them dry and altogether spent several agreeable hours at that spot,
pleased at the thought that no human fellow-creature would intrude upon
me. Feathered companions were, however, not wanting. The crowing of cock
pheasants from the thicket beside the old road warned me that I was on
preserved grounds. Not too strictly preserved, however, for there was my
old friend the carrion-crow out foraging for his young. He dropped down
over the trees, swept past me, and was gone. At this season, in the
early summer, he may be easily distinguished, when flying, from his
relation the rook. When on the prowl the crow glides smoothly and
rapidly through the air, often changing his direction, now flying close
to the surface, anon mounting high, but oftenest keeping nearly on a
level with the tree tops. His gliding and curving motions are somewhat
like those of the herring-gull, but the wings in gliding are carried
stiff and straight, the tips of the long flight-feathers showing a
slight upward curve. But the greatest difference is in the way the
head is carried. The rook, like the heron and stork, carries his beak
pointing lance-like straight before him. He knows his destination, and
makes for it; he follows his nose, so to speak, turning neither to
the right nor the left. The foraging crow continually turns his head,
gull-like and harrier-like, from side to side, as if to search the
ground thoroughly or to concentrate his vision on some vaguely seen
object.

Not only the crow was there: a magpie chattered as I came from the
brake, but refused to show himself; and a little later a jay screamed at
me, as only a jay can. There are times when I am intensely in sympathy
with the feeling expressed in this ear-splitting sound, inarticulate
but human. It is at the same time warning and execration, the startled
solitary's outburst of uncontrolled rage at the abhorred sight of a
fellow-being in his woodland haunt.

Small birds were numerous at that spot, as if for them also its wildness
and infertility had an attraction. Tits, warblers, pipits, finches, all
were busy ranging from place to place, emitting their various notes now
from the tree-tops, then from near the ground; now close at hand, then
far off; each change in the height, distance, and position of the singer
giving the sound a different character, so that the effect produced was
one of infinite variety. Only the yellow-hammer remained constant in
one spot, in one position, and the s