AN ARCADIAN CALENDAR 



they are the most vigilant of birds, but a cold snap 

 quickly robs them of their wariness. If alarmed, as 

 they sit moodily in some moist, lowland meadow, 

 perhaps in association with snipe, instead of their alert 

 flight, with the loud, throaty chucklings, they flutter 

 weakly to the nearest cover. The handsomest of the 

 thrushes, these foreigners lack the fine spirit and 

 strength of our own stormcocks. 



A CERTAIN gamekeeper shot a crow, and hung it by the 

 neck on a lonely woodland gibbet. This 

 Honey in sacrifice on his game-bird's altar took place 

 the Carcass some time ago, and was forgotten ; but when 

 lately passing the gibbet as dusk was falling, 

 the keeper observed that his victim's carcass harboured 

 a wren's nest of dry leaves, cunningly woven among the 

 bones. He probed it with his stick, whereupon came a 

 fluttering of agitated wings, and wren upon wren 

 " there seemed a score at least," he assured us shot 

 forth from the strange dormitory. It reminded us of 

 Scott's fine lines about the fieldfare nesting among the 

 bones of a slain warrior : 



Beneath the broad and ample bone, 

 That bucklered heart to fear unknown, 

 A feeble and a timorous guest, 

 The Fieldfare framed her lowly nest. 



It is supposed by bird-authorities that the poet con- 

 fused the fieldfare with the snow-bunting. 



"A SHEPHERD saw, as he thought, some white 

 larks on a down above my house this winter; were 



