JUNE. 139 



your kerchief box, or drawer, and you will be surprised at the sweet 

 aroma), Oxeye Daisy (these are in their beauty now; the railway 

 banks and fields are spotted with them, like so many white stars in 

 the heavens), Wild Hyacinth (these have not lasted very long this 

 season), Daisy, a lingering Lesser Celandine (surely the last time we 

 shall be able to include it in our list), Ground Ivy, Bugle Flower, 

 Strawberry-leaved Potentil (Richard Jefferies calls this the Barren 

 Strawberry, I believe), Cowslip (a backward clump without a doubt), 

 Red Clover, Common Orchis, Furze, Broom, Cuckoo Pint, Red and 

 White Campions, White Clover, Dove's-foot Crane's Bill, Yellow 

 Rocket ; Wood, Bulbous, and Upright Meadow Crowfoots ; Red 

 Dead Nettle, Hedge Mustard, Yellow Dead Nettle, Comfrey, Primrose 

 (in a shady coppice I found half a dozen, as if they were very reluctant 

 to depart), Soft-knotted Trefoil, Long-rooted Cat's Ear, Brooklime, 

 Ragged Robin, Scarlet Poppy, and Cow Parsnip. We have here 

 nearly sixty species, and it is a fact worth noting that the roadside 

 is much the best district for observation. Here wild flowers bloom 

 freely ; here we may see many birds which in the thick cover are 

 unheard and unseen. A lane is the finest vantage ground a lover of 

 Nature can have, and I have had many a striking illustration of this 

 when I have had permission to naturalise on some secluded estate, 

 and found, after all, that in the nearest highway I could have seen and 

 heard more in half an hour than a whole week on the favoured ground, 

 where " All trespassers will be prosecuted." 



Birds singing: -Skylark, Greater Whitethroat, Tree Pipit, Red- 

 breast, Nightingale, Song Thrush, Hedge Sparrow, Common Wren, 

 Chaffinch, Willow Wren, Blackbird (often sings when sitting in an 

 Oak tree), Blackcap, and Garden Warbler. The song of the lastnamed 

 somewhat resembles that of its near relation, the Blackcap. 



Birds heard or seen: Ring Dove Cuckoo, Yellow Bunting, 

 young Robin (in the speckled, Thrush-like plumage, uttering the 

 alarm note of the parent birds), Rook, Chiff Chaff (I do not propose 

 to call this bird, and several others, song birds, but to include them 

 under my second heading), Great Titmouse, House Sparrow, Bullfinch 

 (one may find several nests of this bird, and yet never catch a glimpse 

 of that rosy-breasted male bird), Swallow, House Martin, Swift, 

 Lapwing (is anything more beautiful than the black-and-white plumage 

 against the fresh-rolled brown soil ?) Turtle Dove, Jay, Pheasant, Starling 

 (with a fat grub in its beak), and Partridge. 



I came across half-a-dozen Turtle Doves flitting along a row of 

 Oaks, and tried hard to follow them, but they were too nervous and 



