48 VOICES FROM THE WOODLANDS. 



among which grey stones lift up their lichen-covered heads, 

 and a few dry bents wave wearily to the winter winds, look 

 green and beautiful. The timid leveret loves to hide be- 

 neath our friendly canopy; the stone- curlew often hastes 

 to us for shelter ; the dusky lark commits to us her rough 

 nest, formed of straw and leaves ; and you may hear her 

 soaring brother rise from out our midst, warbling, as he 

 rises, with that wild and joyous melody, which swells, and 

 sinks, and swells again, and seems as if it had nought to 

 do with this dull earth ; which 



" singing still doth soar, and soaring ever singeth, 

 Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun." 



Hieroglyphics, too, have we, strangely pictured by nature's 

 pencil on the cross sections of our rich brown roots. Many 

 a school-boy spends his summer afternoon in culling ferns 

 among the hills, wandering from heath to moor, from hill- 

 side to ravine, delighted at the strange marks which our 

 stems exhibit. 



