Crakes in the Mowing Grass. 217 
of the ancient cups with covers, the black speck being 
the knob by which the cover is lifted. After the first 
frosts, when the acorns are browned and come out of 
their cups from their own weight as they fall and 
strike the ground, the lads select the darkest or ripest, 
and eat one now and then; they half-roast them, too, 
like chestnuts. 
In the early spring, when the night is bright and 
clear, it is a place to stand a moment and muse 
awhile. For the- copse is dark and gloomy, the 
bare oaks are dark behind; the eye cannot see across 
the prairie, whose breadth is doubled by the night. 
But yonder lies a great grey sarsen boulder, like an 
uncouth beast of ancient days crouching in the hollow. 
Hush! there was a slight rustling in the grass there, 
as of a frightened thing; it was a startled hare 
hastening away. The brightest constellations of our 
latitude pour down their rays and influence on the 
birth of bud and leaf in spring; and at no other season 
is the sky so gorgeous with stars. 
Thegrassin the meadowor home-field as it begins to 
grow tall in spring is soon visited by the corncrakes, 
who take up their residence there. In this district 
(though called the corncrake) these birds seem to 
frequent the mowing-grass more than the arable 
fields, and they generally arrive about the time when 
it has grown sufficiently high and thick to hide their 
motions. This desire of concealment—to be out of 
sight—is apparently more strongly marked in them 
