Harvesting the Hedges 
Tweed. Boys used to make popguns by boring Elder- 
twigs hollow. 
In Wales there was a curious fashion of staining flag- 
stones in farmhouses dark green with Elder-leaves dividing 
the flags diagonally, so that one half is white and one green. 
It looked well and was said to last a long time. The 
Snowberry-hedge is beginning to get white with berries, and 
the Holly-trees are beautifully red. A Robin sings con- 
tinually in the old Holly by Boy’s window, the little 
Autumn singer who never deserts us, let Winter pinch as 
sore as may be — “ chaunting litel sylvan bard,” as Allan 
Ramsay delightfully calls him, warning us, according to the 
old song, “to get frese coates, for winter draweth nere.” 
Robins, besides being friendly, seem creatures of habit. I 
know a Robin who for some winters has frequented a 
friend’s sitting-room, flying about in the room most tamely, 
and in the spring going outside again. They would also 
seem to have good memories, as I was told the other day 
of a gentleman who made friends with a Robin, feeding it, 
and seeing it continually for several months. He then 
went away and did not revisit the place for, I think, two 
years. But when he did he saw the Robin, who at once 
came and ate out of his hand as usual ! They are the 
tamest of birds ; if one is working in the garden, one is 
never at work long before a Robin appears and hops round 
about, watching with his little bright inquisitive eye. They 
are so pretty, with their ruddy breasts too! — the Ruddock, as 
Shakespeare, Spenser, and Bewick call him, the old Anglo- 
Saxon term, rudduc , meaning the “ little red one.” It is a 
quaint legend which chronicles that his breast is red because 
it is scorched by the flames of hell, whither he flies every day 
with a drop of water in his beak, in hopes of putting them 
out. Hurdis, whose poetry about birds is so pretty, describes 
him as a “ feathery mendicant made bold by want, whose 
every little action asks aloud alms the most indigent might 
well afford- — a drop of water and a crumb of bread.” How 
pretty the Golden-rod is now in the Manse-garden ! I must 
get some into mine. It is an old-fashioned flower few people 
241 Q 
