RECOLLECTIONS 239 



would reap that rich "harvest of a quiet eye." 

 Always in sympathy with Nature he could see 

 the faint footprint of an otter on the bank, and 

 know the bird on the horizon by its flight, or the 

 little hawk far overhead by its cry. 



' One instance among many I will give of his 

 natural history instincts. In the summer of 

 1886, news was brought that a small hawk with 

 sharp wings and a cry like that of a Wryneck, 

 had been seen a few miles away. Lord Lilford 

 not only decided that it was a Hobby (a little 

 falcon which comes and goes with the swallows), 

 but that it had a nest in an oak-tree in a certain 

 wood ; a wood with which, unhappily, he could 

 have had no recent acquaintance. 



' The next morning, between three and four 

 o'clock, Kichard Cosgrave, the head falconer, 

 went in search of the nest. I happened to be 

 at Lilford and went with him. 



' How little do we see of that heaven-sent 

 time, the top of a midsummer morning, when 

 the dew is fresh on the grass and the breath of 

 the country is sweet, and all creatures are our 

 friends ! That morning the birds we passed 

 seemed hardly afraid of us, and a fox trotting 



