A VILLAGE IN HAMPSHIRE 177 



the same purpose. Nature's inspired taste abhors an un- 

 broken surface, a uniformity of colour without relief to 

 give it character and tone. The orange bills of swan and 

 blackbird, the tongue of flame along the crown of the 

 goldcrest, the daw's grey nape, even the narrow white 

 transverse bar across the sparrow's wing, are all artistic 

 devices in the same notation. Nature is sometimes 

 beautiful for beauty's sake alone, but usually wherever 

 you see ornament in her kingdom you will find use, 

 and whenever a thing serves a need, it is yet beautiful 

 in itself. 



I had an adventure with one bird which I saw at 

 its best and left at its worst. It was a hawfinch (not 

 uncommon in these parts), and I was responsible for 

 its death in this manner. The people who lived next 

 door to where I was staying kept cage birds in some 

 numbers, and the man in his spare time was a bird- 

 catcher. The pair were pious folks and regular church- 

 goers, and having paid their respects to the Head 

 Gaoler of the Universe on a Sunday morning, they 

 used to return, and, uplifted with their interview, pre- 

 sent their charges with lumps of sugar. Among these 

 feathered convicts — greenfinches, linnets and bullfinches 

 — was a young hawfinch, and the sight of this wildest, 

 shyest and wariest of English birds in confinement 

 made me so uneasy that one late afternoon I bought 

 it and a pair of bullfinches into the bargain, intending 

 to let them out in the woods next morning. I set the 

 bird on my table to get a long and full view of its fine 

 plumage. I judged the bird was in its second year, 

 but it possessed the adult plumage, vinaceous chestnut 

 on breast and belly, mixed with chestnut orange on the 

 head, an ashy nape, brown back, and black on the lower 

 wings and throat. It was a fine specimen, its burly 

 form making the bullfinches look quite delicate in shape, 

 its huge, conical bill protruding from a massive head 

 and a very handsome pelt to match its presence. I 

 was admiring it without compunction when I made 

 the discovery that it was petrified with terror. It stood 

 bolt upright on its perch, rigid and motionless, like 

 an ornament of coloured wood, except for the quick 



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