286 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



across the lawn in front of Holnicotc House. Humble- 

 bees hummed in the grass and visited the flowers of the 

 holly bushes. Thrushes sang, and chaffinches, and, 

 sweetest of all, if simplest in notes, the greenfinches talked 

 and courted in the trees. Two cuckoos called in differ- 

 ent directions, wood-pigeons raised their voices in Sel- 

 worthy Wood, and rooks went over cawing in their deli- 

 berate way. In the level meadow from among the tall 

 grasses and white-flowering wild parsley a landrail called 

 ' crake, crake,' ceaselessly. There was a sense of rest and 

 quiet, and with it a joyousness of bird-life, such as should 

 be about an English homestead. 



