MARCH DAYS ON THE DOWNS 177 



the work. The ground was in perfect order, dry, soft, 

 and fine, and the horses were stepping briskly across 

 the smooth, fresh-harrowed soil. At either end stood 

 the open sacks of grain, ready to fill the seed-boxes, 

 and the steady wind drove a cloud of good March dust 

 the dust of the field, not of the road from the drills 

 like spin-drift from a cutter's prow. More than half 

 the area was finished when the hawk dashed from its 

 tree, swept up a leveret from the edge of the field, and 

 killed it before the sowers could run to the rescue. It 

 had bided its time until, seeing that its prey must be 

 disturbed, it at once made a bold dash to secure it. 

 The magpies, carrion-crows, brown owls, and white 

 owls, as well as the wood-pigeons and rooks, are all 

 building ; and by a curious coincidence, the largest of 

 common English birds, the heron the smallest, the 

 gold-crest and the most brilliant, the king-fisher all 

 lay their eggs in March. The frogs and pike are also 

 spawning, and in the general scarcity of food the 

 banks of the ponds and slow streams are a happy 

 hunting-ground to nearly all the larger birds. The 

 " breaking of the waters " under the first hot suns fills 

 the stagnant pools for a few days with a thick infusion 

 of green or red algse . The mud smells, the frogs croak, 

 the pike bask in pairs in the shallows, and as the water 

 shrinks from the margin the carrion-crows are busy early 

 and late in hunting for their favourite dainty, the fresh- 

 water mussels. The meadows near the canal which flows 

 through the White Horse Vale, and is there dignified 

 by the name of the "river," are studded with the 



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