SIDE IvIGHTS ON BIRDS 



Thus a form moves in some bushes near at hand 

 that we see at once is a jay, but a jay of gorgeous 

 blue brighter than English coppices can boast : 

 again, a blackbird flits across the clearing in the 

 old familiar way, but as it alights we see that its 

 shoulders are bright red, plainly the red-winged 

 blackbird of the text-books. And, so, in finch 

 and warbler, bright tints of vivid blue and glow- 

 ing scarlet speak of a new fauna in a new and 

 wonderful land. 



It is an interesting experience to wander in 

 these primeval forests for the first time. One 

 looks in vain for one of the little winding tracks 

 that prove that human feet have worn at least one 

 almost imperceptible pathway through the tangle. 

 Here the woods offer no short cut to a village or 

 even to an isolated homestead, and it may be 

 that many years have gone by since the hand of a 

 man bent back the low sweeping branches in order 

 to force a way to the little natural glade beyond. 



Now and again, what appears to be a long 

 rounded mound, overgrown with thick hanging 

 moss and studded with silvery lichen, bars the 

 way. In stepping on one of these the foot sinks 

 deeply into rotting wood, and one realises that it 

 is the trunk of a giant tree, brought to the earth 

 one windy night, it may be a hundred years ago. 



In this wilderness where Nature is the only 

 woodman, the trees spring untended, live out their 

 vast span in summer's heat and winter's snow, 

 unnoticed, and at last crash to the ground to lie 

 there until earth slowly spreads her winding sheets 

 of moss around them and draws them gently back 

 to herself. It is indeed, by no means an un- 

 common thing, even on the stillest day, to hear 

 the sound of some distant fall, and then the back 

 woodsman in reply to your look of inquiry mur- 

 murs, " Ah, only a tree." 



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