A SPRING HERESY 99 



and Thrush, the Tit and Finch tribes and note the 

 appeal each makes to his mind. 



A long strip of manure dressing covering spring 

 rhubarb stretches from hedge to hedge across a field 

 close by, itself usually covered by a horde of 

 Starlings. In fog and frost the birds were there, 

 invisible to me, scarcely visible to one another, and 

 yet as irrepressible as ever, their shrill, contending 

 voices sounding all along the line. 



As I moved about the fields, quite unable to direct 

 my course, Missel-thrushes and Fieldfares rose 

 almost at my feet, the loud, rattling note of the 

 former, and the "Whiup! whiup /" and "Uch-uch- 

 vichut ! " of the latter, sounding unnaturally loud in 

 the still, thick air. They, too, are unable to shape 

 any course, and flying a little apart, resettle, to be 

 disturbed again a minute later, so that I seem to be 

 performing an intimate progress through continuous 

 flocks of these usually very wary birds. 



Striking the lane again, I come out by what I 

 recognise as * The Orchard.' I hear, as I think, 

 someone talking in the trees : "/ . . / . . taK 

 'em ! /../.. taK 'em ! " this personage tells 

 himself in a self-satisfied, pecularly staccato manner. 

 " Oh, you do, do you ? " said I, remembering a good 

 many beings of one sort or another who ' took 'em,' 

 scilicet, pears and apples from the orchard in the 

 preceding autumn. As soon as the dead leaves 

 begin to rustle beneath my feet, the talking ceases ; 

 and as my object is to make the self-confessed delin- 

 quent declare himself, I take no pains to conceal my 

 presence. In spite of her cover in thick wood and 

 fog, Mag gets restive, begins to chatter, becoming 



