160 NATURE NEAR LONDON. 



calmly walking along the ridge of a furrow so near 

 that the ring round his neck was visible from the 

 road. 



In the early part of last autumn, while the acorns 

 were dropping from the oaks and the berries ripe, I 

 twice disturbed a pheasant from the garden of a villa 

 not far distant. There were some oaks hard by, and 

 from under these the bird had wandered into the 

 quiet sequestered garden. The oak in the copse on 

 which the squirrel was last seen is peculiar for 

 bearing oak-apples earlier than any other of the 

 neighbourhood, and there are often half a dozen of 

 them on the twigs on the trunk before there is one 

 anywhere else. The famous snowstorm of October, 

 1880, snapped off the leader or top of this oak. 



Jays often come, magpies more rarely, to the copse ; 

 as for the lesser birds they all visit it. In the horn- 

 beams at the verge blackcaps sing in spring a sweet 

 and cultured song, which does not last many seconds. 

 They visit a thick bunch of ivy in the garden. By 

 these hornbeam trees a streamlet flows out of the 

 copse, crossed at the hedge by a pole, to prevent 

 cattle straying in. The pole is a robin's perch. He 

 is always there, or near ; he was there all through 

 the terrible winter, all the summer, and he is there 

 now. 



There are a few inches, a narrow strip of sand, 

 beside the streamlet under this pole. Whenever a 

 wagtail dares to come to this sand the robin im- 

 mediately appears and drives him away. He will 

 bear no intrusion. A pair of butcher-birds built very 

 near this spot one spring, but afterwards appeared to 



