e is a litter of cubs
there this year. Across the fields we go, ankle deep in buttercups and
clover at one moment, then up the hedge to avoid treading the half-grown
barley. We are so accustomed to take a bee-line across these shooting
grounds of ours that we quite forget that the farmer would not thank us
for trampling down his crops at the end of May. But soon we are on the
Downs, well out of harm's way and far removed from highroads and
footpaths. What a glorious panorama lies all around! Why do we not come
here oftener in summer?--the country is ten times more lovely then than
it is in the shooting season. A field of sainfoin in June, with its
glorious blossoms of pink, is one of the prettiest sights in all
creation. Seen in the distance, amid a setting of green wheatfields and
verdant pastures, it ripples in the garish light of the summer sun like
a lake of rubies.

"Land and sea
Give themselves up to jollity;
And with the heart of May
Doth every beast keep holiday."

Ah! there will be lots of foxes when the hounds come to the fox-covert
next October. The unpleasant smell at the mouth of the earth tells us
that there are cubs there; and as we stand over it we can hear them
playing down below in the bowels of mother earth. Very distinct, too,
are the tracks--_traffic_, the keeper calls them--leading by sundry
well-trodden paths to the dell below--a nice sunny dell, facing
south-west, where in spring the violets and primroses grow among the
spreading elder. These cubs were not born here. Their mother brought
them from an old hollow stump of a tree by the river, half a mile away.
When she found her lair discovered by an angler who happened to pass
that way, she brought them across the river by the narrow footbridge
right up here on to the hill. The cubs from the tree have disappeared,
so no doubt these are the ones. Well, there are lots of rabbits for
them; the little fellows are popping about all over the place.

How tame all wild animals become in the summer!--all except the ones we
want to circumvent--magpies, jays, stoats, and such small deer. Lapwings
fly round us, crying restlessly, "Go away, go away!" Their shrill treble
accents remind one of a baby's squall. Pigeons and ringdoves, partridges
and hares seem to be plentiful "as blackberries in September." A
gorgeous cock pheasant crows and jumps up close to us, followed by his
mate. This is a pleasing sight up here, for they are wild b