THE WOOD-WREN 41 



old were almost alike in colour as well as in 

 habits. 



The brood continued under the supervision 

 of the adult wood-wrens throughout the summer. 

 The golden blossoms of the broom faded, and 

 gave place to ripening pods. The seed clusters 

 of the gorse dried and crackled in the sun ; and 

 the prickly, greyish green twigs lengthened on 

 the bushes. Tall, stately rows of foxglove bells, 

 alive with murmuring bees, fringed the thickets ; 

 roses opened their white petals along the thorny 

 sprays under which the father wood-wren lurked 

 when first he tried to entice the watcher from his 

 nest. And with the constant succession of 

 bright flowers, unfolding and withering away, 

 occurred an equally constant succession of gauze- 

 winged water-flies circling over the pools and 

 shallows of the shining river. At last, in Sep- 

 tember, when the days were shortening, the 

 happy family journeyed together to a southern 

 county, and thence, uniting with a vast flock of 

 migrant birds, sped away towards a warmer 

 land, whither the hot sun and the summer had 

 already departed. 



