FURZE-WREN OR FURZE-FAIRY 169 



I then went to a high barrow on the heath and sat 

 down to meditate and cool myself in the wind; there 

 my attention was attracted to a litter of feathers 

 near my feet of some small bird on which a sparrow- 

 hawk had recently fed. The body feathers were red 

 or chestnut brown, the quills black or blackish brown. 

 I began to speculate as to the species, when it all at 

 once occurred to me that these were the two colours 

 of the furze-wren. The wind was blowing strong and 

 carrying the feathers, red and black, fast away — in 

 two or three minutes there would be few left to judge 

 from. I quickly gathered those that remained clinging 

 to the stunted heath on the barrow-top and began 

 examining them. No, the sparrow-hawk had not 

 struck down and devoured that most unlikely bird, 

 the furze-wren: there remained one little quill with 

 a white border and one small pure white feather. They 

 were linnet's feathers — the dark wing feathers and 

 the chestnut-red body feathers from the back. 



Now this trivial incident of the barrow-top, where 

 I went to meditate and did not do so, served as a 

 fillip to my flagging energies, and I immediately 

 went off across the heath in quest of my bird again, 

 making for a point about three-quarters of a mile 

 away which I had hunted over two or three days 

 before. I had not proceeded more than about three 

 hundred yards when, in the most unlikely spot in 

 the whole place, I caught sight of a minute, black- 

 looking bird flitting rapidly out of one low ragged 

 furze-bush and vanishing into another. Here was 

 my furze-wren! 



