ISO JULY 



LVI 



Turn to a prettier prospect. Here, on the same 



An Old r i yer > a f ew miles above Winchester, 

 Chalk Pit nard by Itchen Stok6j wher6j in Feb _ 



ruary 1306, Edward I. was lodging for hunting 

 when they brought him word of the murder of 

 John Comyn by Eobert de Brus in distant Dum- 

 fries, is a disused chalk-pit. The floor is closely 

 carpeted with sward, spangled with bugles and 

 buttercups, and tufted in parts with bramble and 

 wild rose. On three sides rises the snowy cliff of 

 chalk, draped with pendent sprays, and crowned 

 with lofty trees that temper the intense sunlight, so 

 that this nook is fresh and green all the summer 

 through. One may come on many such a sunny 

 spot among the southern downs; but the special 

 interest presented by this one at this moment is 

 that within a radius of twenty yards three pairs of 

 particularly attractive birds have chosen to build 

 their nests. Of these the first is a pair of bulfinches, 

 of whose nest and its local exact locality the less 

 said the better, because people in these parts and 

 elsewhere have a craze for making cage prisoners of 

 the nestlings. The same may be said of the second 



