CHAPTER XL 



The home-field Hazel Corner The divining-rod Rabbits' holes 

 The corncrake Ventriloquism of birds Hedge-fruit. 



A WICKET-GATE affords a private entrance from 

 .XJL the orchard into the home-field, opening on the 

 meadow close to the great hedge, the favourite high- 

 way of the birds. Tracing this hedge away from the 

 homestead, in somewhat more than two hundred 

 yards it is joined by another hedge crossing the top 

 of the field, thus forming a sheltered nook or angle, 

 which has been alluded to as the haunt of squirrels. 

 Here the highway hedge is almost all of hazel, 

 though one large hawthorn tree stands on the " shore " 

 of the ditch. Hazel grows tall, straight, and is not 

 so bushy as some underwood ; the lesser boughs do 

 not interlace or make convenient platforms on which 

 to build nests, and birds do not use it much. 



The ancient divination by the hazel wand, or, rather, 

 the method of searching for subterranean springs, is 

 not yet forgotten ; some of the old folk believe in it 

 still. I have seen it tried myself, half in joke, half in 

 earnest. A slender rod is cut, and so trimmed as to 

 have a small fork at one end ; this fork is placed 





