134 MY NATURE NOTEBOOK. 



direction, as when the shouts of men stopped the 

 cutter for a moment and a dying leveret was dragged 

 out from the tangled sheaf, or when two young corn- 

 crakes were picked up mangled in the track of those 

 toothed blades. 



THE REFUGE DESTROYED. 



And so to the end. The fluttering small birds that 

 have flown on and on before the cutters, in and out 

 of the lessening patch of standing corn, are forced to 

 whirl in flight to the now distant hedges. A covey 

 of young partridges that can scarcely fly are seen 

 still rising now and then to the level of the ears in 

 the last small strip of standing corn. A shout, and 

 the cutters stand again while the little partridges 

 flutter out under the very blades of the machine and 

 between the horses' feet. Here, too, the last rabbit 

 makes his rush ; but, unlike the leverets, which have 

 been allowed to pass, his bewildered flight among the 

 rows of piles of corn is soon cut short by a well- 

 aimed missile from the hue and cry of labourers who 

 saw him bolt; for rabbit-pie is a common harvest 

 dish. Here, too, the last rat dies, squealing under a 

 hobnailed boot ; and here, in the very last yard of 

 corn, a family party of little whinchats, that have only 

 just left the nest, make a fluttering dash for life. One 

 the cutter kills, but the rest escape, scrambling over 

 the stubble. A terrible journey has been theirs on 

 the first morning that they left their quiet nest in the 

 far furze clump beyond the corner of the field ; and 

 for all the hundreds of small folk that knew no other 

 home but that aisled expanse of standing corn, a 



