92 HAMPSHIRE DAYS 



matters. So absorbed was I in contemplating or else 

 thinking about them at that spot that I was curiously 

 indifferent to the other creatures little lizards, and 

 butterflies, and many young birds brought by their 

 parents to the willows and alders that shaded the 

 stream. All day the birds dozed on their gently- 

 swaying perches, chirping at intervals to be fed ; and 

 near by a tree-pipit had his stand, and sang and sang 

 when most songsters were silent, but I paid no atten- 

 tion even to his sweet strains. Two or three hundred 

 yards away, up the stream on a boggy spot, a pair of 

 peewits had their breeding-place. They were always 

 there, and invariably on my appearance they rose up 

 and came to me, and, winnowing the air over my head, 

 screamed their loudest. But I took no notice, and was 

 not annoyed, knowing that their most piercing cries 

 would have no effect on the adders, since their deaf 

 ears heard nothing, and their brilliant eyes saw next 

 to nothing of all that was going on about them. After 

 vexing their hearts in vain for a few minutes the peewits 

 would go back to their own ground, then peace would 

 reign once more. 



One day I was surprised and a little vexed to find 

 that the peewits had left their own ground to come 

 and establish themselves on the bog within forty 

 yards of the spot where I was accustomed to take 

 my stand when observing the adders. Their anxiety 

 at my presence had now become so intensified that 

 it was painful to witness. I concluded that they had 



