HAUNTS OF THE LAPWING. 227 



to my presence, he would have made the hawthorn 

 vibrate, so powerful is his voice when heard close at 

 hand. There is not another nightingale along this 

 path for at least a mile, though it crosses meadows 

 and runs by hedges to all appearance equally suitable ; 

 but nightingales will not pass their limits ; they seem 

 to have a marked-out range as strictly denned as the 

 lines of a geological map. They will not go over to 

 the next hedge hardly into the field on one side of a 

 favourite spot, nor a yard farther along the mound. 

 Opposite the oak is a low fence of serrated green. 

 Just projecting above the edge of a brook, fast-growing 

 flags have thrust up their bayonet-tips. Beneath their 

 stalks are so thick in the shallow places that a pike 

 can scarcely push a way between them. Over the 

 brook stand some high maple trees ; to their thick 

 foliage wood-pigeons come. The entrance to a coomb, 

 the widening mouth of a valley, is beyond, with copses 

 on the slopes. 



Again the plover's notes; this time in the field 

 immediately behind ; repeated, too, in the field on 

 the right hand. One comes over, and as he flies 

 he jerks a wing upwards and partly turns on his 

 side in the air, rolling like a vessel in a swell. He 

 seems to beat the air sideways, as if against a wall, 

 not downwards. This habit makes his course appear 

 so uncertain; he may go there, or yonder, or in a 

 third direction, more undecided than a startled snipe. 

 Is there a little vanity in that wanton flight? Is 

 there a little consciousness of the spring-freshened 

 colours of his plumage, and pride in the dainty touch 

 of his wings on the sweet wind ? His love is watching 



