EARLY SPRING IN SAVERNAKE FOREST 85 



ready to mix with the soil ; but frost and sun suck 

 up the moisture and the dead come to Hfe again. 

 They glow like fire, and tremble at every breath. 

 It was strange and beautiful to see them lying all 

 around me, glowing copper and red and gold when 

 the sun was strong on them, not dead, but sleeping 

 like a bright- coloured serpent in the genial warmth ; 

 to see, when the wind found them, how they 

 trembled, and moved as if awakening ; and as 

 the breath increased rose up in twos and threes 

 and half-dozens here and there, chasing one an- 

 other a little way, hissing and rustling ; then all 

 at once, struck by a violent gust, they would be 

 up in thousands, eddying round and round in a 

 dance, and, whirling aloft, scatter and float among 

 the lofty branches to which they were once attached. 

 On a calm day, when there was no motion in 

 the sunlit yellow leaves below and the reddish- 

 purple cloud of twigs above, the sounds of bird- 

 life were the chief attraction of the forest. Of 

 these the cooing of the wood-pigeon gave me the 

 most pleasure. Here some reader may remark 

 that this pigeon's song is a more agreeable sound 

 than its plain cooing note. This, indeed, is per- 

 haps thought little of. In most biographies of the 

 bird it is not even mentioned that he possesses 



