7O Woodside. 



the softest moss, into which our feet fall noiselessly, except 

 when an occasional twig snaps under us. A glance now 

 and then at the stars as they break through the leafy canopy 

 overhead is sufficient to keep us in the right direction. 

 Here, alone with Nature, we can find time to think. 

 Slowly onwards we go, and at last reach the outskirts of 

 the wood. A large pale shadow flits past, almost within 

 reach as we stand at the entrance of the wood. Another 

 night-worker at its toil, and taking its tithe of the living 

 creatures of the earth the barn owl works most assi- 

 duously for its young. How softly it wheels to and fro as 

 it keenly searches for its prey! Mice and rats form the 

 staple of its food, hence its fondness for the neighbourhood 

 of a farm. Its manner of nesting, or rather its manner of 

 egg-laying, is very peculiar. The hen, after having laid two 

 eggs, sits on them until hatched, as birds ordinarily do, but a 

 day or two before these are hatched another pair is laid, 

 and thus there are two young ones and two eggs in the 

 same nest, the warmth from the first pair of young birds 

 hatching the second pair. In turn two more eggs are laid 

 just before the second pair of birds are hatched, and these 

 in turn are hatched by their predecessors, a wise provision 

 of Nature which leaves both the parent birds free for a very 

 considerable time at a stretch to get food. 



Now we step from under the leafy canopy and find our- 

 selves on the edge of the wood, which we skirt for some 

 little distance, but in a short time we leave the wood 

 altogether, and step smartly out across a hop-garden. How 

 strange the poles look in the almost darkness ! How still 

 and peaceful is everything here ! What a sense of sweetness 

 there is in the air from the woods and from the soil, born 



