Divination by the Hazel Wand. 187 



CHAPTER XI. 



THE HOME-FIELD HAZEL CORNER THE DIVINING- 

 ROD rabbits' holes THE CORNCRAKE VEN- 

 TRILOQUISM OF BIRDS hedge-fruit. 



A wicket-gate affords a private entrance from the 

 orchard into the home-field, opening on the meadow 

 close to the great hedge, the favorite highway of the 

 birds. Tracing this hedge awa^' from the homestead, 

 in somewhat more than two hundred yards it is 

 joined b}' another hedge crossing the top of the field, 

 thus fonning a sheltered nook or angle, which has 

 been alluded to as the haunt of squirrels. Here the 

 highway hedge is almost all of hazel, though one 

 large hawthorn tree stands on the ' shore ' of the ditch. 

 Hazel grows tall, straight, and is not so bushy as some 

 underwood ; the lesser boughs do not interlace or 

 make convenient platforms on which to build nests, 

 and birds do not use it much. 



The ancient divination by the hazel wand, or, 

 rather, the method of searching for subterranean 

 springs, is not yet forgotten ; some of the old fblk 

 believe in it still. I have seen it tried myself, half in 

 joke, half in earnest. A slender rod is cut, and so 

 trimmed as to have a small fork at one end ; this fork 

 is placed under the little finger in such a wa}^ that 

 the rod itself comes over the back of the other fingers : 



