128 THE LIFE OF TEE FIELDS. 



I came near, and then quietly moved in among the 

 ferns and foxgloves. 



In the narrowest part of the wood between the 

 hedge and the river a corncrake called his loudest 

 " crake, crake/' incessantly. The corncrake or landrail 

 is difficult even to see, so closely does he conceal himself 

 in the tall grasses, and his call echoed and re-echoed 

 deceives those who try to find him. Yet by great 

 patience and watchful skilfulness the corncrake is 

 sometimes caught by hand. If tracked, and if you 

 can see him — the most difficult part — you can put 

 your hand on him. Now and then a corncrake is 

 caught in the same way by hand while sitting on 

 her nest on the ground. It is not, however, as easy as 

 it reads. Walking through the grass, and thinking 

 of the dew and the beautiful morning sunshine, I 

 scarcely noticed the quantity of cuckooflowers, or 

 card amine, till presently it occurred to me that it 

 was very late in the season for cuckoo-flowers ; 

 and stooping I picked one, and in the act saw it was 

 an orchis — the early purple. The meadow was 

 coloured, or rather tinted, with the abundance of the 

 orchis, palest of pale pink, dotted with red, the small 

 narrow leaves sometimes with black spots. They 

 grew in the pasture everywhere, from the river's side 

 in the deep valley to the top of the hill by the wood. 



As soon as the surface of the river was in sight I 

 stood and watched, but no ripple or ring of wavelets 

 appeared; the trout were not feeding. The water 

 was so low that the river consisted of a series of 

 pools, connected by rapids descending over ledges of 

 stones and rocky fragments. Illumined to the very 



