THE FURZE-WREN 171 



tant about thirty miles from the nearest known locality 

 for the bird. 



I then went to a high barrow on the heath and sat 

 down to meditate and cool myself in the wind ; there 

 my attention was attracted to a litter of feathers near 

 my feet of some small bird on which a sparrow-hawk 

 had recently fed. The body feathers were red or 

 chestnut brown, the quills black or blackish brown. 

 I began to speculate as to the species, when it all at 

 once occurred to me that these were the two colours 

 of the furze-wren. The wind was blowing strong and 

 carrying the feathers, red and black, fast away in 

 two or three minutes there would be few left to judge 

 from. I quickly gathered those that remained clinging 

 to the stunted heath on the barrow-top and began 

 examining them. No, the sparrow-hawk had not 

 struck down and devoured that most unlikely bird, 

 the furze-wren : there remained one little quill 

 with a white border and one small pure white 

 feather. They were linnet's feathers the dark 

 wing feathers and the chestnut red body feathers 

 from the back. 



Now this trivial incident of the barrow-top, where I 

 went to meditate and did not do so, served as a fillip 

 to my flagging energies, and I immediately went off 

 across the heath in quest of my bird again, making for 

 a point about three-quarters of a mile away which I 

 had hunted over two or three days before. I had not 

 proceeded more than about three hundred yards when, 

 in the most unlikely spot in the whole place, I caught 



