4 NATURE NEAR LONDON. 



They are bounded by a copse of ash stoles and young 

 oak trees, and the lesser of the meads is full of rush 

 bunches and dotted with green ant-hills. Among 

 these, just beyond gunshot, two rabbits are feeding ; 

 pausing and nibbling till they have eaten the tenderest 

 blades, and then leisurely hopping a yard or so to 

 another spot. Later on in the summer this little 

 meadow which divides the lane from the copse is alive 

 with rabbits. 



Along the hedge the brake fern has then grown, in 

 the corner by the copse there is a beautiful mass of it, 

 and several detached bunches away from the hedge 

 among the ant-hills. From out of the fern, which is 

 a favourite retreat with them, rabbits are continually 

 coming, feeding awhile, darting after each other, and 

 back again to cover. To-day there are but three, and 

 they do not venture far from their buries. 



Watching these, a green woodpecker cries in the 

 copse, and immediately afterwards flies across the 

 mead, and away to another plantation. Occasionally 

 the spotted woodpecker may be seen here, a little bird 

 which, in the height of summer, is lost among the 

 foliage, but in spring and winter can be observed 

 tapping at the branches of the trees. 



I think I have seen more spotted woodpeckers near 

 London than in far distant and nominally wilder 

 districts. This lane, for some two miles, is lined on 

 each side with trees, and, besides this particular copse, 

 there are several others close by ; indeed, stretch- 

 ing across the country to another road, there is a 

 succession of copses, with meadows between. Birds 

 which love trees are naturally seen flitting to and fro 



