BOVNB A LONDON COPSE. 163 



brown and buff on the sward under their perch more 

 plaintively and delicately. Warblers and willow-wrens 

 sing in the hollow in June, all out of sight among the 

 trees they are easily hidden by a leaf. 



At that time the ivy leaves which flourish up to the 

 very tops of the oaks are so smooth with enamelled 

 surface, that high up, as the wind moves them, they 

 reflect the sunlight and scintillate. Greenfinches in 

 the elms never cease love-making ; and love-making 

 needs much soft talking. A nightingale in a bush 

 sings so loud the hawthorn seems too small for the 

 vigour of the song. He will let you stand at the very 

 verge of the bough; but it is too near, his voice is 

 sweeter across the field. 



There are still, in October, a few red apples on the 

 boughs of the trees in a little orchard beside the same 

 road. It is a natural orchard left to itself therefore 

 there is always something to see in it. The palings 

 by the road are falling, and are held up chiefly by the 

 brambles about them and the ivy that has climbed up. 

 Trees stand on the right and trees on the left ; there 

 is a tall spruce fir at the back. 



The apple trees are not set in straight lines : they 

 were at first, but some have died away and left an 

 irregularity; the trees lean this way and that, and they 

 are scarred and marked as it were with lichen and 

 moss. It is the home of birds. A blackbird had its 

 nest this spring in the bushes on the left side, a 

 nightingale another in the bushes on the right, and 

 there the nightingale sang under the shadow of a 

 hornbeam for hours every morning while " City " 

 men were hurrying past to their train. 



