70 HAMPSHIRE DAYS 



no farther than that, which is but a part of the secret, 

 the sheet of fern fronds, on account of this staying 

 effect on the vision, increases what we see, so that a 

 surface of a dozen square yards of fern seems more 

 in extent than half an acre of smooth-shaven lawn, 

 or the large featureless floor of a skating-rink or 

 ball-room. 



On going or wading through the belt of bracken 

 under the tall firs that billowy sea of fronds in the 

 midst of which I have so long detained my patient 

 reader into the great oak wood beyond and below it, 

 on each successive visit during the last days of June, 

 the harshening of the bird voices became more marked. 

 Only the wren and wood-wren and willow-wren uttered 

 an occasional song, but the bigger birds made most of 

 the sound. Families of young jays were then just out 

 of the nest, crying with hunger, and filling the wood 

 with their discordant screams when the parent birds 

 came with food. A pair of kestrels, too, with a nestful 

 of young on a tall fir incessantly uttered their shrill 

 reiterated cries when I was near; and one pair of 

 green woodpeckers, with young out of the breeding-hole 

 but not yet able to fly, were half crazed with anxiety. 

 Around me and on before me they flitted from tree 

 to tree and clung to the bark, wings spread out and 

 crest raised, their loud laugh changed to a piercing 

 cry of anger that pained the sense. 



They were now moved only by solicitude and anger : 

 all other passion and music had gone out of the bird 



