42 FRANCIS ORPEN MORRIS 



be almost enveloped by trees. The whole district, 

 indeed, is well timbered, and Nunburnholme Brant, 

 or ' Brat,' as it is called, a wood of about a mile in 

 length belting the opposite side of the valley, is 

 at all times of the year a pleasant object on which 

 to fix one's gaze. In autumn its ever-changing tints 

 are attractive, while its choice carpet of variegated 

 wild-flowers is fairly a feast for the eye to behold 

 in the month of May. At that season of the year 

 the place is alive with the voices of many kinds 

 of birds, from the perky chatter of the magpie and 

 the jay to the softest pipings of the bullfinch and 

 the long-tailed tit. Beyond a flutter of excitement 

 when a sparrow-hawk or kestrel makes an occa- 

 sional descent into the wood, there is but little to 

 disturb the freedom of its inmates. The members 

 of an ancient rookery at one extremity of the Brant 

 cling tenaciously to the trees within the confines 

 of their own colony, and have nothing to say to 

 the neighbouring songsters of other feathers. Their 

 curious and inscrutable ways, however, always give 

 food for reflection to those who are careful to 

 observe their movements. But this is not all. 

 Down the little vale runs the nameless beck which 

 rises a mile or so higher up in the never-failing 

 pool, known far and near in the district as Warter 

 Bucksea. This bright stream is fed from the hills 

 by tiny rills sykes, as they are called in the country- 

 speech ; these, by the forces of nature, bubble forth 

 from the chalk here and there in many parts of the 

 wold country, and form one of its features. The 



