164 AUTUMN FLOWERING SHRUBS 



them on the bare grouiid, choosing if possible the same 

 spot year after year, without making any depression 

 whatever on the surface. The female shares with 

 many other birds the instinct which causes them to 

 feign being crippled in order to lead an intruder away 

 from their young. I was thoroughly deceived by the 

 device on one occasion, following the artful actress for 

 fully a hundred yards as she flopped and scrambled 

 along. Sometimes she allowed me to come close to her 

 as she sat with drooping wings and gaping beak, hissing 

 like a snake ; indeed, I doubted whether she had not 

 really a broken wing, till she solved the question by 

 rising and skimming away over the bracken. 



XLII 



The lady of a lordly demesne in the north having 

 . t asked me to take counsel with her gardener 



Autumn 



Flowering about improving the grounds and garden, I 

 spent the best part of a day perambulating 

 what we call in Scotland ' the policies,' that is, what 

 would be known in Ireland as 'the demesne.' The 

 castle stands close to the sea ; the garden and most of 

 the grounds lie well sheltered from the worst winds ; 

 and although the situation is on the east coast, the 

 district enjoys a climate so mild that, were it on the 

 west coast, the open winters would be vaguely (and, as 

 I think, erroneously) attributed to the agency of the 

 Gulf Stream. The soil, too, being favourable for the 

 growth of rhododendrons, I told the gardener that it 

 seemed an ideal place for a collection of the Asiatic 

 species, whereof so many new and fine kinds were 



