AN AUTUMN EVENING 
183 
the bill of some insectivorous bird, for one of its hind wings 
is very badly torn. But notwithstanding its mutilated con- 
dition, the beautiful little creature flits away as though unin- 
jured when I try to take it in my hand. 
Leaving the heath at a point opposite the flagstaff, I enter 
Ihe woods by a natural leafy bower, formed by the overhanging 
branches of the young oaks meeting overhead. 
Alas, how silent are the glades and valleys which but a 
few short weeks ago were filled with the love songs of the 
nightingale, thrush, blackbird, cuckoo, wood wren, and a hundred 
different kinds of feathered choristers. And yet by careful 
observation amongst the trees and bushes the ornithologist 
might discover many of the birds whose singing so delighted 
his ears during the nesting season, for not only are the “ home- 
stayers ” here but some of the migrants also. 
“ Chink-chink, chink-chink-chink ” reaches my ears from 
the topmost branches of a well-grown young oak. Looking 
upwards whence the harsh noise proceeds, I notice a stonechat 
hopping from twig to twig with marvellous agility. A short 
hunt in the underwood and I find a couple of pebbles, and 
then quietly seating myself behind a blackthorn bush, I knock 
the pebbles together in imitation of the bird’s call, watching 
his every movement the while. For a time the stonechat 
remains quite silent, and stops hopping to listen, but suddenly 
taking up my challenge he chatters angrily, and a few minutes 
later flies into my thorn bush, and still chink-chinking, he dodges 
in and out of the bush evidently in search of his supposed rival. 
After a while he espies me, and doubtless the pebbles also, 
for I continue knocking them together, and then with a sadly 
ruffled hackle and an angry flit of the tail he flies away, and 
is soon lost to sight amongst the foliage of the woods. But 
as I sit smoking a pipe of contentment in the shade I can still 
hear him chink-chink-chinking at no very great distance from 
my resting place. 
As I brush through a dense growth of waist-high feathery 
bracken, an animal springs from almost under my feet, and 
for a moment of time the shapely black-tipped ears of a hare 
appear above the waving top of the bracken as Mistress Lepus 
goes bounding through the beautiful fern covert. Next a jay 
flies out of a silver birch and goes shrieking through the 
woods like the feathered hooligan he is. 
At length I arrive at the eastern boundary of the common, 
and seating myself on the stump of an old felled oak, I look 
down upon one of the most beautiful and peaceful panoramas 
of English rural scenery that one could find within many, 
many miles of London. 
Yet I have not wandered farther afield than six miles from 
Whitehall stone. Almost at my feet lies the picturesque little 
