CHAPTER XllI 



BIRDS IN LONDON 

 (1899) 



In the spring of 1898, after having seen the 

 proof-sheets of my volume on Birds in London 

 through the press, I was glad to escape once 

 more to that remote corner of England where 

 nature has ever seemed more fragrant and 

 refreshing than in most places known to me in 

 this land. The old eternal charm was there — the 

 wilderness of wood and water, varicoloured 

 marsh, and wide hrown heath ; but my mental 

 state was not the same as on former visits. 

 The scenes I had left did not immediately and 

 wholly vanish from my mind. They came often, 

 and remained long, before my mental vision. 

 It was as if I had put a new bright landscape on 

 a painted canvas, and that the old melancholy 



scene continued to show through the super- 



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