Wrens in the Wood-jyile. 169 



CHAPTER X. 



THE WOOD-PILE LIZARDS SHEDS AND RICKYARD 



THE witches' briar INSECTS PLANTS, FLOWERS, 



AND FRUIT. 



The farmhouse at Wick has the gardens and orchard 

 ah-eady mentioned upon one side, and on the other 

 are the cart-houses, sheds, and rickj-ard. Between 

 these latter and the dwelling runs a broad roadway 

 for the wagons to enter and leave the fields, and on 

 its borders stands a great wood-pile. The fagots cut 

 in the winter from the hedges are here stacked up as 

 high as the roof of a cottage, and near b}^ lies a heap 

 of ponderous logs waiting to be split for firewood. 

 From exposure to the weather the bark of the fagot- 

 sticks has turned black and is rapidly decaying, and 

 under it innumerable insects have made their homes. 

 For these, probably, the wrens visit the wood-pile 

 continually ; if in passing any one strikes the fagots 

 with a stick, a wren will generall}- fiy out on the 

 opposite side. They creep like mice in between the 

 fagots — there are numerous interstices — and thus 

 sometimes pass right through a corner of the stack. 

 Sometimes a pole which has been lying by for a length 

 of time is found to be curiously chased, as it were, 

 all over the surface under the loose bark by creeping 

 things. They eat channels interweaving and winding 



