1 40 NATURE NEAR LONDON 



exploring a guelder rose-bush. The pheasants which 

 roost in the copse wander to it from distant preserves. 

 One morning in spring, before the corn was up, there 

 was one in a field by the copse calmly walking along 

 the ridge of a furrow so near that the ring round his 

 neck was visible from the road. 



In the early part of last autumn, while the acorns were 

 dropping from the oaks and the berries ripe, I twice dis- 

 turbed a pheasant from the garden of a villa not far 

 distant. There were some oaks hard by, and from 

 under these the bird had wandered into the quiet 

 sequestered garden. The oak in the copse on which the 

 squirrel was last seen is peculiar for bearing oak-apples 

 earlier than any other of the neighbourhood, and there 

 are often half-a-dozen of them on the twigs on the 

 trunk before there is one anywhere else. The famous 

 snowstorm of October 1880 snapped off the leader or 

 top of this oak. 



Jays often come, magpies more rarely, to the copse ; 

 as for the lesser birds they all visit it. In the horn- 

 beams at the verge blackcaps sing in spring a sweet 

 and cultured song, which does not last many seconds. 

 They visit a thick bunch of ivy in the garden. By 

 these hornbeam trees a streamlet flows out of the copse, 

 crossed at the hedge by a pole, to prevent cattle stray- 

 ing in. The pole is a robin's perch. He is always 

 there, or near ; he was there all through the terrible 

 winter, all the summer, and he is there now. 



There are a few inches, a narrow strip of sand, beside 

 the streamlet under this pole. Whenever a wagtail dares 

 to come to this sand the robin immediately appears and 

 drives him away. He will bear no intrusion. A pair of 

 butcher-birds built very near this spot one spring, but 

 afterwards appeared to remove to a place where there 



