176 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



too, of mystery in it, due perhaps to association — 

 to some dim suggestion of ancient human happenings, 

 in a time when there were gods who heeded man and 

 white cows that were sacred to them. 



I had seen and heard and made these precious 

 things mine; now I wanted to turn back to the west 

 again, to be in other green flowery places before the 

 bloom was gone. It was nearing mid-June and by 

 making haste now I might yet find some other 

 feathered rarity and listen to some new song before 

 the silent time. The golden oriole and furze-wren 

 were but two of half a dozen species I had come 

 out to find. 



At Yeovil I delayed two or three days with a 

 double motive. 



One of the most delightful experiences of a rambler 

 about the land is, when the day's end has brought 

 him to some strange or long-unvisited place, to 

 remember all at once that this is the spot, the very 

 parish, to which old friends came to settle two or three 

 or more years ago. He missed their dear familiar 

 faces sadly in that part of the country where he had 

 known them, but he has never wholly forgotten or 

 ceased to love them, and now how delightful to find 

 and drop in by surprise on them, to take pot luck 

 as in the old days, to talk of those same dear old 

 days and the old home, of every person in it from the 

 squire to the village idiot. 



It is hardly necessary to add that these lost friends 

 one goes about to recover are not persons of import- 

 ance who keep a motor-car, but simple people who 



