NATURE NOTES 
1 66 
The fountain ripples, and the mignonette 
And scented eglantine perfume the air. 
No jealous guardian of his master’s rights 
Expels the stranger, all can now enjoy, 
Where two or three of yore. — (Rank Socialist I ! 
Who would that some day every English park 
Should be the people’s, and the child be free 
To gather primroses in every wood, 
Where palings now, and reckless barbs impede, 
And well-arm’d keepers tramp, and scold, and fight 
Through the long seasons, and on hungry nights 
Murder is done, that when the year is old 
Their noble masters may have birds to slay). 
But this is paradise to yon wee maid, 
Who, — Sunday privileg’d, — her father’s hand 
Confiding grasps, and garrulous propounds 
The strange enigmas of her budding mind. 
No ugly sounds of steam or wheel impair 
Summer’s divine contentment — beetle’s hum, 
Rustle of leaf, and caw of homing rook. 
Serve but to lull the drowsy mind to rest, 
Until the Sabbath bells, — familiar tones, — 
Surprise the languid senses, and anon 
The mists of time roll back confusedly, 
The chequer’d past revealing, and my soul 
Is prey once more to restless vague desire. 
M. J. T. 
Dulwich, J illy, 1898. 
NATURE’S PARADISE. 
T is my purpose to describe a very charming copse in 
Surrey, which is a favourite haunt of mine. It is some 
two hundred yards from the road, which is little fre- 
quented, and the nicest way to get to it is by a narrow 
little water-course which runs between two high sloping banks 
which are now clothed with the bloom of many wild-flowers. 
As you walk along its edge you see several stickle-backs dart 
from one clump of weeds to another, or a caddis-worm slowly 
dragging itself and its home along the bed of the stream. As 
you near the copse the banks are clothed with hawthorn bushes, 
and on peeping into one of these which overhangs the water, 
you espy an exceedingly slender nest — at first sight a mere 
collection of a few bits of hay — but this is the work of the 
blackcap, whose sweet song almost rivals that of the nightingale. 
It contains two mottled brown eggs, harmonising to a great 
extent with the surroundings. A little further on you almost 
tread into a moorhen’s nest, which in this case is a mere cup- 
shaped hollow in a tuft of grass close to the water’s edge. As 
