IN THE WELSH MARCHES. 
155 
slight movement of my hand, and there is a flash of white tails, 
and in a moment all are out of sight. In the tall pear tree 
opposite a squirrel has long been watching me from the far side 
of a branch, and having, I suppose, convinced himself that I am 
an inoffensive individual, he comes out and leaps from branch 
to branch, and then from tree to tree, until out of sight, with a 
graceful agility which he could never display while imprisoned 
in a cage. 
I see something moving beneath the bushes at my feet, and 
presently a little moorhen ventures out towards the middle of 
the pool, but catching sight of me vanishes as quickly as she 
came. A chorus of twittering overhead causes me to look up, 
and the tree seems alive with a colony of long-tailed titmice. 
It clearly contains several families, for though these tiny birds 
often rear ten or a dozen young, there is quite forty flitting 
among the branches above me. In all kinds of curious positions 
they keep well to the top of the tree, and pass from twig to twig 
with an activity almost confusing, and before I can turn the 
field glasses on them so as better to watch their movements, 
their curious tweet tweet is sounded, and they fly away to a 
neighbouring tree. It is too late in the year to find any but a 
dilapidated specimen of this bird’s architectural skill. Birds of 
other lands may build nests more curious, like the tailor bird 
and edible swift, but surely there is no bird in the world builds 
a more beautiful nest than these tiny English tits — composed 
mainly of moss, nine or ten inches in length, covered with spider’s 
webs, and decorated with lichens, perfect oval in shape, a little 
hole near the top which seems hardly large enough to admit the 
little builders, and the interior warmly lined with feathers, 
which, when counted by an industrious naturalist, were found 
to number over two thousand. What a monument of industry ! 
These birds measure, excluding the tail, less than three inches 
in length, and when we consider that the materials have to be 
searched for and doubtless carried a considerable distance, there 
hardly seems time in our English spring for these little birds 
to complete the task which building such a nest entails. But 
in a little more than a week, in some cases even in less time, 
they construct a dwelling strong enough to withstand wind and 
storm, warm and cosy inside, and with an exterior beautiful 
almost beyond description. 
As I slowly climb the hill, turning for a moment to take a 
last look on this quiet valley, I think of the wonderful histories — 
could I but read — that might be gathered from the flowers 
which cover its slopes. The golden hawkbit, the purple blossom 
of the scabious, the warm red of the herb-robert, are not showing 
now for the first time. Year after year, century after century, 
they have awaited the coming of spring to push forward their 
green leaves, and in due time their pleasing blossoms, careless 
whether human eyes were ever gladdened thereby. Heedless 
alike of man’s trouble and aspirations, they have descended in 
