NIGHTINGALE ROAD. 49 



and one summer a grasshopper-lark could be heard 

 in some meadows where I had not heard it the 

 two preceding seasons. On the mounds field crickets 

 cry persistently. 



At the end of the hedge which is near a brook, a 

 sedge-reedling takes up his residence in the spring. 

 The sedge-reedlings here begin to call very early ; the 

 first date I have down is the 16th of April, which is, 

 I think, some weeks before they begin in other 

 localities. In one ditch beside the road (not in this 

 particular hedge) there grows a fine bunch of reeds. 

 Though watery, on account of the artificial drains 

 from the arable fields, the spot is on much higher 

 ground than the brook, and it is a little singular 

 that while reeds flourish in this place they are not to 

 be found by the brook. 



The elms of the neighbourhood, wherever they can 

 be utilised as posts, are unmercifully wired, wires 

 twisted round, holes bored and the ends of wire driven 

 in or staples inserted, and the same with the young 

 oaks. Many trees are much disfigured from this cause, 

 the bark is worn off on many; and others, which 

 have recovered, have bulging rings, where it swelled 

 up over the iron. The heads of large nails and 

 staples are easily discovered where the wire has 

 disappeared, sometimes three or four, one above the 

 other, in the same tree. A fine avenue of elms which 

 shades part of a suburb appears to be dying by 

 degrees the too common fate of elms in such places. 



How many beautiful trees have thus perished near 

 London ? witness the large elms that once stood in 

 Jews' Walk, at Sydenham. Barking the trunks for 



