I 3 o WILD BIRDS 



mers and finches too are gone, save for a straggler 

 here and there. 



But the wrens are in the places where I find them 

 in the spring and mid-summer, and where they will 

 be through all the winter. High underwood of 

 hazel, oak and ash stem twelve or fourteen years' 

 growth, cut last winter, is laid on the ground in 

 " lans." Here the wattle hurdler works through 

 the spring and summer. These lans are favourite 

 nesting spots in spring for blackbirds and song 

 thrushes. They have left the place ere now ; but 

 the wrens have not left the lans since the wood was 

 felled, nearly a year ago. All day they creep in 

 and out among the lans and flit from one Ian to 

 another. 



In all weathers and lights the wrens will be singing 

 and uttering that note, call-note or protest, which 

 is like the clicking of tiny wheelwork. The brightest 

 of woodland sprites is the wren, unlike any other 

 in England. He is full of merits form, plumage, 

 carriage, call-note, nest-building, and lively song at 

 all seasons except July and a week or so of August ; 

 but perhaps his chief merit is that while all other 

 birds are migrating or shifting their ground for a time, 

 he never migrates or shifts. An acre of ground serves 

 him a lifetime with food, shelter, nesting and 

 singing quarters. 



WILD WATERS 



The moorland and mountain streams attract me in 

 early autumn, when the leaves of the rowan are turn- 



