The Pine Wood 



swallows no longer passed twittering, the willow- 

 wren was gone, there was no hum or rustle ; the wood 

 was as silent as a shadow. 



But before the darkness a song and an answer arose 

 in a tree, one bird singing a few notes and another 

 replying side by side. Two goldfinches sat on the cross 

 of a larch-fir and sang, looking towards the west, 

 where the light lingered. High up, the larch-fir 

 boughs with the top shoot form a cross; on this one 

 goldfinch sat, the other was immediately beneath. 

 At even the birds often turn to the west as they sing. 



Next morning the August sun shone, and the wood 

 was all a-hum with insects. The wasps were working 

 at the pine boughs high overhead; the bees by dozens 

 were crowding to the bramble flowers; swarming on 

 them, they seemed so delighted; humble-bees went 

 wandering among the ferns in the copse and in the 

 ditches they sometimes alight on fern and calling 

 at every purple heath-blossom, at the purple knap- 

 weeds, purple thistles, and broad handfuls of yellow- 

 weed flowers. Wasp-like flies barred with yellow 

 suspended themselves in the air between the pine- 

 trunks like hawks hovering, and suddenly shot them- 

 selves a yard forward or to one side, as if the rapid 

 vibration of their wings while hovering had accumu- 

 lated force which drove them as if discharged from 

 a cross-bow. The sun had set all things in motion. 



There was a hum under the oak by the hedge, a 

 hum in the pine wood, a humming among the heath 

 and the dry grass which heat had browned. The air 

 was alive and merry with sound, so that the day 

 seemed quite different and twice as pleasant. Three 

 blue butterflies fluttered in one flowery corner, the 

 warmth gave them vigour; two had a silvery edging 

 to their wings, one was brown and blue. The nuts 



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