AUTUMN TONES 



THE buzzard is happily among our birds which have 

 increased since the war, and its melancholy 

 A Proud cry is now heard on the chalk hills of the 

 Winged home counties as from the cliffs of Corn- 

 Hawk wall. No doubt the bird was numerous of 

 old in the great oak woods of Sussex, where 

 it went by the name of " puttock." Its individuality is 

 strongly marked. The flight, steady and sedate, is of 

 proud and dignified sort; it seems to sail through the 

 air, scarcely moving the wings. As it grandly soars, it 

 gives an impression of size it looms large like an 

 eagle. It is very faithful to one haunt and to a favourite 

 perch, where it sits motionless by the hour, dozing or 

 else waiting for the chance to swoop on a rabbit, rat, 

 mouse, frog, mole or worm, in the stealthy, pouncing 

 way of the owls. Its presence strikes a very wild note in 

 any peaceful place it may haunt. 



AUTUMN TONES 



THE claret-hued leaves of elder-bushes strike a glowing 

 Autumn colour-chord in hedgerows and in 

 An such jungles on chalk hills as where the 



Autumn badgers have their holts. The elder's 

 Note history is a remarkable one, and goes back 



to dark ages when man found that the 

 stems made a good tube for music-pipes. The name in 

 many countries is derived from Sambucus, the ancient 

 bagpipe of elder-stems, though it seems more probable 

 that the tree would give its name to the instrument. 

 Piers Plowman called it the " eller," a word derived 

 from the Saxon for kindler, the stem serving for a blow- 



