THE FAERY YEAR 



underwoods, colours owing nothing to the transient 

 mists and blooms of atmosphere, are often striking 

 and beautiful. The thorn trees, the cornel, the 

 birches, the sallows, and the wild euonymus are the 

 chief contributors of such colour in the English 

 woods and hedges at this season ; and the best show 

 they make is on the clearest, sunniest day. 



The withy wood near the mouth of the estuary, 

 under the huge headland of clay and sand, is wine- 

 coloured now. It is well known to a few local 

 gunners and naturalists as a favourite haunt of 

 merlins in winter. It generally harbours a wood- 

 cock or two at daytime, whilst in marshier spots of 

 the ham a grassy flat of wet and dry in which it is 

 set is sure ground for snipe. 



One day a gunner walking near the withy wood 

 saw a snipe flying very low in a peculiar way. Next 

 moment he saw a merlin in burning pursuit. Both 

 birds were swerving at a high speed. Suddenly the 

 snipe swerved upward. At that instant the merlin 

 shot upward too, and struck dead home, taking the 

 snipe before the lightning swift turn was complete 

 and another plane of flight entered on. The stoop 

 of the peregrine itself would not, surely, be quicker 

 and deadlier than the little merlin's in pursuit of the 

 snipe. Every angle of flight the snipe makes in its 

 desperate race for life and the snipe has many angles 

 is in a flash responded to by the merlin. The 

 hare may sometimes beat the fleetest greyhound by 

 her sudden unexpected twists ; but every turn the 

 snipe takes is reproduced, in the instant of that turn, 

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