NATURE NOTES. 
222 
of passages in his poems ; and it was on one of these walks that 
I obtained from him the information about “ the sea-blue bird 
of March,” which has been already given in these pages. 
Through all his poems, dowm to the last volume, by which 
“ he being dead, yet speaketh,” the same love and knowledge 
of nature is manifest. In this. The Death ofO£none, the beautiful 
dedication to his wife is a picture of the down above Aldworth — 
not “ the ridge of a noble do^vn ” at Freshwater, which boasts 
comparatively little heath and fern. 
“ There on the top of the down. 
The wild heather round me and over me June’s high blue, 
When I looked at the bracken so bright and the heather so brown, 
I thought to myself I would offer this book to you. 
This, and my love together. 
To you that are seventy-seven. 
With a faith as clear as the heights of the June-blue heaven. 
And a fancy as summer-new 
As the green of the bracken amid the gloom of the heather.” 
A NOVEL CHRISTMAS TREE. 
XYOXE who has had long and intimate dealings with 
I our furred and feathered brothers and sisters, must, if 
j he speak the plain unvarnished truth, confess that, in 
one respect at least, they are our superiors. The 
proverb that, “ Virtue is its own reward ” is in nine cases out 
of ten bitterly true, in the sense that, from man at any rate, 
virtue gets no other. And although Wordsworth speaks with 
incredulity of the 
“ hearts unkind, kind deeds 
With coldness still returning ; ” 
the majority of us are forced, unwillingly, to allow that the poet's 
experience was exceptional, and that the excess of man’s grati- 
tude has not often “ left us mourning.” 
But with the furred and feathered creation the case is quite 
different. Not even a kind word is allowed to pass unacknow- 
ledged, and by a very small expenditure of time or money it is 
quite possible to win the gratitude and confidence of a whole 
tribe. 
Last winter we added to the small and select company of 
feathered friends who each winter haunt our grounds, many 
who are “ worth knowing,” according to Punch's definition 
{i.e., those who, hitherto, have not ■wished to know us), by the 
present of a Christmas-tree ; and their delight and gratitude 
knew no bounds. 
The big French windows of our dining-room look south, and 
open into a wide verandah. Not more than four feet from the 
