BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 149 



stead of taking my usual long strolls about the 

 common I loitered once more in the village lanes 

 and had my reward. 



On the morning of June 27 I was out saunter- 

 ing very indolently, thinking of nothing at all; for 

 it was a surpassingly brilliant day, and the sun- 

 shine produced the effect of a warm, lucent, 

 buoyant fluid, in which I seemed to float rather 

 than walk — a celestial water, which, like the more 

 ponderable and common sort, may sometimes be 

 both felt and seen. The sensation of feeling it 

 is somewhat similar to that experienced by a 

 bather standing breast-deep in a clear, green, 

 warm tropical sea, so charged with salt that it 

 lifts him up; but to distinguish it with the eye, 

 you must look away to a distance of some yards 

 in an open unshaded place, when it will become 

 visible as fine glinting lines, quivering and ser- 

 pentining upwards, fountain-wise, from the sur- 

 face. All at once I was startled by hearing the 

 loud importunate hunger-call of a young cuckoo 

 quite close to me. Moving softly up to the low 

 hedge and peering over, I saw the bird perched 

 on a long cross-stick, which had been put up in 

 a cottage garden to hang clothes on; he was not 



