22 N A TUBE AND WOOD OB A FT. 



bark of a Fox is heard, and this is answered 

 at intervals by the vixen. Eabbits rusli across 

 our path, or rustle through the dead leaves, 

 their white scuts showing as vanishing-points 

 in the darkness. The many-tongued Sedge- 

 bird which tells her tale to all the reeds by 

 day, prolongs it under the night. Singing 

 ceaselessly from the bushes, she chatters garru- 

 lously or imitates the songs of other birds ; 

 until my old angler friends call her the " fisher- 

 man's nightingale." When by the covert-side, 

 one of the calls which one constantly hears is 

 the crowing of cock pheasants ; this is indulged 

 in the densest darkness, as is sometimes the 

 soft cooing of the wood-pigeons. 



Both pheasants and cushats sleep on the 

 low lateral branches of tall trees, and from 

 beneath these the poacher often shoots them. 

 He comes when there is some moon, and with 

 a short-barrelled gun and a half-charge of 

 powder drops the birds dead from below. One 

 of the greatest night helps to the gamekeeper 

 in staying the depredations of poachers is the 

 lapwing. This bird is one of the lightest 

 sleepers of the fields, starting up from the 

 fallows and screaming upon the slightest alarm. 



