BIEDS IN A VILLAGE. 
i 
The way to the village was through corn-fields, 
bordered by hedges and rows of majestic elms. 
Beyond it, but quite near, there was a wood, 
principally of beech, two to three miles in extent, 
with a public path running through it. On the 
right hand, ten minutes' walk from the village, 
there was a long green hill, the ascent to which 
was gentle, but on the further side it sloped very 
abruptly down to the Thames. On the left hand, 
at the extremity of the straggling village, was the 
beginning of an extensive common, where it was 
always possible to spend an hour or two without 
seeing a human creature. A few sheep grazed 
and browsed there, roaming about in twos or 
threes and half-dozens, tearing their fleeces for the 
benefit of nest-building birds in the great tangled 
masses of mingled furze and bramble and briar. 
Birds were abundant there — all those kinds that 
love the common's openness, and the rough thorny 
vegetation that flourished on it. But the village, 
or rather the large open space occupied by it, 
formed the head-quarters and centre of a paradise 
of birds, as I soon began to think it; for the 
cottages and houses were widely separated, the 
meanest having a garden and some trees, but in 
most cases there was an old orchard of apple, 
cherry, and walnut trees to each habitation ; and 
out of this mass of greenery, which hid the houses 
