CHAFFINCH LANE 127 



covered bushes, giving out his loud chattering cry. 

 Another, startled by his notes, dashes out of a bush, 

 twists and turns over the flowers, goes over the 

 hedge, and flies across the meadow beyond ; and 

 then looking in the bush from whence he came I see 

 a nest containing five green eggs. It is impossible 

 to see through the dense thickets on each side of 

 Chaffinch Lane. During the winter months it is no 

 easy matter to see through the thickly branched 

 bushes ; but now, covered with young green leaves 

 as they are, and the fading hawthorn blossom filling 

 up other spaces, it is well-nigh an impossibility for 

 the eye to penetrate the mass. 



A piping comes from a flower-covered bush, and a 

 male bullfinch, resplendent in his spring plumage, is 

 seen, and no doubt he has a nest commenced in the 

 thick bramble beyond. The cuckoo has been calling 

 in this lane for some weeks past, and as I ramble on, 

 listening to the songs of warblers, one and then 

 another flies out of the bushes. I think the hen 

 cuckoo often watches the smaller birds while build- 

 ing, for I have often seen them fly from the same 

 spot near a nest before their egg has been placed 

 therein. 



Chaffinch Lane widens here; the greensward is 

 almost bare of bushes, and among green grass blades, 

 daisies, and other flowers, a little spring of clear cold 

 water rises. Very slowly it trickles out, but still 



