HAMPSHIRE DAYS 



with leaf and flower to their very tops the trees were 

 peopled with tens and with hundreds of thousands of 

 bees. Where they all came from was a mystery ; 

 somewhere there should be a great harvest of honey 

 and wax as a result of all this noise and activity. It 

 was a soothing noise, according with an idle man's 

 mood in the July weather; and it harmonised with, 

 forming, so to speak, an appropriate background to, 

 the various distinct and individual sounds of bird 

 life. 



The birds were many, and the tree under which I sat 

 was their favourite resting-place ; for not only was it the 

 largest of the limes, but it was the last of the row, and 

 overlooked the valley, so that when they flew across 

 from the wood on the other side they mostly came to 

 it. It was a very noble tree, eighteen feet in circum- 

 ference near the ground ; at about twenty feet from the 

 root, the trunk divided into two central boles and 

 several of lesser size, and these all threw out long hori- 

 zontal and drooping branches, the lowest of which 

 feathered down to the grass. One sat as in a vast 

 pavilion, and looked up to a height of sixty or seventy 

 feet through wide spaces of shadow and green sunlight, 

 and sunlit golden-green foliage and honey- coloured 

 blossom, contrasting with brown branches and with 

 masses of darkest mistletoe. 



Among the constant succession of bird visitors to the 

 tree above me were the three pigeons ring-dove, stock- 

 dove, and turtle-dove; finches, tree - warblers, tits of 



