Birds-Nesting 1 1 



daffodils and primroses each in due season. At 

 the bottom tinkles a little stream which sometimes 

 vanishes under yards of rotting stick and leaf, yet has 

 crumbled and worn away the earth from a world of 

 twisted roots : a building-place of wren, and robin, and 

 thrush. In the dry wall at the top the shy redstart 

 breeds, and the green linnet n-ests in the hazels. At 

 one end is a magnificent rookery, where innumerable 

 voices incessantly caw, and gurgle, and call. Some- 

 times, after you have watched and listened, a rabbit 

 crouching close at hand with affrighted eyes will start 

 and rustle off among the bracken. The stream comes 

 tumbling into the Dene from a high field, and near 

 the little fall a water-ousel sets her pure white eggs. 

 But the pride of the place is its wood-owls. All the 

 year round ' everie night and alle,' they may be heard 

 hoo-hooing, not in single cries but half-a-dozen or more 

 in concert, each trying to surpass the other's melan- 

 choly. And their nests are easily found, being some- 

 times deep in the cleft of a tree, often in a disused 

 crow's nest. It is not uncommon to catch them 

 hawking about in the early afternoon in the darker 

 parts of the wood ; and the most unobservant could 

 not ignore their presence, for whether from disease 

 or accident one knows not the owl is oftener found 

 lying dead than any other bird. In a hedge running 

 at right angles to the Dene the impudent magpies 

 which you may sometimes see impatiently awaiting 

 the death of a sickly lamb rear in disregard of pub- 



