NIGHTINGALE BOAD. 43 



one in sight. They circled round singing ; the instant 

 one ceased another took it up, a perfect madrigal. In 

 the evening, at eight o'clock, I found them there again 

 still singing. The same detached groups of trees are 

 much frequented by wood-pigeons, especially towards 

 autumn. 



Eooks prefer to perch on the highest branches, 

 wood-pigeons more in the body of the tree, and when 

 the boughs are bare of leaves a flock of the latter may 

 be recognized in this way as far as the eye can see, and 

 when the difference of colour is rendered imperceptible 

 by distance. The wood-pigeon when perched has a 

 rounded appearance ; the rook a longer and sharper 

 outline. 



By one corner of the copse there is an oak, hollow 

 within, but still green and flourishing. The hollow is 

 black and charred ; some mischievous boys must have 

 lighted a fire inside it, just as the ploughboys do in 

 the far away country. A little pond in the meadow 

 close by is so overhung by another oak, and so sur- 

 rounded with bramble and hawthorn, that the water 

 lies in perpetual shade. It is just the spot where, if 

 rabbits were about, one might be found sitting out on 

 the bank under the brambles. This overhanging 

 oak was broken by the famous October snow, 1880, 

 further splintered by the gales of the next year, and 

 its trunk is now spHt from top to bottom as if with 

 wedges. 



These meadows in spring are full of cowslips, and 

 in one part the meadow-orchis flourishes. The 

 method of making cowslip balls is universally known 

 to children, from the most remote hamlet to the very 



