At Home with Wild Nature 



harsh cha, cha purr purr notes. However, we became 

 better acquainted later on when I was allowed to photo- 

 graph them and their fledgelings without a note of 

 murmur. 



A hundred yards farther on and I am right amongst 

 good, healthy, young heather, such as many a sports- 

 man would love to see growing on his grouse moor, with 

 here and there a blood-red root of sundew, or Venus 's 

 fly-trap, growing in its midst. The translucent drops 

 of glutinous matter by which this carnivorous plant 

 entangles its victims gleam in the morning sunshine like 

 stars. 



Dragon flies of every size and hue dance wantonly 

 hither and thither, alighting to rest ever and anon upon 

 some broken reed stem trailing by the side of a little 

 stream, so sluggish that it is difficult for the stranger 

 to tell which way it is flowing, or whether it is flowing 

 at all, until something that will float is thrown on to its 

 surface and watched. 



This is a favourite haunt of the cuckoo. I have seen 

 as many as five on the wing together hereabouts chasing 

 each other, one " a-crying and a-flying," another a 

 hen, of course uttering her bubbling notes, and the 

 others too intent upon business to utter a sound. There 

 are two old fir stumps standing dead and grey some 

 three feet above the vast carpet of brown heather away 

 to my left. They form favourite alighting stations for 

 cuckoos, hawks, and other birds. No sooner has one 

 wayfarer rested, looked round, and departed than 

 another takes its place. Droppings lying thick on their 



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