SUMMER PLEASURES. 
17 
then it was that the short husky crow of the cock Pheasant 
was heard in the woods, telling of love and rivalry ; then 
the little brown hen fluttered and plumed her sober- 
coloured wings, and began to bestir herself, and prepare for 
the maternal duties which she knew must ere long devolve 
upon her, and her alone ; for her liege lord, to whose pre- 
sence she was now invited, will take no share in them. 
Let us not despise the little brown hen — ^ Let us not,' as 
Jesse has it, ' when we see the male expanding his rich 
and varied plumage in the sunbeams, forget that on the 
female devolve all the offices of love and aifection. She 
hatches, feeds, and protects at the risk of her life her 
helpless young ones ; and what we may consider as lower- 
ing her in the scale of creation is, on the contrary, an act 
of the greatest kindness and consideration. Her want of 
beauty is her chief protection, and her humility saves her 
from a thousand perils.' As humility ever will do, let us 
add ; ' To be secure be humble,' sings the poet. 
When the snows had altogether disappeared, and the 
perfume of the April violets came full and fresh upon the 
now gentle gales, and the fully- expanded primroses mingled 
their faint odour therewith, and the delicate wind-flowers 
were gathered in clusters by the eager city dwellers in 
every hazel shaw and coppice ; when the cuckoo had 
shouted, and the nightingale had sung out the joyful tidings 
of spring's advent ; then, just as ' the flowery -kirtled May' 
was approaching to make the earth yet more bright, and 
verdurous, and altogether beautiful, might be seen beneath 
the woodland bank, or the tangled grass which clothes the 
hollow dell, or hard by, among the green sprouting clover, 
the slightly-made nest of the hen-Pheasant, with its ten or 
twelve eggs of a uniform olive colour. 
When the song-birds had poured out their spring melody 
in the shady woodlands, and the sunshine interlaced witli 
golden threads the leafy canopy above, and made zigzags 
and broad paths of light on the velvet sward beneath ; 
when the fresh winds had fanned themselves to sleep, over- 
come by the heavy load of perfume which went floating 
upon the warm breath of ^ the lusty mower, J une,' whose 
merry * rink-a-tink' was heard around every farmstead, 
B 
