166 WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 



stantly seen perched on the palings ; neither do they 

 scruple to enter the dairy, the brewhouse, or wood- 

 house adjacent, when they see a chance. The logs 

 (for fuel) stored in the latter doubtless afford them 

 insects from under the dead bark. 



Among the most constant residents in the garden 

 at Wick Farm are the song thrushes. They are the 

 tamest of the larger birds ; they come every morning 

 right under the old bay-window of the sitting-room 

 on the shady side of the house, where the musk-plant 

 has spread abroad and covered the stone-pitching for 

 many yards, except just a narrow path paved 

 with broad flagstones. The musk finds root in every 

 interstice of the pitching, but cannot push up through 

 the solid flat flags ; a fungus, however, has attempted 

 even that, and has succeeded in forcing a great stone, 

 weighing perhaps fifteen or twenty pounds, from its 

 bed, so that instead of being level it forms an inclined 

 plane. The carpet of musk yields a pleasant odour ; 

 in one corner, too, the " monkey-plant " grows lux- 

 uriously, and the grass of the green or lawn is for 

 ever trying to encroach upon the paving. In the 

 centre of the green is a bed of gooseberries and a 

 cherry tree ; and though the fruit is so close to the 

 window, both thrush and blackbird make as free 

 with it as if it was in the hedgerow. 



The thrush, when he wishes to approach the house, 

 flies first to the cover of these gooseberries ; then, 

 after reconnoitring a few minutes, comes out on the 

 green, and gradually works his way across it to the 



