PREFACE. 



IT is usually supposed to be necessary to go far into 

 the country to find wild birds and animals in suffi- 

 cient numbers to be pleasantly studied. Such was 

 certainly my own impression till circumstances led 

 me, for the convenience of access to London, to 

 reside for awhile about twelve miles from town. 

 There my preconceived views on the subject were 

 quite overthrown by the presence of as much bird- 

 life as I had been accustomed to in distant fields 

 and woods. 



First, as the spring began, came crowds of chiff- 

 chaffs and willow wrens filling the furze with cease- 

 less flutterings. Presently a nightingale sang in a 

 hawthorn bush only just on the other side of the 

 road. One morning, on looking out of window, there 

 was a hen pheasant in the furze almost underneath. 

 Rabbits often came out into the spaces of sward 

 between the bushes, 



The furze itself became a broad surface of gold, 

 beautiful to look down upon, with islands of tenderest 

 birch green interspersed, and willows in which the 

 sedge-reedling chattered. They used to say in the 



