260 AROUND AN OLD HOMESTEAD. 



yodel away his bursts of song in the dying day. A 

 poetic way, this, of nesting in the orchard. The first 

 brood, perchance, is hatched while blossoms still whiten 

 the boughs or the ground is strewn with petals, and the 

 last is reared amongst the golden globes. 



Wilson Flagg once "made an interesting study of 

 the "Birds of the Garden and Orchard," enumerating 

 quite a coterie so inclined; and it was in the course of 

 that series of sketches that he inserted his really in- 

 imitable poem, "The O'Lincoln Family," on the bobo- 

 link. Flagg also continued his bird papers in a further 

 and no less interesting series, upon the "Birds of the 

 Pasture and Forest," "Birds of the Night," and others. 



Sheep like to graze in an orchard upon the orchard 

 grass, or the blue grass, or red top, or the many weeds 

 which they think are so succulent. It is a good way 

 to keep the orchard clean and free from weeds and 

 briers, to have a small flock of sheep running in it. 

 They form a pleasing picture as they placidly and con- 

 tentedly chew their cud beneath the apple-trees. 



Butterflies, some large and some small, flutter about 

 and light on the apples that lie on the ground; bees 

 buzz among them, and extract the nectar of the bruised 

 and fallen fruit; insects quickly crawl over them, and 

 taste their sweetness. I like to lie upon the grass 

 beneath these trees, even if for no other purpose than 

 simply to look up at the leaves and the fruit. It was 

 in an orchard that Sir Isaac Newton discovered the 

 law of gravitation, as he heard the perpetual thuds of 

 the great round things as they fell to earth. Richard 

 Jefferies wrote his immortal "Pageant of Summer" be- 

 neath an apple-tree. 



