As She

underneath there might have been more. During the period of incubation I only found the old bird once off the eggs: but after the hatching she was generally on a neighbouring tree during the daytime. night approached she was always on the nest. became so tame that she would allow me to stand over her without moving, and I was able to see how closely she covered the young brood with her wings. It was always a wonder to me that they were not smothered. On the fourteenth I saw for the first time that all the eggs had been hatched, for there were now quite visible four, red, upturned throats. All birds' nests seem to me to err by defect, and on the fifteenth there was so little room for the young ones that they had to arrange themselves cunningly, one being underneath and three on the top. All the mouths were up and turned one way-towards the light and air. By this time the heads were covered with rudimentary black feathers; the bodies were of a dusky brown; and the bills began to show a tinge of yellow. On the eighteenth they looked ridiculously large for their small nest, and I said to myself,' If they do not fly soon they will tumble out.' Their eyes were, now, for the first time, open and intelligent; and they seemed to look up to me as if for help. When I saw them last a little green had begun to show itself

H

among the light brown feathers under the head; and

This was nine or

on the nineteenth they were gone.
ten days after they had been hatched.

The fruit-tree blossom is now over; but the raspberry canes are in flower. The heavy rain has dashed the hawthorn and the laburnum, and I am afraid they will not recover their splendour; the red hawthorn has suffered least. Two new blooms, however, are out the guelder-rose and the mountain-ash.

To-day being the twenty-ninth, we have taken down the hawthorn in the hall and put up a branch of oak, not so much, it must be confessed, in honour of Charles as of the royal tree itself—the king of the English wood. It is on record that at one time the whole parish of Moston was covered with great oaks; now they are all small and of recent growth; but as I look up at their green leafage-green and thick as any-I picture to myself that giant at Boscobel, the

Famous brother-oak

Wherein the younger Charles abode

Till all the paths were dim,

And far below the Roundhead rode,

And humm'd a surly hymn.

JUNE.

And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then if ever come perfect days;

Then heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays :
Whether we look or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;

Every clod feels a stir of might,

An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And groping blindly above it for light

Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers.

J. R. LOWELL, The Vision of Sir Launfal.

XXI.-MORE ABOUT BIRDS: MEĄDOW-PIPIT

AND BLACKBIRD.

June 5.

IN my last notes, I sketched the true story of a hedge-warbler's nest: this week I can furnish in addition one or two slight monographs on similar subjects.

Within our enclosures there is a piece of meadowland which has been left uncultured for a time, and is now pretty thickly studded with long tufts of rushes and of coarse grass. In these I have found

several nests of the meadow-pipit, or titlark. I came upon the first of them on the sixth of May. The nest is small and built upon the ground, so that the stems of the rushes rise closely round it, and in such a way as to conceal it effectually from a casual observer. The bird is not unlike the skylark in colour, but is smaller; the tail is long and edged with white. It is well known, and has many names besides the two already given; most of these are intended to indicate either its habitation or its song: among them are moss-cheeper, ling-bird, titling, wekeen," moor-tit, heather-lintie, and meadow-lark. When I was approaching the nest, but still at some distance from it, I saw a bird rise and fly away over a fence. This was probably the male. When I got nearer, a second bird rose and made off slowly, with a low jerking flight, along the ground, as if it had been lame. This would seem to be one of the habits of the bird, for Yarrell says:‘The parent bird has been observed to feign being wounded for the purpose of drawing attention from its nest.' The eggs were four in number, of a light brown without gloss, and about the same size as those of the hedge-warbler. In two days after this the eggs were gone, and in their place there lay at the bottom of the nest a round ball of down, from which protruded two small heads about

the size of the end of my pencil. On the ninth there were three mouths to be seen, but the bodies were not distinguishable from each other. By this time. the old bird had got to know me somewhat, and retreated but a short distance, resting, during my stay, upon a neighbouring post. On the eleventh I saw that all the four eggs had been duly hatched. On the fifteenth the bills were yellow, and the bodies much darker in colour. On the eighteenth I found one of the young birds in the field, at some distance from the nest. I could not see that it had been hurt, and it was alive; but it died in my hand after a few minutes. It was a dainty little creature, lightcoloured, and beautifully marked; but the legs seemed too slender to carry it, and the wings too small for flight. I suppose it was the restless genius of its race: the poor Icarus of the brood. The other young ones, more prudent and less ambitious, were still snugly ensconced in the nest. On the morning of the twentieth, I saw that they were ready to fly ; and on the evening of the same day they were gone. The bottom of the nest was not plastered like that of the thrush, but beautifully soft and elastic, the latter quality being produced by the arrangement of many layers of very fine grass mixed with a little hair.