160 Wild Life in a Southern County 



his stand on it, and from thence kills a couple perhaps at 

 once. 



On looking back, it appears that the farmhouse, garden, 

 orchard, and rickyard at Wick are constantly visited by 

 about thirty-five wild creatures, and, in addition, five others 

 come now and then, making a total of forty. Of these 

 forty, twenty-six are birds, two bats, eight quadrupeds, 

 and four reptiles. This does not include some few addi- 

 tional birds that only come at long intervals, nor those 

 that simply fly overhead or are heard singing at a 

 distance. 



The great meadow hedge — the highway of the birds — 

 where it approaches the ha-ha wall of the orchard, is lovely 

 in June with the wild roses blooming on the briars which 

 there grow in profusion. Some of these briars stretch 

 forth into the meadow, and then, bent down by their own 

 weight, form an arch crowned with flowers. There is an 

 old superstition about these arches of briar hung out along 

 the hedge-row : magical cures of whooping-cough and 

 some other diseases of childhood can, it is believed, be 

 effected by passing the child at sunrise under the briar 

 facing the rising sun. 



This had to be performed by the ' wise woman.' There 

 was one in every hamlet but a few years ago— and indeed 

 here and there an aged woman retains something like a 

 reputation for witchcraft still. The ' wise woman ' con- 

 ducted the child entrusted to her care at the dawn to the 

 hedge, where she knew there was a briar growing in such 

 a position that a person could creep under it facing the 

 east, and there, as the sun rose, passed the child through. 



In the hollow just beneath the ha-ha wall, where it is 

 moist, grow tall rushes; and here the great dragon-fly 

 darts to and fro so swiftly as to leave the impression of a 



