44 THE EEPOET OF THE No. 36 



In some parts of England where the country is of rolling surface, and the 

 soil light — the lanes being frequently cut up hy heavy farm waggons, and but little 

 cared for — the soil is constantly washed by the rains to lower levels, and hollow 

 ways are formed, such as those spoken of by Kirke White in one of his sonnets : 



" God help thee, traveller, on thy journey far. 

 The wind is bitter keen, the snow o'erlays 

 The hidden pits and dangerous hollow ways. 

 And darkness will involve thee." 



In that powerful description of the Battle of Waterloo, given by Victor Hugo 

 in Les Miserables, we are told of a grand charge made by three thousand five 

 hundred French cuirassiers upon the English centre. At full speed, in the fury 

 of the charge, the warriors came to the hollow way of Ohain, twelve feet deep, of 

 which they were unaware. Unable to check their steeds, they plunged in, one 

 upon another, and piled up — ^^a writhing mass, crushed and broken. " One-third 

 of Dubois' brigade" — says Hugo — " fell into that abyss."' " This," he says, " began 

 the loss of the battle." 



But let us quit the contemplation of disasters and consider the delights of 

 English lanes. And, truly, those lanes are delightful — ^with their hedgerows gay 

 with blossoms, diffusing sweet perfumes and jubilant with the song of birds ! 



English hedges are famous nesting-places for many of the feathered tribes. I 

 can recall the pleasure of my first inspection of the nest of the Long-Tailed Tit 

 {Parus caudatus). It was a seemingly compact ball of the finest and greenest 

 moss; but it had on one side a small round entrance, closed with a featlier. The 

 Tit lays many tiny white eggs, spotted with lilac. 



Another nest that attracted my attention in my early days was that of the 

 Red-backed Shrike {Lanius collurio L). The mother bird was sitting on her 

 pretty, cream-coloured, richly spotted eggs. Meanwhile her mate was busy attend- 

 ing to her wants. He kept her larder well supplied. On the thorns around her 

 were impaled little blind mice and callow birds, shewing that the common name 

 of Butcher-bird was justly given to this feathered pillager. But — as an Eastern 

 Township housewife said in praise of her husband, so we may say of the Shrike — ■ 

 " He is a good provider." 



It is said* that the English ornithologist, Gould, dated his interest in bird 

 life from the time when, in his childhood, he was lifted up to see the pretty blue 

 eggs in a hedge-sparrow's nest. 



Here and there, in the South of England, a lane leaves the enclosures and 

 traverses a piece of common land ,oovered with bushes of the Furze (Ulex 

 eicropcBus). This strange plant, which has spines instead of leaves, is, in its 

 season, gorgeous in its wealth of golden bloom. Linnceus, on first beholding it 

 upon Wandsworth Common, fell upon his knees and thanked God who had created 

 a thing so beautiful. 



Elsewhere the lane enters, it may be, a stretch of woodland, the game preserve 

 of the lord of the surrounding Manor; and there, truly, the wayfarer is in the 

 rnidst of charming sights and sounds. In early spring the woods around him are 

 ankle-deep with blue-bells, anemones and primroses. Later in the year the stately 

 foxglove (Digitalis purpurea L.) rears its shafts of purple bloom, and "^Mords and 

 ladies " look out from their stalls. 



*" Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children," p. 109. 



