FROM SPRING TO FALL. 



of some golden furze bloom, has a breast like a 

 rose; he is no longer the "grey Untie," he is 

 now the rose -breasted linnet of the commoner's 

 children. 



" No rose without a thorn," says the proverb ; 

 and as the little fellow is contentedly singing whilst 

 he eyes the little flick of wool the -sheep have left 

 on the thorns as they passed, with which his 

 mate will line her nest, a bird not larger than a 

 ring-ouzel shoots up the rough track, about a foot 

 from the ground ; it rises like a flash, and the 

 linnet is captured by a male sparrow - hawk. If 

 the hawk had shown itself above, all the birds 

 would have dropped in the bushes. The hawk knew 

 this, and made his capture in the way described. 



" My brother what's just come home from foreign 

 parts, said as how he felt as if he could bust out 

 cryin' for joy when he leant on the gate o' our 

 medder, an' heard the blackbirds sing in the old 

 elms at the bottom on it. The birds is most 

 hansom', an' cur'ous, where he's bin, he says, an' 

 some on 'em sings. But he said not one on 'em 

 could ever make him feel like that couple o' cock 

 blackbirds a-singin' in our old elms." So spake 



