Nature Near London | Page 3

for the butterfly continues its flight.
From an oak overhead comes the sweet slender voice of a linnet, the
sunshine falling on his rosy breast. The gateways show the thickness of
the hedge, as an embrasure shows the thickness of a wall. One gives
entrance to an arable field which has been recently rolled, and along the
gentle rise of a "land" a cock-pheasant walks, so near that the ring
about his neck is visible. Presently, becoming conscious that he is
observed, he goes down into a furrow, and is then hidden.
The next gateway, equally deep-set between the bushes, opens on a
pasture, where the docks of last year still cumber the ground, and
bunches of rough grass and rushes are scattered here and there. A
partridge separated from his mate is calling across the field, and comes
running over the short sward as his companion answers. With his neck
held high and upright, stretched to see around, he looks larger than
would be supposed, as he runs swiftly, threading his way through the
tufts, the docks, and the rushes. But suddenly noticing that the gateway
is not clear, he crouches, and is concealed by the grass.
Some distance farther there is a stile, sitting upon which the view
ranges over two adjacent meadows. They are bounded by a copse of
ash stoles and young oak trees, and the lesser of the meads is full of
rush bunches and dotted with green ant-hills. Among these, just beyond
gunshot, two rabbits are feeding; pausing and nibbling till they have
eaten the tenderest blades, and then leisurely hopping a yard or so to
another spot. Later on in the summer this little meadow which divides
the lane from the copse is alive with rabbits.
Along the hedge the brake fern has then grown, in the corner by the
copse there is a beautiful mass of it, and several detached bunches away
from the hedge among the ant-hills. From out of the fern, which is a

favourite retreat with them, rabbits are continually coming, feeding
awhile, darting after each other, and back again to cover. To-day there
are but three, and they do not venture far from their buries.
Watching these, a green woodpecker cries in the copse, and
immediately afterwards flies across the mead, and away to another
plantation. Occasionally the spotted woodpecker may be seen here, a
little bird which, in the height of summer, is lost among the foliage, but
in spring and winter can be observed tapping at the branches of the
trees.
I think I have seen more spotted woodpeckers near London than in far
distant and nominally wilder districts. This lane, for some two miles, is
lined on each side with trees, and, besides this particular copse, there
are several others close by; indeed, stretching across the country to
another road, there is a succession of copses, with meadows between.
Birds which love trees are naturally seen flitting to and fro in the lane;
the trees are at present young, but as they grow older and decay they
will be still more resorted to.
Jays screech in the trees of the lane almost all the year round, though
more frequently in spring and autumn, but I rarely walked here without
seeing or hearing one. Beyond the stile, the lane descends into a hollow,
and is bordered by a small furze common, where, under shelter of the
hollow brambles and beneath the golden bloom of the furze, the pale
anemones flower.
When the June roses open their petals on the briars, and the scent of
new-mown hay is wafted over the hedge from the meadows, the lane
seems to wind through a continuous wood. The oaks and chestnuts,
though too young to form a complete arch, cross their green branches,
and cast a delicious shadow. For it is in the shadow that we enjoy the
summer, looking forth from the gateway upon the mowing grass where
the glowing sun pours down his fiercest beams.
Tall bennets and red sorrel rise above the grass, white ox-eye daisies
chequer it below; the distant hedge quivers as the air, set in motion by
the intense heat, runs along. The sweet murmuring coo of the turtle

dove comes from the copse, and the rich notes of the blackbird from the
oak into which he has mounted to deliver them.
Slight movements in the hawthorn, or in the depths of the tall hedge
grasses, movements too quick for the glance to catch their cause, are
where some tiny bird is passing from spray to spray. It may be a
white-throat creeping among the nettles after his wont, or a wren. The
spot where he was but a second since may be traced by the trembling of
the leaves, but the keenest attention may fail