inutes, either near at
hand or yonder a bird darts out just at the level of the grass, hovers a
second with labouring wings, and returns as swiftly to the cover.
Sometimes it is a flycatcher, sometimes a greenfinch, or chaffinch, now
and then a robin, in one place a shrike, perhaps another is a redstart.
They are flyfishing all of them, seizing insects from the sorrel tips and
grass, as the kingfisher takes a roach from the water. A blackbird slips
up into the oak and a dove descends in the corner by the chestnut tree.
But these are not visible together, only one at a time and with
intervals. The larger part of the life of the hedge is out of sight. All
the thrush-fledglings, the young blackbirds, and finches are hidden, most
of them on the mound among the ivy, and parsley, and rough grasses,
protected, too, by a roof of brambles. The nests that still have eggs
are not, like the nests of the early days of April, easily found; they
are deep down in the tangled herbage by the shore of the ditch, or far
inside the thorny thickets which then looked mere bushes, and are now so
broad. Landrails are running in the grass concealed as a man would be in
a wood; they have nests and eggs on the ground for which you may search
in vain till the mowers come.

Up in the corner a fragment of white fur and marks of scratching show
where a doe has been preparing for a litter. Some well-trodden runs lead
from mound to mound; they are sandy near the hedge where the particles
have been carried out adhering to the rabbits' feet and fur. A crow
rises lazily from the upper end of the field, and perches in the
chestnut. His presence, too, was unsuspected. He is there by far too
frequently. At this season the crows are always in the mowing-grass,
searching about, stalking in winding tracks from furrow to furrow,
picking up an egg here and a foolish fledgling that has wandered from the
mound yonder. Very likely there may be a moorhen or two slipping about
under cover of the long grass; thus hidden, they can leave the shelter of
the flags and wander a distance from the brook. So that beneath the
surface of the grass and under the screen of the leaves there are ten
times more birds than are seen.

Besides the singing and calling, there is a peculiar sound which is only
heard in summer. Waiting quietly to discover what birds are about, I
become aware of a sound in the very air. It is not the midsummer hum
which will soon be heard over