NATURE NEAR LONDON 



one window. If I recollect rightly, the snow 

 was on the ground in the early part of the year, 

 when a golden-crested wren came to it. He 

 visited it two or three times a week for some time ; 

 his golden crest distinctly seen among the dark 

 green needles of the fir. 



There are squirrels in the copse, and now and 

 then one comes within sight. In the summer 

 there was one in the boughs of an oak close to the 

 garden. Once, and once only, a pair of them 

 ventured into the garden itself, deftly passing along 

 the wooden palings and exploring a guelder rose- 

 bush. The pheasants which roost in the copse 

 wander to it from distant preserves. One morning 

 in spring, before the corn was up, there was one 

 in a field by the copse calmly walking along the 

 ridge of a furrow so near that the ring round his 

 neck was visible from the road. 



In the early part of last autumn, while the 

 acorns were dropping from the oaks and the berries 

 ripe, I twice disturbed a pheasant from the garden 

 of a villa not far distant. There were some oaks 

 hard by, and from under these the bird had wan- 

 dered into the quiet sequestered garden. The oak 

 in the copse on which the squirrel was last seen 

 is peculiar for bearing oak-apples earlier than any 

 other of the neighbourhood, and there are often 

 half a dozen of them on the twigs on the trunk 

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