s that
something living is there, and presently the little head and neck of a
whitethroat peers over them, and then under, looking above and beneath
each leaf, and then with a noiseless motion passing on to the next.
Another whitethroat follows immediately, and there is not a leaf
forgotten nor a creeping thing that can hide from them. Every tree and
every bush is visited by these birds, and others of the insect-feeders;
the whole summer's day they are searching, and the caterpillar, as it
comes down on a thread, slipping from the upper branches, only drops
into their beaks. Birds, too, that at other periods feed on grain and
seed, now live themselves, and bring up their young, upon insects.

I went to look over a gate to see how the corn was rising--it is so
short, now in June, that it will not hide a hare--and on coming near
there was a cock chaffinch perched on the top, a fine bird in full
colour. He did not move though I was now within three yards, nor till I
could have almost touched him did he fly; he had a large caterpillar in
his beak, and no doubt his nest or the young from it were in the hedge.
In feeding the young birds the old ones always perch first at a short
distance, and after waiting a minute proceed to their fledgelings.
Should a blackbird come at full speed across the meadow and stay on a
hedge-top, and then go down into the mound, it is certain that his nest
is there. If a thrush frequents a tree, flying up into the branches for
a minute and then descending into the underwood, most likely the young
thrushes are there.

Little indeed do the birds care for appropriate surroundings; anything
does for them, they do not aim at effect. I heard a tit-lark singing his
loudest, and found him perched on the edge of a tub, formed of a barrel
sawn in two, placed in the field for the horses to drink from, as there
was no pond. Some swallows are very fond of a notice-board fastened to a
pole beside the Hogsmill bank. Upon its upper edge they perch and
twitter sweetly. There is a muddy pond by Tolworth Farm, near the road;
it is muddy because a herd of cows drink from and stand in it, stirring
up the bottom. An elm overhangs it, and the lower boughs are dead and
leafless. On these there are always swallows twittering over the water.
Grey and yellow wagtails run along the verge. In the morning the flock
of goslings who began to swim in the pond, now grown large and grey,
arrange themselves in a double row, some twe