COVERT WARBLERS 97 



reptile the smooth snake or coronella can be 

 seen, looking, when it has freshly cast its 

 skin, like a living band of smoked mother-of- 

 pearl. 



It will be long before any alterations of im- 

 portance can, or will be made in this district, for 

 directly you are out of Surrey you find the con- 

 fines of a royal forest near you. The district 

 above indicated is within a few miles of the 

 river, where, as the Arthurian legend has it, 

 the Lily Maid of Astolat, after her death, was 

 carried upward on the flood. 



The grasshopper-warbler, cricket-bird, or 

 cricket-chirper haunts spots of a moister, and, 

 if possible, more lonely nature than the one 

 already described. On wide commons, all 

 glistening with summer showers, when the rain 

 has ceased, I have heard him reeling oft his 

 song in some thick tangle that drooped over 

 the water-filled wheel-ruts in the rough common 

 road. There is something uncanny about it at 

 times. All, or nearly all, the stock out at feed 

 will be resting as if by one consent : with the 

 exception of some patriarchal goose that is 

 hanking out a warning to some straying gosling, 

 all is as quiet as it can be ; for birds do not 

 always sing, atmospheric changes affecting them 



