1 68 The Amateur Poacher 



returned to the branch. A moment or two passes, and 

 again he darts down and takes something — this time 

 invisible — from the water. A third time he hovers, 

 and on this occasion just brushes the surface. Then, 

 suddenly finding that these movements are watched 

 he flits — all too soon — up high into the beech and 

 away into the narrow copse. The general tint and 

 shape of the bird are those of the willow wren, but it 

 is difficult to identify the species in so brief a glance 

 and without hearing its note. 



The path now trends somewhat away from the 

 stream and skirts a ploughed field, where the hedges 

 are cropped close and the elms stripped of the lesser 

 boughs about the trunks, that the sparrows may not 

 find shelter. But all the same there are birds here 

 too— one in the thick low hedge, two or three farther 

 on, another in the ditch perching on the dead white 

 stems of last year's plants that can hardly support 

 an ounce weight, and all calling to each other. It is 

 six marsh- tits, as busy as they can well be. 



One rises from the ditch to the trunk of an elm 

 where the thick bark is green with lichen : he goes up 

 the tree like a woodpecker, and peers into every 

 crevice. His little beak strikes, peck, peck, at a 

 place where something is hidden : then he proceeds 

 farther up the trunk : next he descends a few steps 



