82 BIRDS AND MAN 



numerous ; to watch them standing still to gaze 

 back at you, then all with one impulse move rapidly 

 away, showing their painted tails, keeping a kind 

 of discipline, row behind row, moving over the 

 turf with that airy tripping or mincing gait that 

 strikes you as quaint and somewhat bird-like. 

 Or you may coil yourself up, adder-like, beside 

 a thick hawthorn bush, or at the roots of a giant 

 oak or beech, and enjoy the vernal warmth, while 

 outside of your shelter the wind blows bleak and 

 loud. 



To lie or sit thus for an hour at a time listening 

 to the wind is an experience worth going far to 

 seek. It is very restorative. That is a mysterious 

 voice which the forest has : it speaks to us, and 

 somehow the life it expresses seems nearer, more 

 intimate, than that of the sea. Doubtless because 

 we are ourselves terrestrial and woodland in our 

 origin ; also because the sound is infinitely more 

 varied as well as more human in character. There 

 are sighings and moanings, and wails and shrieks, 

 and wind-blown murmurings, like the distant con- 

 fused talking of a vast multitude. A high wind 

 in an extensive wood always produces this effect 

 of numbers. The sea-like sounds and rhythmic 

 volleyings, when the gale is at its loudest, die away, 



