40 Spri; 



He shows little of the bridegroom's impatience. Ere 

 he has chosen his mate the cuckoo is sounding his 

 clear call as he flies from copse to copse, the sky-blue 

 eggs of the hedge-sparrow have chipped and yielded 

 callow birdlets, and the voice of the rook has hoarsened 

 with love. He runs up a house that it is no libel to call 

 jerry-built, and I fancy that, unlike the cushat, which 

 breeds almost as frequently as a house pigeon, he 

 thinks once a year quite enough for this sort of thing. 

 The cushat it is that delights the countryman with 

 the rumour of his passion during so many of the 

 months ; at any rate it is rare to find a stock-dove's 

 nest either very early or very late. 



When nesting is over he gives himself up to that 

 placid enjoyment of life for which he thinks he was 

 born. It would fare better with him, however, if he 

 had not the habit of joining himself to lawless bands 

 of cushats, and getting embroiled in the ceaseless war 

 which the farmer wages upon them. Were he but 

 content to share the mast on the beech-trees with 

 them, all were well with him ; but he must needs join 

 their forays in the corn land and come home to 

 roost with them at night, and the shooter, waiting at 

 a likely corner of the field with two or three dead 

 decoys (their heads propped on sticks), or watching 

 under a favourite pine for the general homing, is at 

 no pains to distinguish nicely between him and his 

 friends. What is it to him whether his quarry has or 

 has not a white ring on neck ? or that he is smaller 



