PIGEON-TREES 13 



December going into one of young oaks and beeches, 

 skirting a grove of gloomy pines, where the rooks 

 come nightly to roost. My entry disturbed a 

 multitude of the birds in question, but after sitting, 

 for some time, silently, under a tree of the dividing 

 row, they returned "in numbers numberless," 

 almost rivalling the rooks themselves. Some trees 

 seemed favourites, and, from these, clouds of them 

 would, sometimes, fly suddenly off, as if they had 

 become overcrowded. There was a constantly 

 recurring clatter and swish of wings, and then 

 all at once the great bulk of the birds, as it 

 seemed to me, rose with such a clapping as 

 Garrick or Mrs. Siddons might have dreamed 

 of, and departed quantities of them, at least 

 -in impetuous, arrowy flight. I should have 

 said, now, that the greater number were gone, 

 though the plantation still seemed fairly peopled. 

 Towards four, however, it became so cold that I 

 had to move, and all the pigeons flew out of all 

 the trees a revelation as to their real numbers, 

 quite a wonderful thing to see. Some of the trees, 

 as the birds left them, just in the moment when 

 they were going, but still there, were neither oaks 

 nor beeches nor ashes, elms, poplars, firs, sycamores, 

 or any other known kind for the matter of that 

 but pigeon-trees, that and nothing else. 



For wrens, tits, and golden-crested wrens these 

 fir plantations are as paradises all the year round. 

 The first-named little bird may often be seen creep- 

 ing about amongst the small holes and tunnels at 

 the roots of trees especially overturned trees 

 going down into one and coming out at another, 



