96 ANNALS OF BIRD LIFE.\ 



again when they have passed ; whilst flies and 

 gnats and other winged creatures hurry to and 

 fro in countless hosts with noisy buzz, and drone, 

 and hum. Little else but the Swallows and 

 Martins in their glittering steel-blue livery ven- 

 ture out into the noonday heat ; but these birds 

 feed on insects and follow their prey abroad, 

 chasing them round the limes, under the oaks and 

 beeches, circling above the poplars, and coursing 

 lightning-like beneath the drooping branches and 

 out into the open meadows. The hush that 

 settles over the haunts of animated Nature during 

 these blazing hours of a summer day is most 

 impressive. In the cool shade of the surrounding 

 greenery most of the feathered tribes are skulk- 

 ing ; too languid to sing, many of them too lazy 

 to feed. Here and there a bird may be seen 

 flitting among the leaves, its wings glinting fitfully 

 in the stray sunbeams, which play like delicate 

 embroidery on the foliage. Now and then a 

 chirp or startled cry relieves the noonday silence. 

 The gurgling and the splashing of the trout- 

 stream, as it falls over the moss-grown weir, 

 sounds soothing to the ear ; and its limpid waters 

 are as refreshing to the eye, as they flow silently 

 along through the meadows like a streak of silver, 

 and under the alder and ash-trees by the coppice, 

 where the cattle, knee-deep in the beck, stand 

 half- asleep, impatiently lashing with their long 

 tails the flies that torment them. The greenness 

 of the country-side is almost universal. The sun 



