THE FURZE- WREN 171 



tant about thirty miles from the nearest known locality 

 for the bird. 



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 



