20 ON SURREY HILLS. 



birds that railway tracks are good hunting-grounds, 

 that it is now a common sight to see rooks perched 

 on the telegraph-posts, waiting for a train to pass. 

 The moment it has gone by they dash off to feed. 

 Even that most wary bird, the green woodpecker, 

 will hunt along the line at certain seasons. Woods 

 and very wild moorlands and the heaths are, com- 

 paratively speaking, lifeless : you must go to the 

 borders of the highways to see both animal and bird 

 life in full activity. They will go to covert, if driven, 

 for safety ; but all, from the boldest to the shyest, 

 prefer to live a short distance often a very short 

 distance indeed from man and the roads he travels 

 on, if he will allow them to do so. 



Crows, magpies, and jays flit over the roads, from 

 copse to copse and from field to field ; but on the 

 road itself they do not care to settle, for this reason : 

 they know that they are in bad odour with the 

 general community of men, on account of the trick 

 they have of pilfering all that comes within the range 

 of their vision, whether it be young, poultry or fruit, 

 eggs or young game, both furred and feathered. 

 Two or three magpies or a family of jays will do a 

 considerable amount of mischief in a very brief space. 



