CROSS-COUNTRY RIDE. 17 



sandy banks, where the old trees almost meet 

 overhead, and exclude even the rays of the mid- 

 day sun. 



It was on emerging from one of these shady 

 labyrinths that I came suddenly upon an exten- 

 sive, undulating common, covered with heather 

 and gorse, the latter of which, now in full bloom, 

 seemed to blaze like a field of gold. Here, leav- 

 ing the beaten track, I pursued my way for some 

 miles over a wild country, pausing every now and 

 then to admire the beauty of the scenery, or to 

 observe the birds which frequented it. The stone- 

 chat, springing up, mounted to the summit of the 

 nearest furze-bush, and with fluttering wings and 

 jerking tail, as if to maintain his position on his 

 thorny perch, saluted me with his harsh note as I 

 passed. The cuckoo, whose voice had sounded 

 so subdued and distant a moment before, fluttered 

 out of a larch clump close by, skimmed, hawk- 

 like, across the path, and disappeared over the 

 brow of the hill. In every little copse where the 

 dwarf oak and blackthorn had grown together in 

 wild luxuriance, the nightingale sang vigorously : 

 but I listened in vain for the note of the grasshop- 

 per warbler; it had not yet arrived; but before 

 many days its cricket-like chirp will be heard in 

 these valleys; the fern owl,* too, will ere long 

 * Or night-jar, Caprimulgus Europaw. 



