attached, and a figure- 
 of-four arrangement to which a bunch of 
 nuts was tied. Down came Squg at once, 
 gave a tug at the nuts, and down came the 
 lid. Our prisoner was at once let go into 
 the aviary, and made straight for the rat-hole 
 (of which we, of course, then knew nothing), 
 and got out. The trap being re-set, we 
 departed, well satisfied with our success. 
 Soon after the bang of the descending lid 
 23+ 
 
Of Nuts and Nut-crackers 
 
 again attracted us. Again the squirrel. 
 " Why it's Squg ! " we said, recognising our 
 old friend and very recent captive. He was 
 again put into the aviary. But why repeat 
 the occurrence ? Five times we caught him, 
 and as many times he escaped, but how or 
 where we were utterly at a loss to guess. 
 All hands examined the aviary, and declared 
 it perfectly safe. Again, for the sixth time, 
 we caught Squg, and this time his exit was 
 discovered, most cleverly concealed behind a 
 laurel stump. So we filled up the hole, and 
 once more re-set the trap. Once again, and 
 once too often, Squg returned, and it was 
 worth all our trouble to watch his fury, his 
 ungovernable fury, at finding the comedy 
 so unexpectedly a tragedy. He had gone 
 too far, and was a prisoner. It took two 
 days for his ill-temper to subside — until, 
 indeed, we caught his mate, and they busied 
 themselves in using up the armfuls of 
 hay and leaves, moss, wool, and tow with 
 which they were provided in building pre- 
 posterous nests at every possible point of 
 the aviary. 
 
 235 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 It was not hunger that impelled him thus 
 repeatedly to imperil his freedom, for, besides 
 baiting the trap, we always put one or two 
 nuts outside. These he would pick up, and, 
 scampering across the turf to any shrubbery 
 border, would at once bury. The disregard 
 of getting caught was therefore under no 
 compulsion of hunger. And this reminds 
 me of another trap incident quite as curious, 
 where I caught, as I thought, eighteen " great 
 tits " during a spell of very severe weather 
 last winter. They went into a little decoy 
 trap, after the fat which I had put in, as fast 
 as I could set it. All the birds were released 
 in the aviary at once, but none could be seen 
 in it, and at last, after an afternoon's excite- 
 ment, the repeated capture of Squg was 
 recalled to mind, and we now found that the 
 tits, or tit, as soon as they were, or it was, let 
 go in the aviary, got through the three- 
 quarter inch mesh of the netting and returned 
 to the trap for one more peck at the life- 
 saving fat. Poor little birds ! All the rest 
 of that hard spell there were lumps of fat 
 hung on the yew-tree and tied on to rose- 
 236 
 
Of Nuts and Nut-crackers 
 
 stakes for them, without any afterthought of 
 capture. 
 
 And here comes another visitor in season- 
 able red fur — a dormouse. Never was such 
 a philosopher as he. If he sees you wish to 
 catch him, he will do his best to run away. 
 But if you catch him, he immediately assents 
 to the capture and will nestle resignedly in 
 the palm of your hand, and when you go to 
 feed him he will nibble out from between 
 your fingers the grain of wheat which you 
 hold between them. Nothing comes amiss 
 to him, not even bad weather, for when he 
 thinks the time propitious for slumber he 
 calmly retires into his dormitory, and curling 
 his tail over his nose, between his ears and 
 down his back, falls tranquilly asleep. To 
 find him at this time is always a pleasure to 
 me. I like to take him out of the middle of 
 his cosy ball and let him wake up in my 
 hand. He wakes so delicately. Sleep goes 
 and consciousness returns with such subtlety ! 
 The large black eyes open, the tiny pink 
 fingers unclose, a ripple of life seems to pass 
 237 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 along the soft fur, and lo ! the dormouse is 
 awake. A morsel of nut held out on a pin 
 arouses its appetite, and it begins to nibble. 
 But it is very drowsy, and before the morsel 
 is finished the wee thing's vitality gradually 
 fades away, and once more, in the hollow 
 of your hand lies a round lifeless ball of 
 fluff. 
 
 When kept as pets, having only a little 
 cage to move in, they seem to be mice, and 
 nothing more. As a matter of fact, it is 
 quite a question whether the dormouse is not 
 as much squirrel as mouse. It climbs with 
 the greatest ease ; is a gymnast, hanging head 
 downwards to eat what it cannot reach any 
 other way ; as a rule it sits upright, using its 
 forepaws like hands ; has a bushy tail ; goes 
 to sleep at intervals during winter. In all 
 these points it is more like a squirrel than a 
 mouse, while its teeth and the manner of growth 
 of its hair differ from those of other mice. 
 But we call it a mouse, and it really does not 
 matter very seriously, either to it or to us, 
 what we call it. Some people think it is a 
 night-thing ; but this is not the case. It is 
 238 
 
Of Nuts and Nut-crackers 
 
 " crepuscular," perhaps — a creature of the 
 twilight ; but it is also a creature of the noon- 
 day. Not that it ever goes out wilfully into 
 the sun. I have never seen it do so myself. 
 But here, before noon, in the beautiful sea- 
 water twilight of the nut-trees, the loveliest 
 soft shade of green imaginable, the large-eyed 
 dormouse is perfectly happy. 
 
 Watch it on the boughs. With what 
 wondering eyes it seems to look about it, and 
 then, on a sudden, as if familiar with every 
 twig, it swings itself along, now above the 
 branch, now below it, its tail, like Blondin's 
 balance-pole, jerking this way and that. 
 With what a dainty agility it leaps from a 
 bough ! With what expert precision it keeps 
 its hold on the next ! Many of its gestures 
 are curiously like the squirrel's. It lies along 
 a twig and peers over it at something on the 
 ground. It is only a robin. Satisfied, It sits 
 up again and washes its face, passes its tail care- 
 fully through its paws, scratches itself here 
 and there. Evidently it has all its day before 
 it, and is certain of its dinner by-and-by. 
 So, perfectly careless, perfectly happy, it 
 239 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 loiters along from the tree in front of you to 
 the next one, and is gone out of sight. 
 
 Its nest — for it has one all the year round — 
 is in the very middle of that great clump of 
 Pampas grass, a lovely ball of the shredded 
 fibres which that beautiful plant throws ofF 
 from its leaves — so elastic that you can 
 squeeze it up in the hand and it opens out 
 again. There is no hole in it, for the 
 dormouse gets in anywhere, and the wall 
 closes on it as it passes. No leaf or grass 
 blade is needed to protect the tiny inmate 
 from harsh winds, for the Pampas grass itself 
 is sufficient shield from any storm. So all 
 that the dormouse has to think about is to 
 make its nest cosy ; and cosy it is, with its 
 inch-thick wall of silken threads. Down 
 below, stuffed in between the stems of the 
 grass, were three grains of maize, carried off 
 from where the pheasants are fed ; but whether 
 stored up for winter or not, I cannot say. I 
 know that, in captivity, the dormouse, when 
 winter comes, shows no desire to hoard up 
 food, which I think it would do if the instinct 
 were natural. 
 
 240 
 
Of Nuts and Nut-crackers 
 
 Tap ! tap ! Something in the tree over- 
 head. Tap ! tap ! What is it ? Only a 
 " great tit " tapping at the nut it has crammed 
 into a crevice of the rustic seat. But if you 
 will listen you will hear another wood-tapper. 
 That is the nut-hatch. His is a far more 
 businesslike tap. The tit is an amateur, the 
 other a professional : the former taps irregu- 
 larly and hiu-riedly, the latter with more 
 measured strokes, as if each were intended to 
 tell, and the bird did not mean to waste its 
 strength in unnecessary effort. The nuts are 
 almost too young for it yet. When they 
 are soft its beak pierces without cracking the 
 shell. Besides, the nut-hatch cannot pick 
 nuts off the trees. It has to find them fallen, 
 and even then the long husks of the filbert 
 vex and baffle it. It doesn't (like the 
 squirrel) understand how to rip off the green 
 covering, or, like the dormouse, how to nibble 
 through it. But when it finds a nut that 
 has slid out of its husk the nut-hatch knows 
 exactly what to do with it. As a rule, it 
 flies with it, holding the nut in its beak, to a 
 tree or wall, in which it knows of, or may 
 2+1 e 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 find, a convenient crevice. Fixing the nut in 
 this, it sets to work by repeated blows, 
 delivered with the greatest accuracy on the 
 same spot, to split it. I have picked up the 
 two shells and found that the nut-hatch had 
 left no marks of misses on the nut. Every 
 stroke had fallen on exactly the same pin- 
 point of space. But it does not always put 
 the nut in a crack, for I have seen it stand 
 with both feet on the nut — as the marsh-tit 
 will do with maize — and peck it on " the 
 seam." Picking up the shell afterwards, I 
 found the bird had not made at all a neat job 
 of it, the foothold probably being insecure and 
 the nut shifting its place, thus putting the 
 little hammerer off its stroke. 
 
 In front of me as I write I have a tray full 
 of shells that have been rifled by the nut- 
 crackers of the avenue. Those with the 
 large irregular rent, and some with the whole 
 side ripped off with jagged edges, are the 
 squirrel's work ; these with the nice round 
 holes, always near the big end of the shell, 
 have been plundered by the tits. But it is 
 
Of Nuts and Nut-crackers 
 
 curious to note how often the same shell has 
 another hole, much smaller and perfectly 
 oval, on the other side, and nearer the small 
 end. Why was this ? Did the tit get all 
 it could reach out through the big hole at the 
 big end, and the mouse take the trouble to 
 nibble a little hole in the very hardest part of 
 the nut-shell to get at the rest of the nut ? 
 
 I wonder the mice, especially the dormice, 
 have not given up eating nuts long ago. The 
 labour they expend is enormous. But they 
 do not care for trouble apparently. Note 
 these walnuts. Each has two little round 
 holes, one on each shell, nearest the sharp 
 point end of the nut, and it is easy to see 
 what happened. The mouse nibbled one hole, 
 ate what it could reach — very little indeed — 
 and then found that, for some reason or 
 another, the walnut was fastened inside to the 
 shell. So then it tried the other side with 
 exactly the same result, and then it left the 
 nut in disgust. But this did not prevent it 
 attacking the next walnut in precisely the 
 same way, with precisely the same barren 
 results ; and the next, and the next, and the 
 
 2+3 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 next. The partitions inside the nut prevented 
 the mouse getting at the kernel, but it did 
 not desist from trying. On the other hand, 
 absolutely useless work is never, so far as I 
 know, done by the mice. I never found an 
 empty nut or a bad one that they had at- 
 tempted. The squirrel, on the other hand, 
 does not care how " high " his nuts are. But 
 when we think that the squirrel relishes young 
 fir-cones, with turpentine oozing out at every 
 pore, we can appreciate the digestion with 
 which Nature has blessed the merry little 
 forester. 
 
 How is it that October came to be called 
 " the month of nuts " — that its symbol was a 
 nutting crook, and its totem a squirrel ? Nuts, 
 taking one year with another, are at their 
 best in the last week of August and the first 
 three of September ; are then at their nuttiest 
 — pleasant to the teeth, and milky. Early in 
 September the edges of the green husks begin 
 to take autumn tints, and the shells to mellow 
 into warm shades of colour, and by the end 
 of the month they are "nut brown." The 
 244 
 
Of Nuts and Nut-crackers 
 
 juice has gone out of the husks, which are 
 now dry and crackle, and the nuts sit so 
 lightly within that the squirrel, moving, 
 shakes them out on to the ground, and even 
 the velvet touch of the dormouse's tiny paws 
 makes them slide from their covering. Great, 
 then, the joy of the field-mouse, the burly 
 little farmer-mouse, who finds them on the 
 ground, ready to his hand, as it were, so that 
 he may trundle them down into his hole at 
 the root of the hazel, or carry them off to the 
 bank where he has his winter home. Not 
 that he cannot climb where he has a mind to, 
 for often, when you are birds'-nesting, you 
 may see the pretty little beast — sad that he 
 should be so destructive ! — slipping along the 
 hedge, just as the hedge-sparrow does, or, 
 when you are in the garden, running up and 
 down the ladders of the espaliers, or scaling 
 the wall-fruit trees. A nimble little person, 
 but preferring, all the same, his ways along 
 the ground, and his nuts and berries shaken 
 down for him by squirrel and blackbird, rather 
 than have the trouble to go up and fetch 
 them for himself. And it is thus that in 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 October he finds them, with the shells glossy 
 brown, and the kernels hard and just in proper 
 condition for storage. 
 
 But nuts are not at their best when they 
 are ripe. They have lost nearly all their true 
 nut flavour of earlier weeks, and are granular 
 between the teeth. They need wine to 
 moisten them. Not so in the last week of 
 August and the first week of September. 
 The filbert and the cobnut and the hazel are 
 all alike in their prime, and on tables in 
 country houses where they are wise in nuts, 
 they hold a place of honour. By-and-by they 
 are relegated to the lower levels of esteem. 
 The walnut, then juicy, supersedes them, and 
 the first invasion of foreign nuts displaces 
 them. By Christmas the home-grown nuts 
 have gone from the dessert altogether. The 
 children can have what are left in the apple- 
 room for the asking. 
 
 But do you know the secret of keeping 
 fresh filberts always with you, and having 
 them almost equally good all the year round ? 
 The plan is simple enough. Pick your nuts 
 before October over-ripens them and while 
 246 
 
Of Nuts and Nut-cRACKeRS 
 
 they are still clinging in their husks, put them 
 into tin biscuit-boxes, husks and all, and bury 
 your boxes a foot underground. As you 
 want them, dig them up, and you will find 
 your nuts as sweet and juicy and nutty next 
 September as they were when you packed 
 them the September before. By this means 
 you may exorcise the demons of shrivelled 
 Barcelona and of musty Brazil ; and when 
 walnuts, mouldering, fail you, you shall always 
 have new nuts with your old wine. 
 
 247 
 
DAYS IN THE FALL 
 
 FOR at least one week in the year — the 
 week in which it sheds its fruit — I 
 know nothing in our English world of nature 
 to exceed in beauty and interest the beech- 
 tree. One year in particular I have in my 
 mind, when in mid-October there was a break 
 of incomparable weather, of mellowed sun- 
 shine, and I found myself where beeches 
 grow, and, loitering beneath them, took note 
 at my leisure of the visitors in fur and feather 
 that were so happily busy among the glitter- 
 ing leaves, gathering or garnering the lavish 
 harvest of the fruitage of the trees. 
 
 I remember how, when I was a boy at 
 Marlborough, I used to sit hidden among the 
 249 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 ferns in Savernake Forest, and watch the 
 wood-pigeons feeding upon the beech-mast. 
 The silent earthward flight of these beautiful 
 birds is very different from the noisy wing- 
 dapping of their uprising, and they used to 
 come sliding down through the air without 
 any sound of feathers, and appear quite spec- 
 trally in their places. They would begin to 
 feed at once — for the nuts of the beech are a 
 very favourite dainty with the culvers, as 
 indeed with all the woodland folk — and, 
 picking up a " nut," would give it a tap on 
 the ground to split it, and swallow the rich 
 kernel whole. After a few days of this feed- 
 ing, they grew so full-fed and so lazy that if 
 I stood up they did not fly, but waddled away, 
 like gouty partridges, into the covert of the 
 yellow bracken, with a wide-legged gait that 
 was vastly funny. Sometimes, by sudden 
 rushes, I came near catching them with my 
 hands, as they blundered about among the 
 ferns, embarrassed by the close-growing stems 
 and the over-lapping fronds. 
 
 And here to-day I have been sitting just in 
 the same way among bracken watching wood- 
 250 
 
Days in the Fall 
 
 pigeons feeding under beeches. They might 
 be the very same birds, for every gesture is 
 the same, but I myself am not the same some- 
 how. The wood-pigeons know I am here. 
 Perhaps they smell my pipe, and it may be 
 they see the smoke ; and as for making such 
 sudden rushes as shall surprise the wary crea- 
 tures before they can leave the ground, even 
 though heavy with bursting crops, that agility 
 is no longer mine. So the birds have their 
 will of the beech-mast undisturbed. With 
 what a pretty daintiness they go about their 
 quest, and how exquisite the contrast of their 
 plumage against the fierce burnished copper 
 of the fallen leaves upon which they step with 
 such a delicate deliberation ! Tired of eating, 
 they sit down and stretch out their wings to 
 their utmost width, and fan out their tails, so 
 as to let the sunlight strain through every 
 fibre of every feather. Perfectly happy. 
 And not the culvers alone. 
 
 As I look, a little movement here, another 
 there, draws my eye first in one direction and 
 then in another, until I discover that under- 
 251 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 neath the beautiful carpet of red leaves 
 numbers of field-mice are busy. They are 
 hardly noticeable in their russet coats as they 
 come up to the surface now and again, sit on 
 the leaves to lunch and wash their faces, or 
 dash about in short zigzags, as if they were 
 clockwork mice and the clockwork had gone 
 wrong. 
 
 And there is something else at work under 
 the leaves, far more stealthy and infinitely 
 more potent. 
 
 This is the common earthworm, the most 
 terrific living agent that Nature employs, the 
 gravedigger of cities and the fashioner of 
 the face of the earth. If the rock-roots of 
 mountains did not strike deeper into the 
 ground than the worms go they would bury 
 the mountains. If it were not for earthquakes 
 and volcanoes the worms would have levelled 
 the surface of the world. They are busy now 
 in every inch of ground beneath this wonder- 
 ful sheet of fallen foliage, sucking down the 
 leaves by their pointed ends into their tunnels. 
 In a few days all the leaves will be gone, 
 drawn in by the worms, and bunched together, 
 253 
 
Days in the Fall 
 
 the stalk ends uppermost, in their tiny bur- 
 rows. No one knows why they do this. Is 
 it simply their awful lust after levelling ? If 
 they can help it, these terrible blind-working 
 instruments of Nature, there shall be nothing 
 left above ground in the whole round world, 
 and the globe shall be universally slab and 
 smooth, so that earthworms may go every- 
 where at their ease upon the face of it. 
 
 Watch the leaves come floating down ; the 
 air is never for a single instant empty ; and 
 there is a wondrous whispering as they slip 
 through the twigs and settle upon the ground. 
 Just as unceasing is the constant patter of the 
 dropping mast ; and, if you shut your eyes 
 and listen, you will hear the rain mimicked 
 as you never heard it before ; for, besides the 
 steady pattering of the drops near you, you 
 can hear — it is really only the multitudinous 
 whispering of the leaves — that other and 
 larger voice of the rain when it falls, not 
 upon your own roof and dripping from your 
 own eaves, but upon the wide world " out-of- 
 doors." The simulation is beyond belief, and 
 you can only believe it to be simulation by 
 *53 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 opening your eyes upon the sunshine and the 
 clear sky. 
 
 Look up into the tree's leafy dome. 
 When did you ever see so many birds of so 
 many kinds together ? At first you may not 
 notice them. The falling leaves distract your 
 eye with their motion, and the pattering of 
 the nuts suffices to conceal all other sounds. 
 But you catch sight of one bird, and then of 
 half a dozen, and then a score, until the truth 
 dawns upon you that the tree is full of them, 
 restlessly moving from twig to twig, excited 
 by the constant shower and the distraction of 
 such plenty. Great-tits and blue-tits, marsh- 
 tits and cole-tits are hard at work flitting 
 from place to place with mast in their beaks ; 
 the greenfinch, and chaffinch, and bullfinch 
 are all there, feasting beyond their hearts' 
 content, with the nut-hatch and the hawfinch. 
 But it requires some sudden surprise to re- 
 veal the actual numbers of the little workers, 
 and, if you will only wait, the surprise is sure 
 to come, and with startling unexpectedness. 
 Probably the mischief-maker will be a squirrel. 
 For, of course, he is here, the president of 
 254 
 
Days in the Fall 
 
 every woodland ceremony. He is somewhere 
 up the tree, indistinguishable among the red 
 leaves, and his usually noisy progress quite 
 concealed by the sounds of leaf and nut. He 
 will come creeping down the trunk, disre- 
 garded by the birds, and some few feet from 
 the ground he will stop, and, flattening him- 
 self against the grey bole, will stick there, 
 head downwards, perfectly motionless, sur- 
 veying the peaceful scene, and looking more 
 like a squirrel skin stretched upon the bark 
 to dry than a live animal. But have patience 
 and wait, and you will see the small rascal 
 suddenly spring off the tree, come down with 
 a loud souse among the dead leaves, scamper 
 as if his life depended upon his speed, and 
 with all the noise possible, to the next tree, 
 upon which he will jump, and, once more a 
 flat, motionless skin, will calmly look on at 
 the uproar he has aroused. The suddenness 
 of his descent startles the wood-pigeons, who 
 rise all together with loud-clapping wings, 
 and the tumult of their uprising frightens 
 every bird in the trees. And now you can 
 see how many there were. 
 ZS5 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 They will be back in their places soon. 
 Not that you will see them come, for they 
 will slip in by one and one ; but they will be 
 there all the same, and just as busy as before 
 at their interrupted feast. 
 
 This is the latest nut-feast in the year's 
 calendar of bird-banquets. The hawthorn- 
 berries have still to be eaten, and the rose- 
 berries ; but these hips and haws are the real 
 winter provisions, only eaten when there is 
 nothing else. They cannot be much relished 
 by the birds, or they would not leave them 
 untouched on the bushes till they were starv- 
 ing. I have often wondered at this, and the 
 foresight of Nature in making these large 
 crops comparatively unappetising, and so 
 securing their reservation for the pinching 
 days of greatest want. The birds themselves 
 are improvident. They will allow yew- 
 berries to waste in myriads, while they pre- 
 maturely feast on the holly. In early 
 November the holly has not yet deepened 
 into its real Christmas red, but the birds have 
 been feasting on them for weeks. The yew- 
 256 
 
Days in the Fall 
 
 berries, meanwhile, are dropping over-ripe ofF 
 the trees in countless numbers and going to 
 waste. If the hips and haws, which so tempt 
 the village urchins, were equally tempting to 
 the birds, there would be no store of berries 
 left for winter. 
 
 How greedily each of the other wild vin- 
 tages of hedge and copse is eaten up even 
 before it fairly ripens ! 
 
 First the mountain ash, so profuse in 
 fruitage and, where it abounds, the chief of 
 the trees of the wild things' orchards. Its 
 berries, before they turn scarlet, take a 
 beautiful shade of bronze, and in this stage 
 the missel-thrush, blackbird and thrush devour 
 them eagerly ; and then comes the honey- 
 suckle, a favourite dainty of every fruit-eating 
 finch. Next the bilberries, a local crop, and 
 then the yew's delicious fruit, and the prolific 
 elder. What prettier sight is there than the 
 birds on an October morning among the yew- 
 berries.? The thrush assumes the habits of 
 the honey-sucker and the humming-bird, 
 hovering on fast-beating wings in front of 
 the berry before it darts at it ; and the black- 
 2S7 *■ 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 bird mimics the oriole's beautiful gymnastics 
 in its attempts to reach the lovely fruits 
 strung upon stems that are too slender for any 
 foothold but the tiny golden-crested wren's. 
 
 Next the hawthorns redden ; their bronzed 
 foliage falls, leaving their berried branches 
 conspicuously bright, but the birds pass them 
 by. Beneath them in vivid tints of orange 
 the rose-hips glow upon the long leafless 
 briars, but except the hawfinch picking and 
 choosing as it goes fastidiously along the 
 spinney-side, none touches them. The black- 
 berries are now full ripe; oh ! joy for all the 
 birds, and how busy they are ! The children 
 with their faces all streaked and smudged with 
 purple juice may plunder as they please; but 
 there is enough and to spare, for the birds get 
 all those that are "on the top" and "the 
 other side." The sloes are purpling, but 
 these the birds leave till they wrinkle, and the 
 frost has mellowed them for the red-wings 
 and the fieldfares. And next the holly, a 
 capricious harvest, but usually bountiful. 
 The birds will scarcely let them ripen, so 
 fond are they of this acrid fruit. Last of all, 
 258 
 
Days in the Fall 
 
 the privet and the ivy. The privet is liked by 
 all, but the ivy, " harsh and crude," is left by 
 the birds to the very last, and in some years 
 is not touched at all, its black bunches still 
 hanging on the strands after the young leaves 
 are sprouting. What instinct teaches the 
 birds to avoid the delicious-looking night- 
 shade ? No berry looks more exquisitely fit 
 for food, more lusciously tempting, yet 
 hungry as they may be the birds do not eat 
 it. Nor the pretty fruit of the briony. 
 Yet I have given both to a chicken^ and the 
 fowl lived to the full span of fowl-life; 
 a healthy hen and the ancestress of many 
 chickens. 
 
 In the procession of their departure the 
 foliage of the different trees follows punctili- 
 ously the order of precedence of their arrival, 
 and the last to strike in Spring the note of 
 green that completes the vernal chord, is the 
 last in Autumn to crown the diapason of 
 scarlet and gold when the trees unite to 
 celebrate their Nunc dimittis in canticles of 
 colour. 
 
 *S9 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 When everything round it was shady with 
 young leaves, the dainty acacia held up bare 
 boughs, a most delicate tracery of grey twigs, 
 adorned with bunches of fr^l fairy flowers, 
 as finely veined " as the lids of Juno's eyes " 
 and faintly sweet as " Cytheraea's breath," but 
 with scarcely any trace of green. And now, 
 in November, that all round it the trees 
 are leafless, except the oak, sturdily tenacious 
 of its squirrel-tinted foliage, the acacia 
 waves green fronds, faintly tinged with prim- 
 rose. 
 
 Earliest the horse-chestnut. One by one 
 it lets drop its beautiful palmed leaves, a 
 bright canary yellow, covering up the nuts 
 that still lie glittering on the path. The 
 mountain-ash precipitately sheds its foliage : 
 though it is only straw-coloured yet, the tree 
 strips itself as if it were in a hurry to get rid 
 of its summer bravery. More deliberately 
 the lime-tree follows, letting its leaves deepen 
 into brilliant chrome before it parts with 
 them, but once the leaves begin to fall the 
 branches are soon bared, and except the horse- 
 chestnut, I know no tree that spreads so 
 260 
 
Days in the Fall 
 
 pretty a carpet as the lime. Its leaves, 
 weighted perhaps by the long stalks they take 
 with them, seem to fall compactly all together, 
 round about the tree, showing more con- 
 tinuous gold than other trees, and of a deeper 
 warmth of tone. Meanwhile the walnut has 
 been taking strange tints of brown and 
 bronze, and the wind finds the heavy leaves 
 easy victims, and sends them whirling down 
 with the pattering sound of heavy rain, to 
 reveal on the topmost boughs the black- 
 shelled nuts that have escaped the October 
 pelting of the nut-gatherers and the In- 
 quisition of rook and squirrel. All the 
 other trees are " falling into the sear." 
 Unobserved the wiUow has let slip its 
 narrow leaves, the beech is orange, and 
 the elm is lemon-yellow. The Spanish chest- 
 nut is very sudden in its change of colour, 
 but reluctant to disrobe itself of its splendid 
 apparel, and many glossy leaves, in every 
 lovely shade of brown and copper, hang 
 on the tree till after the elm boughs are 
 empty, and even the oak begins to resign its 
 pomp. The larch in its October tint of old 
 261 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 gold Is singularly beautiful, and even in 
 November may be seen with every twig fully 
 plumed of a wonderfully uniform soft dead 
 yellow, looking in the sunset like a golden 
 haze among the leafless trees. The birches, 
 curiously capricious, are some of them quite 
 green, others bare, and so too the sycamores, 
 their foliage leoparded with black spots. 
 
 As a rule, the trees of all kinds that have 
 fruited lose their leaves first, and of the trees 
 that are growing in a copse, those on the side 
 facing the west retain their foliage longest. 
 Young trees are later in shedding their leaves 
 than their elders ; and some of them, the 
 beech especially, retain on young bushes and 
 on the lowest boughs of grown trees their 
 chestnut foliage to the following Spring, 
 
 The plane does not wait to turn yellow 
 but drops its leaves half green, as too does 
 the ash, under which at the first touch of 
 frost is found one morning all its foliage in a 
 heap, as vivid as in the heyday of August. 
 The poplar, except for its topmost twigs, 
 shakes itself clear before the elm, and its stout 
 leaves take as a rule a very beautiful shade of 
 z6z 
 
Days in the Fall 
 
 clear yellow. And then the elm, scattering 
 from its heights showers of golden leaflets, 
 proclaims the end of the Fall, and long after 
 the gardeners have carried away into utter- 
 most corners the painted spoils of lime, and 
 walnut, and plane, goes on sprinkling the 
 turf with scraps of colour. Last of all the 
 oak, sullenly retentive of its foliage, yields to 
 the storms its crisp, dried leaves, so brown 
 and dry that you wonder how they clung so 
 long to the branch. But the oak is the oak, 
 and unless the cold actually rots its leaves off 
 or the wind tears them off, it will carry its 
 Autumn into the Spring, and only confesses 
 to the necessity of surrender when it feels the 
 new buds breaking and knows that surrender 
 is only an exchange. 
 
 In the hedgerows the brightest patches of 
 colour are the hazel and the spindle-tree. 
 The hawthorn takes various tints, very beau- 
 tiful indeed, and the guelder-rose bronzes 
 into a deep golden brown. The wild rose is 
 still green when everything else is sere, and 
 the brambles, refusing to fall, are painted like 
 the underwings of butterflies. 
 263 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 Some fruit-trees are singularly beautiful in 
 the Fall. The pear-tree, for instance, spreads 
 round it a matchless carpet so intricately 
 coloured and so harmonious that the finest 
 Cashmere web is coarse and crude by com- 
 parison. The cherry is sometimes wonderful 
 in the combination of vivid scarlet and 
 clearest yellow, and what scent can be more 
 exquisite than the perfume of dying cherry 
 leaves .'' Sunning itself one day in the orchard 
 I saw a tortoiseshell cat asleep, its bed a drift 
 of cherry leaves, and the cat was almost 
 invisible, so happily did it blend with the 
 foliage. A pheasant is almost lost to sight as 
 soon as it steps upon fallen beech-leaves. 
 
 We speak always of the fall of the leaf as 
 melancholy, and, no doubt, it is a generation 
 passing away ; and man himself is " but 
 grass." But if we remembered that the 
 leaves of trees fall off only because the buds 
 of next year have pushed them off, much of 
 the melancholy disappears from the process. 
 It is the new leaves coming that makes the 
 old leaves fall, and the yellows and reds of 
 264 
 
Days in the Fall 
 
 Autumn are the first sure signs and promises 
 of a leafy Spring. The foliage of the year 
 has done its work. It has seen blossom and 
 berry come and go, "and all's well." The 
 time has come for relieving guard. For the 
 swallows have gone south and the redwing is 
 afield ; and the old leaves wait till they feel 
 the thrill all through them to the tips of the 
 tiniest twigs of the coming of the reliefs, and 
 then they know that they may go, and down 
 their line the signal runs, "dismiss," and 
 then at their leisure, with all the blazonry of 
 autumnal honours and the brilliant circum- 
 stance and consequence of soldiers retiring 
 with the honours of war, they leave their posts. 
 How beautifully tranquil is the change 
 sometimes from the " wine-month " to the 
 " wind-month." October becomes November, 
 and the trees do not know it, nor the birds. 
 There is just one touch of frost, hardening 
 the black cases of the walnuts and killing the 
 dahlias in a night. But, thereafter, comes 
 mellow sunshine and rain without stint, and 
 in the hedgerows in November you may find 
 the flowers of July in bloom. 
 265 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 How sharp the line is that the frost draws, 
 how military its discipline ! " Lights out ! " 
 October had swept the trees with her golden 
 fingers, but the dahlias were still in bloom, 
 and to them came the red-admiral and the 
 bumble-bee. On a sudden, a night of frost, 
 and where are the gay dahlias ? Where the 
 marigold and the phloxes, and the snap- 
 dragons ? Where the bee and the butterfly ? 
 Nor afterwards was it ever the same. The 
 sun shone and the warm rain fell, but the 
 dahlias were gone and the insects with them. 
 And so October wore away and November 
 came, with mild soft moons and cloudy skies 
 and floods. "An untoward season," said a 
 farmer. No doubt for farmers, but not for 
 all the rest of the world. With November 
 more than half spent, the days were so warm 
 that the squirrel and the hedgehog and the 
 mice had not thought of going to sleep, and 
 it was a pleasure to sit on the garden-seat 
 and bask, in the sunshine. With leafless 
 trees all about, it was warm enough for lunch 
 in the open air. 
 
 266 
 
Days in the Fall 
 
 " There's nothing left in the garden," they 
 said when November came. And the gar- 
 dener goes by with his wheelbarrow loaded 
 up with pansies and phlox, to add to the 
 great heap which he is making in some waste 
 corner, for burning by-and-by. They look 
 too pretty to be wheeled away so uncere- 
 moniously, with weeds and dead stuff, for 
 they are still in straggling bloom, but the 
 gardener wants to see his beds tidy, and so 
 the phloxes — pink and crimson, rose and 
 purple, or freaked with colours like their 
 companions in woe, the pansies — have to go. 
 Their room is needed for bulbs of hyacinth 
 and anemones, and jonquils, for daffodils and 
 crocus, squills and snowdrops. But they go 
 away and lie on the heap, still flowering, and 
 the pansies wear the same merry little faces 
 that they held up to the sun in June, the 
 same heart's-ease — " frolick virgins once these 
 were." And gardeners are inexorable. For 
 them the month is the month that it is, let 
 its weather be what it may. 
 
 That is why the marigolds and gaillardias 
 are lying in sheaves upon the path : why 
 267 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 each bed upon the turf has by its side its 
 little heap of uprooted flowers ; why the 
 asters and calceolarias are gone from their 
 places, and the balsams and the pink and 
 scarlet begonias ; why the flowers that are 
 allowed to remain have been trimmed round 
 and tied up into neat consequential patches 
 and clumps, no longer able to reach over 
 and exchange flowers with each other, but 
 standing clearly apart with smooth open 
 spaces of brown mould round them. They, 
 too, when their seed has ripened, or the last 
 flowers die, will be cut down, and the large 
 beds and the little beds will all be alike, 
 smooth brown mould and nothing more upon 
 the surface, but underneath it full of patient 
 roots and bulbs, waiting in confidence for the 
 coming of another year. 
 
 This is in the garden near the house, the 
 parterres on which the gardener expends the 
 best of his cunning, and for the glory of which 
 he brings out from glass-houses and under 
 frames and all manner of odd corners, after the 
 manner of gardeners and conjurers, pots and 
 boxes full of seedlings. It is for these beds 
 268 
 
Days in the Fall 
 
 he kept his double zinnias of queerest terra- 
 cotta, his long-spurred columbines of orange 
 and yellow with snow-white frills, his choicest 
 gentians, verbenas, campanulas, and violas. 
 For these beds lie along the terrace walk and 
 overlook the lawn, and are the cynosizre of 
 all eyes. 
 
 Strangers always call it "the garden," as 
 if there were no other. But there is. An 
 October garden. Twice in the year it is 
 trimmed : clumps grown too large are broken 
 up ; those grown too thin are reinforced. 
 The pansy edging is replenished with cut- 
 tings, the rampant musk raked out, and the 
 invading shrubbery cut well back. And 
 then the garden is left to itself. For all 
 the flowers in it are perennial. Some years 
 ago there were only lawn and shrubbery, but 
 the laurels and rhododendrons were trans- 
 planted, and cut back to make room for a 
 broad flower-border, and the result is this 
 October splendour. Opposite the perennial 
 border grow some trees, and their almost 
 day-long shade makes this border later in 
 flowering than the sunnier beds. Yet it, too, 
 169 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinney 
 
 has had its earlier glory. To wit, when the 
 sweet-williams and snapdragons made solid 
 masses of colour, and columbine and potentilla 
 and geum filled up the intervals : when the 
 pansies, all down the line, made a riband of 
 gorgeous hues, and behind, the monkshoods 
 in wondrous shades of blue held up great 
 spikes of flower. Every few feet, a cluster 
 of Canterbury-bells struck a strong note of 
 colour, and poppies of strangest kinds, like 
 chrysanthemums, or yellow and buff and 
 orange, were everywhere, thrusting up beau- 
 tiful heads through the green around them. 
 Later, the tiger-lilies came out to relieve the 
 monkshood, and where the spiraeas had sent 
 up their feathers, pink and white, to meet 
 the clematis, the clematis now trailed strands 
 of large purple stars down to the spiraeas. 
 
 But taken all the year round, it can surely 
 never seem more lovely than in October. 
 The border is filled with foliage of many 
 shades and curiously contrasting patterns, 
 and upon this foundation is traced out a 
 magnificent scheme of colour. Behind, against 
 the deep green of the laurels, rhododendrons 
 470 
 
t)AYs IN THE Fall 
 
 and box, are sunflowers, six feet high, lit up 
 each of them with a score of blooms, and 
 hollyhocks, taller still, are rosetted with deep 
 claret flowers and mulberry and strange old 
 pink. Between them, bushes of cactus dahlias 
 literally ablaze with scarlet. In front are 
 standard roses, only crimson and damask, 
 and now in October bright with their second 
 bloom. Hiding their barren stems, compact 
 and solid, an exquisite combination of green 
 and purples, are perennial asters — a single 
 spike of them with its hundreds of little 
 stars makes a noble decoration in a room — 
 and humbler, if more vivid companies of 
 tritomia. Here and again are old clumps of 
 phlox, of fervent carmine or white starred 
 with pink, and, to my mind, of a singular 
 beauty, the rudbeckias in brilliant clusters of 
 chrome-yellow. 
 
 Three times in the long border, Japanese 
 anemones, mixed white and terra-cotta, mark 
 noble periods in the great curve of colour ; 
 and at corresponding intervals, as you walk 
 round, your eye catches the beautiful response, 
 set further forward, of clumps of chrysan- 
 *7r 
 
In Garden, Orchard, and Spinnev 
 
 themum, lemon-yellow and Indian red — tiny 
 flowers, no doubt, "for chrysanthemums," 
 but sweetly pretty in their profusion and 
 artless growth. Is that enough ? Well, then, 
 for more. There are the snapdragons in 
 every shade of snapdragon colour and geums 
 now making second displays of flower, and 
 pentstemons ; and salvias, shaded in butterfly- 
 blue, and Iceland poppies, and the round 
 lavender balls — like the spiked horrors which 
 genial Crusaders wore at the end of chains, 
 for the thumping of Saracens and similar 
 heathen — which the Blessed Thistle bears. 
 Can you see this October garden at all? 
 
 And remember there is musk running riot 
 amongst everything, and the pansies and 
 violas, now in full October bloom. The 
 gardener does not wheel them away in his 
 barrow from here. They may flower if they 
 please — and they will — till the frost comes, 
 and until the hungry hares come limping up 
 from the spinney behind the orchard to nibble 
 down all they can find that is green. The 
 gardener will not trouble to trim them. 
 They belong only to the perennial garden, 
 272 
 
Days in the Fall 
 
 and he calls them cottagers' stuff. The 
 glass-houses and the frames secrete no sur- 
 prises for the October garden ; but it would, 
 I think, break the good gardener's heart if 
 he only overheard what is often said, that 
 " the old border is worth all the rest of the 
 garden put together." Of course it is not, 
 but in October one forgets June, and while 
 all the other beds are getting ready for 
 winter, this one alone is in full autumnal 
 flower. 
 
 *73 
 
INDEX 
 
 Audubon, on the vulture, 49 
 Autumn {see Fall, Colour, and Trees) 
 Apples, in Pilgrim's Progress, i66, 167 
 
 of old trees, 204 
 
 size and quality, 205-6 
 
 Bat, 155 
 
 Beech-tree in mid October, 249 {see Trees) 
 
 Bees, 69, 89 
 
 contrasted with wasps, 185-189 
 
 the queen-bee, 189-191 
 
 the king-bee, 190 
 
 drones, 191, 192 
 
 swarming, 192, 193 
 Berries, privet, 67, 259 
 
 holly, 68, 256, 258 
 
 hawthorn, 256, 258 
 
 yew, 256, 257 
 
 ^75 
 
Index 
 
 Berries, rose, 256, 258 
 
 hips and haws, 256-258 
 
 elder, 257 
 
 mountain-ash, 257 
 
 honeysuckle, 257 
 
 bilberries, 257 
 
 sloe, 258 
 
 ivy, 259 
 
 briony and nightshade, 259 
 Birds, in snow, 34, 35 
 
 relief for, in winter, 36-59 
 
 how to give relief, 53 
 
 boldness and shyness of, 40, 42 
 
 in the early morning, 52 
 
 feasting at early dawn, 157-159 
 
 untrustfulness, 61, 62 
 
 recognition of people, 63, 64 
 
 joy in warm weather, 65, 66 
 
 bud-eating, 68 
 
 a favourite haunt of, 71 
 
 watchfulness, 76 
 
 confusion of old and new names, 92, 104, 105 
 
 faculty of counting, 103 
 
 not mentioned by Shakespeare, 104 
 
 among the nuts, 226 
 
 throngs of, in the fall, 254, 255 
 
 feasts of berries, 256, 258 
 
 avoid briony and nightshade berries, 259 
 
 squabbles of, 209, 210 
 
 fruit-eating, 213-216 
 
 use of to farmers and gardeners, 217, 218 
 276 
 
Index 
 
 Blackbird, 41, 55, 62, 93, 213, 258 
 Blackcap, confounded with marsh-tit, 45 
 
 alarm cry of, 74 
 Blue-bottle, amazing experience of, 28 
 
 a Struldbrugg, 29-32 
 Boyhood, recollections of, 108-112, 249-251 
 Bullfinch, 70, 93, 227 
 Bunny {see Rabbit) 
 Butterfly, in January, 1 2 
 
 in March, 89 
 
 Camping out, in June, 152-159 
 Caterpillar, noise of feeding, 219 
 Cats, in snow, 36 
 
 prowling, 77, 78 
 Chaffinch, 41, 43 
 Chaucer, on the popinjay, 92 
 Cherry-tree, 211, 264 
 Chiffchaff, 105 
 Cockatrice, 182 » 
 Coleridge, reference, 136 
 Colour, conspicuousness of white, 64 
 
 of foliage in the fall, 259-263 
 
 deepening of, in hot summers, 194 
 Covenanters betrayed by the lapwing, 168, 169 
 Cowper, on pheasant and peacock, 156 
 
 on greenfinch, 198 
 Crocus, in January, 10- 
 Crows in India, ruse of, 45 
 
 Daffodil {see Flowers) 
 
 277 
 
Index 
 
 Davenant, on the snail, 183 
 Dog, ruse of the, 44, 45 
 Dormouse, winter larders, 96 
 
 character, 1 01, 102 
 
 gentleness of, 237 
 
 mouse or squirrel ? 238 
 
 crepuscular, not nocturnal, 239 
 
 in the branches, 239 
 
 nest of, 240 
 
 does not hoard in captivity, 240 
 
 labour wasted on nuts, 243, 244 
 Dove (turtle), 70 
 
 (ring) {see Wood-pigeons) 
 Drayton, on the merle, 105 
 Dry spring, effect on trees, flowers and birds, 150-152 
 
 summer „ „ „ 160, 161 
 
 193-19S 
 
 Earthworms, 183, 252, 253 
 Eels and horsehair, 100 
 
 Fall of the leaf, noise of, 253 
 
 not melancholy, 264, 265 
 
 why leaves fall, 264 
 Famine in the garden, 32-59 
 Fieldfares, 258 
 Field-mouse, in January, 1 1 
 
 in snow, 32 
 
 food-store, 245, 246 
 
 a tree-climber, 245 
 
 among the beech-mast, 252 
 278 
 
Index 
 
 Fletcher, Phineas, on the parrot, 92 
 Flowers, under snow, 33 
 
 winter kinds, 69 
 
 daffodil, narcissus, 87, 88 
 
 confusion of names, 87, 88, 91, 92 
 
 cuckoo-flowers, 89 
 
 ragged-robin, 90 
 
 lily, primrose and pied daisy, 90 
 
 honeysuckle, blackthorn, violet, 91 
 
 primrose and daisy, 92 
 
 garden in the fall, 267-273 
 Foliage, colouring of {see Colour and Trees) 
 Folk-lore, witches and witch-gardens, 174-179 
 
 snail, 15, 184 
 
 wren, 18 
 
 hedgehog, 100 
 
 toad, 181, 182 
 Fox prowling, 73-75 
 Frankum's Night, 166 
 
 Garden, in the fall, 267-273 
 Gascoigne, on throstle and mavis, 104 
 Gerard, quoted, 79 
 Golden oriole, 105 
 Golden-crested wren, 258 
 Goldfinch, 73 
 Greenfinch, 198-203 
 Gubernatis, on the snail, 184 
 Gulliver and the Struldbniggs, 29 
 
 Haunt of wild life, a, 71 
 
 279 
 
Index 
 
 Hawfinch, 80, 258 
 
 Hedgehog, character and habits, 98—100, 169-174 
 
 folk-lore, 100 
 
 heavy step, 154 
 Hedgerows, autumn colours, 263 
 Hedge-sparrow, in January, 11, 43 
 
 seen in pairs, 54, 55 
 
 song of, 54, 102 
 Heron, 113 
 
 Herrick, on the daffodil, 88 
 Himalayas, Rhododendron of the, 10 
 Hips and haws {see Berries) 
 Holly, in January, i o 
 Horsehair and eels, 1 00 
 
 India, in January, 22-24 
 
 ruse of crows in, 45 
 Indra Farjanga, 13, 180 
 Insects, in January, 12 
 
 in February, 25-32 
 
 fruit-eating of, 215 
 Ivy-bloom, in January, 26, 27 
 
 Jackdaw, character and habits, 107— III 
 January, 9-24 
 
 not an empty month, 1 1 
 Jay, 80, 227 
 
 Jonson, Ben, on the daffodil, 87 
 July, effect of prolonged drought, 160, 161 
 June, camping out in, 152-159 
 
 Lapwing and the Covenanters, 168, 169 
 280 
 
Index 
 
 Larks, in January, 1 2 
 
 in warm weather, 65 
 Leaves, noise of falling, 253 
 
 why they fall, 264 
 Linnet, 65 
 
 " Lobster," or stoat, 93 
 Luther, on the sparrow, 37 
 
 t 
 Marsh-tit {see Tit) 
 Mavis, 104 
 Merle, 105 
 Mice, in snow, 36, 68, 69 
 
 heavy step, 154 {see Field-mouse) 
 Missel-thrush, a cannibal, 56 
 
 nest, 102, 103 
 Months, totems of, 167 
 Moths, 154 
 
 Names, confusion of in regard to flowers, birds and 
 beasts, 87, 88, 93, 104, 105 
 
 American use of specific, 91 
 Nightingale, a migrant, 16, 79 
 
 song and duty, 1 7 
 Nightjar, 72, 154 
 
 Noises in the summer night, 154, 155 
 November, 265-267 
 Nuts, Avenue, scenes in, 225-247 
 
 nutsplitting, various modes of, 242, 243 
 
 nuts when at their best, 244-246 
 
 filberts, how to keep fresh, 246, 247 
 
 nuts, ripe, 219-221 
 
 281 
 
Index 
 
 Nuts, cob, hazel, walnut, 219, 246 
 
 "soft-shells," 219, 220 
 
 Avella, 220 
 
 the nut-grub, 221-223 
 Nut-hatch, eats only fallen nuts, 241 
 
 mode of nut-splitting, 242 
 
 Orchard, description of, 197-208, 218 
 Ousel, 104, 105 
 Owl, 68, 15s 
 
 Parrot, 92 
 
 Peacock, in India, 156 
 
 contrasted with pheasant, 157 
 Pear-trees, 207 
 Pheasant, 68 
 
 at early dawn, 156 
 
 contrasted with peacock, 1 57 
 Pilgrim's Progress, apples in, 166, 167 
 Popinjay, 92 
 Prior, on the rook, 115 
 
 Rabbit, 32, 33, 35, 36, 57, 58, 76, 157 
 story of Bunnykin, 80—86 
 
 Rain and St. Swithin, 162-164 
 other wet Saints, 164, 165 
 sounds and sights during, 180, l8l 
 
 Redwing, 258 
 
 Relief for birds, 36-59 
 
 Rhododendron of the Himalayas, 10 
 
 Ringdoves {see Wood-pigeons) 
 282 
 
Index 
 
 Robin, in January, 12 
 
 attachment to, 18 
 
 character, 19 
 
 appetite, 38 
 
 boldness, 40 
 
 fight with sparrow, 43 
 
 a carnivorous bird, 5 1 
 
 quarrelsomeness, 55, 57, 2 10 
 
 joy in warm weather, 66 
 
 at dawn, 159 
 Rooks, 1 1, 62, 66 
 
 the farmer's friend, 106, 107 
 
 character, 113, 114 
 
 attachment to man, 115 
 
 industry, 116 
 
 judicial procedure, 117 
 
 the first nest of a rookery, 1 17-148 
 
 preference for elms, 119 
 
 nest-building, 120, 147 
 
 calls of male and female, 124, 131, 132-136 
 
 co-operation, 127, 128, 144, 145 
 
 feeding young, 129 
 
 attacking intruders, 130, 131 
 
 domestic arrangements, 137, 138 
 
 false alarms, 139 
 
 silence of going and coming, 140 
 
 brooding, 140, 142 
 
 rookery rights, 141 
 
 congratulatory visits, 142 
 
 cry of nestlings, 143 
 
 first flight, 146 
 
 283 
 
Index 
 Rose-hip, old name, 79 
 
 Saints, Swithin, 162-164 
 
 Dunstan's Day, 166 
 
 eight rainy saints, 164, 165 
 Savernake Forest, 250 
 Seebohm, on rooks, 1 1 8 
 Shakespeare, on the daffodil, 88 
 
 on the ousel, 105 
 
 birds not mentioned by, 104 
 Shrew-mouse, igo, 155 
 Shrubs, under snow, 33 
 Snail, in January, 13 
 
 model traveller, 14 
 
 "nimble," 183 
 
 in folklore, 15, 184 
 Snow and famine, 32-59 
 Southey, on nut- grub, 222, 223 
 Sparrow, 9, 10, 12 
 
 character of, 19 
 
 distribution, 20, 21 
 
 in January, 22 
 
 Martin Luther, on, 37 
 
 the Hebrew name, 37 
 
 appetite, 38 
 
 outwitted, 39 
 
 roguery, 43, 44 
 
 punctuality, 58, 59 
 Spenser, on thrush and mavis, 104 
 
 on toad, 182 
 Spring of 1893, 149-152 
 
 284 
 
Index 
 
 Squirrel, in snow, 34, 35 
 
 hoarding instinct, 47, 96-98 
 
 quickly alarmed, 76 
 
 habits of, 93-98 
 
 at early dawn, 158 
 
 a study of, 227-235 
 
 kills small birds, 230 
 
 charge of egg-eating, 230, 231 
 
 insect and seed eater, 231, 232 
 
 fearless of man, 232-235 
 
 eats fir-cones, 244 
 
 frolic, 254, 255 
 Starling, 53, 54, 62, 65, 66 
 Stoat, 93 
 
 Struldbruggs of insect life, 29-32 
 Summer of 1893, 160-167, 193-19S 
 Sweetbriar, old name, 79 
 Swift, quoted, 29 
 
 Tennyson, on moth, 1 54 
 
 on hedgehog, 173 
 Thrush, 104 {jee Missel-thrush) 
 Throstle, 104 
 Tits, marsh-tit, 43 
 
 mistaken for blackcap, 45 
 curious habit with food, 46-49 
 the "meat-sense" of, 49-51 
 fighting aspect, 56 
 shyness, 62 
 coal-tit, 49 
 great- tit, 56 
 
 2S5 
 
Index 
 
 Tits, great-tit, a trapping story, 236 
 
 nut-splitting, 241 
 Toad, in folk-lore, 181, 182 
 Trees, under snow, 33, 34 
 
 effects of dry spring upon, 150, 152 
 
 effects of dry summer upon, 160, 161 
 
 the first to lose leaves, 262 
 
 colouring in the fall, 260 
 
 acacia, z6o 
 
 apple, 204 
 
 ash, 262 
 
 beech, 261, 262 
 
 birch, 262 
 
 cherry, 211, 264 
 
 elm, 261, 263 
 
 horse-chestnut, 260 
 
 larch, 261, 262 
 
 lime, 260, 261 
 
 mountain-ash, 260 
 
 oak, 263 
 
 pear, 207 
 
 plane, 262 
 
 poplar, 262 
 
 Spanish chestnut, 261 
 
 sycamore, 262 
 
 walnut, 261 
 
 willow, 261 
 " Tschirp," the sparrow, 37 
 
 Virgil, on the king-bee, 190 
 Vulture, its " meat-sense,'' 49, 5 1 
 286 
 
Index 
 
 Wallfruit, eaten from behind, 212, 213 
 Wasp, in February, 26-28, 69 
 
 contrasted with bee, 185-189 
 Water-rats, 100 
 Waterton, on vulture, 49 
 White, Gilbert, on hedgehogs, 174 
 Whitethroat, 73, 75. 79> "54 
 Wild creatures, difficulty of securing prey, 76-78 
 Witches and witch gardens, 174-179 
 Woodpecker, 53, 57, 65, 72, 80 
 Wood-pigeon, 66, 67, 72, 73 
 
 nest of, 104 
 
 noisy and noiseless flights, 250 
 
 nut-eating, 250, 251 
 Woosell, 104 
 Wren, in folk-lore, 18 
 
 its song, 54 
 
 joy in warm weather, 66 
 
 alarm cry of, 73 
 
 at early dawn, 159 
 
 golden-crested, 258 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
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ii