132 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



my usual long strolls about the common I loitered 

 once more in the village lanes and had my reward. 



On the morning of 27th June I was out saunter- 

 ing very indolently, thinking of nothing at all ; for it 

 was a surpassingly brilliant day, and the sunshine 

 produced the effect of a warm, lucent, buoyant 

 fluid, in which I seemed to float rather than walk — 

 a celestial water, which, like the more ponderable 

 and common sort, may sometimes be both felt and 

 seen. The sensation of feeling it is somewhat similar 

 to that experienced by a bather standing breast- 

 deep in a clear, green, warm tropical sea, so charged 

 with salt that it lifts him up ; but to distinguish 

 it with the eye, you must look away to a distance of 

 some yards in an open unshaded place, when it 

 will become visible as fine glinting lines, quivering 

 and serpentining upwards, fountain-wise, from the 

 surface. All at once I was startled by hearing the 

 loud importunate hunger-call of a young cuckoo 

 quite close to me. Moving softly up to the low hedge 

 and peering over, I saw the bird perched on a long 

 cross -stick which had been put up in a cottage 

 garden to hang clothes on : he was not more than 

 three to four yards from me, a fine young cuckoo 

 in perfect plumage, his barred under-surface facing 

 me. Although seeing me as plainly as I saw him, 

 he exhibited no fear, and did not stir. Why should 

 he, since I had not come there to feed him, and, to 



