232 WITH THE WOODLANDERS. 



to good purpose. Even now the sight of a fine 

 fowling-piece will make the eyes of some of my old 

 chums, who have had to lay up the gun for good, 

 glisten again, and will send their thoughts back far 

 away to the time when they were young. 



Although I have pleaded for the birds, there are 

 times when under stress of weather they commit se- 

 rious depredations on field crops, more particularly 

 on fields devoted to market produce. Thousands of 

 skylarks, hundreds of wood-larks and titlings, will 

 all take heavy tithes of it. It is, to say the least of 

 it, a curious sight to see these birds, with missel- 

 thrushes, blackbirds, redwings, common thrushes, 

 and snipes, all rise from a patch of savoy cabbages. 

 Where the birds peck and make holes, the wet gets 

 in and rots them. The snipes are there for a differ- 

 ent purpose that is, to probe about the soft places 

 where the water drops from the leaves when it thaws 

 a little. 



The swallows are twittering to their young broods, 

 which are well on the wing, and are just now resting 

 on the top of the large chimney of the old thatched 

 farmhouse for a little while, before they make the 

 circuit of the farmyard and outbuildings again, for 



