AUGUST 309 



We have carted all the barley from the Ape field, after it has 

 been but two days cut ; which can only be done when no grass- 

 seeds have been sown with the grain to make a hay crop in the 

 second year. This used to be an invariable practice with us, but 

 now that I have so much land down to permanent pasture, some 

 of the barley stubbles are broken up for other crops ; thus beans 

 will be drilled upon the Ape field this autumn. I should have 

 added that the reason why the presence of layer prevents an early 

 carting of barley is that, being green and succulent, it takes a 

 while to dry, whereas the corn itself, which in this respect differs 

 from wheat, and still more from oats, is as a rule practically 

 sapless and dead when it is severed from the ground. A sample 

 of this barley rubbed in the hand looks a little white to my eye ; 

 but I hope that it will take more colour after ' sweating ' for a few 

 weeks on the stack, or rather in the home barn, where it has been 

 stored till the day of thrashing. 



About the end of last May, in the quiet of evening, when no 

 gardeners were about, a pair of cuckoos might have been seen 

 gliding with their curious dipping flight to and fro across the lawn- 

 tennis court, as they flew uttering from time to time a broken 

 and unusual note. Now we know what was their felonious intent, 

 for on the lawn has recently appeared a young cuckoo being fed by 

 two water-wagtails, with which I have been acquainted for many 

 years. Heavens ! how those poor little birds must work to keep 

 their fosterling supplied ! There the voracious, angry-looking 

 creature sits, now in one place and now in another, his scarlet maw 

 extended wide, and eats, and scolds, and scolds, and eats from 

 dawn till dusk, and for aught I know to the contrary from dusk to 

 dawn as well. After about a week of it one of the wagtails has 

 either deceased from exhaustion or thrown up the contract at 

 any rate his mate is now alone and working double tides for the 

 cuckoo grows fast and is continually hungrier. Sometimes it 

 perches in the boughs of a beech tree to be fed, and this afternoon 

 I saw the wagtail actually seated upon its head there, and from 

 that position thrusting insects down its insatiable throat. 



