178 WILD BIRDS 



south-west, comes freshly across moist fields, and 

 even against dark sky those firs in the lane with 

 very thick bands of ivy stand out finely ; an ivied 

 tree trunk is never better in landscape than when 

 presented in all its blackness against a cloudy 

 evening or night sky in winter. 



I was interested to find, when I recalled this lane 

 as it is in late spring and through the summer, that 

 the list of its wild things is quite long and varied, 

 though its whole length is less than a mile. It starts 

 at a thatched hamlet in the narrow valley close to 

 the head spring of the stream, and winds up to a 

 branch or farm road to the downs, crossing near its 

 upper end the railroad ; and, here, as with many 

 other English lanes, the railroad adds to the variety 

 of its wild life. At the hamlet end of the lane in 

 spring and summer one scarcely looks for any nests 

 save those of song-thrush and blackbird and hedge 

 sparrow the nests for the hamlet children. In 

 some seasons I have seen those nests at least the 

 thrushes' and blackbirds' nests thick in the white- 

 thorn hedges. A few hundred yards of this, and the 

 lane changes in character. The regular and tended 

 hedges cease, and the lane runs through an avenue 

 of trees, ash, sycamore, oak, and a few spruce firs 

 and pines ; a broad belt of these on both sides, with 

 a rough undergrowth of bramble beds and coarse 

 grass and brier bushes mingled with a little birch 

 and hazel underwood. 



It was just where the tended hedge ceased, dying 

 away into some rough old thorns and tangle under 



