PAETRIDGES AND PHEASANTS. 165 



These coppices of springs or knee-high oak are capital 

 cover for game, especially when, as is often the case, woods 

 adjoin. The ground is uneven and broken, with the com- 

 mencement of gravel-pits hardly deep enough to hide a 

 standing man, and holes whence stumps have been extracted. 

 Round the mossy rims of these are the hares' beaten foot- 

 paths, and where gravel and fine sand collect under over- 

 hanging brambles, partridges come in from pastures and 

 fallows of a morning to dust, being, sub rosa, often trapped 

 there by the knowing village poacher. This region boasts 

 many faggot stacks, strongholds of the weasel and stoat, and 

 building places dearly beloved by the industrious wren. Its 

 soil is deep vegetable mould, covered with an accumulation 

 of leaves and dried twigs, all to be added to the peaty store 

 in future years. In spring, bluebells carpet it as far as the 

 eye can see, making another firmament for the pale starlike 

 anemones and primroses to shine in. A touch of admiration 

 may be permitted to one who knows and loves such spots so 

 well. It is in these glades the nightingales muster strongly 

 each spring. We never listen to them without thinking of 

 Isaac Walton's tunefully expressed delight in their song, 

 for love-song it is. " Lord ! " he says, " if Thou allowest 

 such melody to bad men on earth, what music hast Thou 

 prepared for Thy saints in heaven." 



At this time of the year the earth underfoot is perhaps a 

 trifle soft, but our boots are stout, and little we care for that. 

 The rabbits sit in every tussock of yellow fern, only bolting 

 out on the most pressing invitation. They dodge amongst the 

 brambles, a vision of grey fur and white " scut ; " two bounds 

 take them across the deep ruts of the woodland timber road, 

 and utilizing the trunks of those oaks whose girdles of blue 

 or red paint, like the cross on the lintels of the Israelites, 

 has saved them from destruction, they use every effort to get 

 away into the thick cover of the main woods or the burrows 

 which honeycomb their boundaries ; and it is a good gun, 

 well held, that stops eight out of the dozen in such circum- 



