AUTUMN LIGHTS AND SHADES. 195 



and recrossing in all directions. You can see 

 through the breaks in the trees the under-coverts 

 of the birds' wings gleaming in the light like silver. 

 Rabbits, to whom you had been visible, although 

 you had not noticed one of them, start out in all 

 directions, showing their white scuts, from the 

 hollows between the moss -covered roots where 

 they had been feeding. Missel -thrushes screech 

 their loudest ; as to the jays, it is a continuous 

 squawk ! squawk ! squawk ! The chiding and chat- 

 tering of the wrens, as they hop alongside of us in 

 the undergrowth, suggest some fairy's rattle. As 

 to the robins, you will not go fifty yards without 

 seeing one, perched on a spray, looking at you 

 most intently with his large dark eyes. He has 

 come to see if it is a fox, polecat, weasel, or hawk 

 that has made the disturbance. Finding who the 

 real culprit is, he is not in the least - put out ; for 

 he has seen a creature like that many times before, 

 in the shape of a woodman who fed his family, 

 times without number, during the keen frosts of 

 the last bitter winter when they needed it so badly. 

 The worst sound of all is the cry of the cock- 

 pheasant, and the drum of his wings as he trees, 



