WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 183 



favourite resort. The fondness of birds for this route 

 is very striking ; they are constantly passing up or 

 down it. There is another such favourite route at 

 some distance, running beside a brook and likewise 

 leading to the same enclosed meadow of which more 

 presently. I think I could make a map of these 

 fields, showing the routes and resorts of furred and 

 feathered creatures. 



Near the ha-ha wall, where the great meadow-hedge 

 comes up to the orchard, is a summer-house, with a 

 conical thatched roof and circular window. It is hung 

 all round under the ceiling with festoons of eggs taken 

 by the boys of the farmstead, cordially assisted by 

 the carters' lads when not at work. There may be 

 perhaps forty varieties, arranged so as to increase in 

 size from the tiny tomtits up to the large wood pigeons, 

 the peewits, corncrake, and crow : some milk white, 

 others splotched with dark brown spots and veins, 

 others again blue. These eggs, when taken and the 

 yolk blown out, were strung on a bennet and so carried 

 home. The lads like to get them as soon after laid 

 as possible, because they blow best then ; if hard set 

 the shell may break. 



In the circular window they have left a nest of the 

 long-tailed tit, or " titmouse/' built exactly in the 

 shape of a hut with roof and tiny doorway, and always 

 securely attached in the midst of a thorn bush to 

 branches that are stiff and unlikely to bend with the 

 breeze, so that this beautiful piece of bird architecture 

 may not be disturbed. To take it, it is generally 



