70 THE BOOK OF THE OPEN AIR 



This hoary oakwood also befriends would be of the trimmest and fashioned 



the lovely and rare pied fly catcher, a of the choicest materials ; far from 



bird whose next regular summer resort, this, it is a rough untidy structure of 



apart from Wales and its border coun- dried grass and dead leaves artlessly 



ties, must be looked for amongst the put together in the sheltering hollow, 



distant glens of Derbyshire and York- But the pale-blue, fragile eggs are 



shire. Many pairs will be encountered lovely beyond compare, 



as you scramble along the sun-baked Leave the woods to their lonely vigil 



slopes of the " hanger." Stay your and toil up the devious, switchback 



steps and watch a pair. The cock, spick path. The scenery, if now practically 



and span in piebald livery, is restless- bare of timber, is nevertheless just 



ness personified ; his alarm note, as pleasing. Instead of woods, moun- 



oddly like the redstart's, betokens tains confront the gaze ; on the right 



a nursery somewhere close by: the are the barren slopes of a desolate 



rustier - garbed hen's anxious " whit " mountain, which, save the billowy 



and ruffled feathers which she shakes crests of the stately Beacons, is the 



from time to time, tell you that she loftiest height that Brecknock can 



has just left her eggs. Sit down boast ; on the left, the hogback of 



quietly, and almost imperceptibly the another wind - swept hill stretches 



birds, with many a feint and deviation, for miles, till it sinks into the 



will get nearer and nearer to one par- wooded dingles left far behind ; 



ticular oak. Holes there are in plenty ; ahead, are the moors and rough 



the decaying timber abounds with enclosures encroaching on the pur- 



them, but the knot-hole in this special lieus of the last village that, in this 



oak interests the birds strangely. The no man's land, you will encounter for 



nest must be inside. Ah, you were hours. 



right, for quick as thought, when she Through this haven you enter some 

 fancied herself free from surveillance, of the fairest country that even lovely 

 the hen has flown up to the entrance, Cambria can show : first past the old 

 clung to it momentarily, then dived church profiled on a rifle-green tapes- 

 in ; and immediately her mate's un- try of yews, and the hospitable inn 

 mistakable song swells the choir of glistening cheerfully in its coat of white- 

 sylvan voices. It might be imagined wash, on beyond the little ivy-clad, 

 that the home of so dainty a bird stone vicarage, where blackbirds, robins 



