8o IN THE WEALD 
here. Great dragon-flies, green, orange, and blue, are 
abundant. They rush to and fro, now high up, now 
low down. These damp stripes are their hunting- 
grounds, for their mixed prey is legion here. The 
hum from their unseen wings sounds all around you, 
above and below. The swallows that nestle about the 
farm and the farm-buildings twitter as they dash 
about where the hum of insect life sounds loudest. 
That dreamy, sleepy hum from wings unseen, at times 
penetrates the ear like a faint music of subtle har- 
monies. Shrikes revel here, and scold in the most 
violent manner, if they think you are getting near 
their young ones. Jays have a decided taste for 
hedge-life about this time, but missel-thrushes object 
to their presence. Mice the jay kills and eats, but 
the thrushes know that if they were out of the way, 
he would have one of their speckled-breasted young 
whom they are trying to teach how to get their living. 
Occasionally you hear a low croak this is the warning 
of the nightingale for the young ones to keep close 
cover. Butterflies flit in all directions, and the willow- 
wrens and white-throats slip in and out as you pass 
along, from the sallows that in places line the edges 
of the green stripes. 
You will not go very far before you pass over a 
bridge, and that will be, as a rule, close to a farm two 
