22 IN THE GREEN LEAF 



surroundings from those that choose a barren 

 moor, where nothing can be seen for miles 

 but stunted heather and glistening white sand. 

 Insect life abounds in the grass parks and on 

 the sandy moors, so the pipits have plenty of 

 provender; only there is this slight difference 

 the insect life of the parks is of a mild nature ; 

 that of the moors I have found not only fero- 

 cious, but venomous, and I wished for more 

 pipits. 



That the nests of some birds, either by acci- 

 dent or design, fall in with their surroundings 

 in a wonderful manner, every schoolboy knows. 

 I have seen the exquisite home of the long- 

 tailed tit placed in hoary black and white 

 thorns, also in tufts of furze-bushes grey with 

 age, so that ordinary observers would never 

 have seen either of them. But it was only the 

 other day that I saw, in the fork of a broom 

 sprig of rich lush green, a nest of the long-tailed 

 tit, showing out by contrast like a small oval of 

 frosted silver. The little creature had formed 

 the outside walls of the brightest and most 

 silvery lichens and mosses that it could procure 

 from the aged thorns on the common on either 

 side of the railway embankment already men- 

 tioned. Although I had seven, if not eight, 



