IN WOOD AND MEAD 



stream. The goldcrest is also an expert hoverer, and 

 its midget form is often seen, quivering below a branch. 

 Titmouse, sparrow, starling, and robin hover occasion- 

 ally, and several warblers, whitethroat, wood-wren, and 

 willow- wren, have a hovering mode of flight. In Summer 

 the nightjar poises, his long wings almost touching 

 above his back: in Spring the courting wood-pigeon 

 poises in mid-flight, looking like a picture of a dove in 

 an old picture-Bible. 



IN WOOD AND MEAD 



HISTORY is repeating itself in the woods, where now 

 there are tiny leaves on the elm tree's 

 Pheasant brushwood, and silver birch and hawthorn 

 Duellists are fast breaking into greenery, and the 

 cock pheasant is selecting his seraglio. 

 Veterans are causing trouble among the youngsters, 

 driving them far afield, whereas the keeper likes to see 

 a promising young cock in undisputed possession of 

 eight or ten hens, lord of a happy harem, content with 

 one chosen haunt, where the nests will be near together. 

 The warrior pheasant makes a glorious picture as he 

 swaggers along in his full war-paint, crimson cheeks 

 aglow, crowing his challenge to all comers. 



SNOW in the woods holds for the gamekeeper a record 



of every poacher in fur that haunts his 



The coverts. At night, no fox, stoat, weasel, 



Trapping badger, hedgehog, rat or minutest mouse 



Month may stir without charting his every step in 



the snow. The hare leaves a trail so marked 



that a blind man might follow. The overlapping of 



