WILD NATURE AT THE GROVE. 87 
ornamentation, but are employed in a classification as true as 
that of a man of science. 
With Tennyson, this Essay on Nature-poetry may well be 
brought to a close. Other writers are carrying on the same 
poetry, in prose or in verse ; others will hereafter follow them in 
the same strain, so long as our land remains as it is. We are 
blest to live in a country where Nature is herself poetical, and 
deserves to be celebrated, for her own sake, in the very best of 
Nature-poetry. Our spring-meads, with their buttercups and 
daisies, are redolent of poetry ; and the field-paths that take us 
through them, and the hedgerows white with hawthorns, and 
resounding with the songs of birds, are alike poetical. Of all 
peoples, therefore, we should always be the first, as we are now, 
to cultivate that Nature-poetry to which attention has been 
called in this Essay. 
W. J. C. Miller. 
WILD NATURE AT THE GROVE. 
S a reward for long years of kindness shown towards 
squirrels and all kinds of birds, I now enjoy every 
morning a perfectly delightful performance of tamed 
wild creatures quietly feeding outside the dining-room 
window. 
As I enter the room I see brown furry faces peering in at the 
bottom of the window-pane, anxiously watching for my arrival. 
The squirrels know quite well that my first act will be to 
open the window, whereupon a shower of nuts will descend for 
their benefit, and in a few minutes the fascinating little animals 
come flocking from the shrubberies on all sides, until as many 
as nine or ten of them may be seen sitting up with their graceful 
tails curved over their backs, nibbling the nuts or indulging in 
fussy skirmishes with each other. 
The next contribution to my wild pets is a bowlful of sopped 
bread, which is thrown out for the benefit of my winged visitors. 
From beneath the sweeping branches of the trees hen-pheasants 
run swiftly towards the window, and so completely have these 
usually shy birds become tamed, that if I throw a piece of bread 
to them they will try to catch it in their beaks, and whilst feed- 
ing they look up with quiet confidence, and do not in the least 
mind our watching their movements. 
Sometimes a pheasant will run off with a piece of bread upon 
the lawn, and then is the opportunity for some marauding jack- 
daws to swoop down, and in an unguarded moment they seize 
the bread, to the great surprise of the simple-minded pheasant. 
Several pairs of blue-gray and russet nuthatches now arrive 
and take their share of the nuts, which by this time are be- 
