BIRDS'-NESTING. 
5 
When the lengthening days give the first impulse to the 
feathered tribes to bend their course northward for the 
breeding-season, it is here that I listen for the first notes 
of the chiff-chaff : here I watch for the blackcap, the night- 
ingale, the willow- wrens, the garden warblers, the white- 
throat ; here hour after hour have I hunted for their nests, 
my object not being plunder, but information. Often have 
I covered my hand with scratches, from the prickles of 
briars and brambles, in my attempts to gain a satisfactory 
view of a nest and its contents without causing any disar- 
rangement, well knowing how great was the risk of deser- 
tion if the parent birds should discover anything amiss ; 
and when deserted, if I knew not the builders, a nest was 
valueless. How well was I repaid for bleeding hands, if 
I discovered but one point in the history of a species. 
Eggs strung on bents are rife in all country places ; old 
nests are easy to be seen when the leaves are gone ; birds 
are plentiful in every hedge-row, and their song is the bur- 
then of the passing breeze : but to connect with certainty 
each bird with its mate ; to assign it the proper nest and 
proper eggs ; to learn the exact time of its arrival and its 
departure ; all this is a study, a labour, rarely undertaken, 
and affords a pleasure akin to that which must be felt by 
a traveller exploring countries where man has not before 
trodden. 
South of Godalming, the sand is succeeded by a deep 
clay, extremely favourable to the growth of timber. This 
district is densely wooded, the woods, in some instances, 
covering hundreds of acres. In this tract is situated 
Blunden's, a beautifully wooded place, once the property 
of the late Henry Hare Townsend, Esq., but lately in the 
possession of Mr. Mellersh, whose keeper and factotum. 
