At Home with Wild Nature 



wood on the edge of a favourite part of the ground under 

 review in this chapter, my eye suddenly caught what 

 appeared to be a piece of dead bark lying on the ground. 

 A closer inspection revealed the fact that the object was 

 a nightjar covering her pair of pebble-like eggs. 



Of course, in the wilds of Surrey one misses the clear 

 cool springs and prattling becks, the loud cabow, 

 cabeck, cabeck of the grouse and the plaintive call note 

 of the golden plover, but there are compensations. The 

 ringing laugh of the yaffle, or green woodpecker, in the 

 not far distant timber belts, telling, according to the 

 weather lore of the country prophets, of coming rain, 

 and the sweet cadences of the silver-tongued woodlark 

 are hard to beat. 



It is for the north countryman a rather strange 

 experience to come upon great stretches of splendid 

 heather without sheep track, blackcock, or red grouse, 

 especially when he knows that this plant has decreased 

 to such an extent in his own part of the world that the 

 last-named bird may be found nesting in grass fields. 



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