less you gather them yourself. Put down the
gun a minute or two, and pull the boughs this way. One or two may drop
of themselves as the branch is shaken, one among the brambles, another
outwards into the stubble. The leaves rustle against hat and shoulders;
a thistle is crushed under foot, and the down at last released. Bines of
bryony hold the ankles, and hazel boughs are stiff and not ready to bend
to the will. This large brown nut must be cracked at once; the film
slips off the kernel, which is white underneath. It is sweet.

The tinted sunshine comes through between the tall hazel rods; there is
a grasshopper calling in the sward on the other side of the mound. The
bird's nest in the thorn-bush looks as perfect as if just made, instead
of having been left long long since--the young birds have flocked into
the stubbles. On the briar which holds the jacket the canker rose, which
was green in summer, is now rosy. No such nuts as those captured with
cunning search from the bough in the tinted sunlight and under the
changing leaf.

The autumn itself is nutty, brown, hard, frosty, and sweet. Nuts are
hard, frosts are hard; but the one is sweet, and the other braces the
strong. Exercise often wearies in the spring, and in the summer heats is
scarcely to be faced; but in autumn, to those who are well, every step
is bracing and hardens the frame, as the sap is hardening in the trees.

ROUND A LONDON COPSE

In October a party of wood-pigeons took up their residence in the little
copse which has been previously mentioned. It stands in the angle formed
by two suburban roads, and the trees in it overshadow some villa
gardens. This copse has always been a favourite with birds, and it is
not uncommon to see a pheasant about it, sometimes within gunshot of the
gardens, while the call of the partridges in the evening may now and
then be heard from the windows. But though frequently visited by
wood-pigeons, they did not seem to make any stay till now when this
party arrived.

There were eight of them. During the day they made excursions into the
stubble fields, and in the evening returned to roost. They remained
through the winter, which will be remembered as the most severe for many
years. Even in the sharpest frost, if the sun shone out, they called to
each other now and then. On the first day of the year their hollow
cooing came from the copse at midday.

During the deep snow which blocked the roads and covered the f