32

UNDER GREEN LEAVES.

BY A SON OF THE MARSHES.

"You like rough ground,' said one of my friends, one day, 'so I think you would find something to suit you in the Long Valley Moor. You can go just where you please, and if you like to catch a brace of trout to paint from, you are quite welcome to them.'

Thick warm mists shroud all things as I leave my home for a six miles walk, wishing to see the said valley lit up by the morning sun. Only those who have walked through the woodlands in all their fresh tender greenery, when the dewdrops are glistening like diamonds on the foliage, and the grasses nod over the narrow track, bowed down by the clear beads of moisture that cling to their edges, can form any idea of the beauty, the calmness, and the good knowledge that are to be found under green leaves.

The rough weather has gone, winter shifts are a thing of the past, and the birds sing, for it is their nesting time. Man himself, in spite of all his cares, brightens up and looks for better times. The Combe farms that we pass on our way are still quiet; with the exception of the carter and his mate, who are going to the stables, no one is moving. Not a rooster crows; it may be that the birds know that the fox is about; birds do know when it will suit their purpose to keep quiet. How often have I wished that there was a chance of a fox coming near our house just to frighten those many roosters into silence that, through moonlight nights, will crow by turns almost without intermission. It is all very well for poets to write about 'Chanticleer, bright herald of the morning.' This lively fowl has been rather a favourite with our verse makers, especially the more moral of them. I fancy they have been mostly familiar with the common barn-door bird which simply crows; they cannot have suffered from the roaring of the Cochin China fowl, which after so-called judicious crossings—a fatal blunder-has become such a favourite on the outskirts of country towns. Owls never make night hideous as do these giant roosters; I have found two or three of them, in concert with a donkey that grazes near my dwelling, more than a poor tired naturalist could bear after a long day's work.

But here all is quiet; the creatures that were at large during the night have gone home, or most of them. Two downy forms float by me and shoot under the thatch of the barn. These are brown owls that have come up from the meadows. They have not yet finished their hunting, and they leave the barn to float down to the grass again. So much the better for the farmer; if he had twenty owls instead of a couple about his premises it would be a good visitation for him, for when the grass is mown, a boy will be put to walk behind the mowing machine, where he will be sure to be accompanied by another, a volunteer, who goes for the sport of the thing. It is a much envied post; the first lad is the mousekiller, and he is armed with a stick three feet or so in length, of ground ash by choice. The invited friend must cut his from the willows. How often have I watched this proceeding. The boys will wait for the machine to make a couple of swathes, one up and one down, then they follow it up on each side. 'Dog mice!' they yell, as the large creatures bolt from the track. Down come the sticks, and the boys gather their short-tailed, large-headed quarry as they run. What with the clacking rattle of the mower, and the click of the boys' sticks, the mice have a very uncomfortable time of it. If we waited now long enough, those boys would be sure to come with a dozen of the finest, and ask if I wanted 'em for owls.' I have never found myself firm enough to refuse these, for the information had spread round for miles that 'a big man in a grey suit o' clothes, as always carried a big ash stick, one as looked as if he'd bin a soger, he'd actooally gi'n as much as a penny apiece fur mice.' But 'big uns,' as the boys said, they certainly were; two of them made an ample meal for my brown owl, Friar. Often was I met on my way home from work by some little country toddler. Not a word would be spoken, the child would just hold a mouse up by its tail, receive the penny, and then cut away as hard as its little legs would carry it. Even when my owls were gone the pleasant barter was maintained, as long as I walked and worked in this district; and I always look back on that period of my life with pleasant memories, in which children, birds, and flowers all mingle together.

But to return to my morning's walk. As we enter the high woods the sun is high. Firs show their tops through the mist, which now is clearing rapidly away. A magpie appears for one instant, and vanishes, another flits out, but there is no noise; nor do we make any, standing as we are on dead leaves which, being

wet with the dew, do not rustle; in certain parts the woods are silent, and now the vapours have cleared off over the tree tops, and have rolled away.

From a grey thorn a blackbird flutes, as only a blackbird can ; his mate is sitting below him on her nest. This is bird music in perfection, for you have the singer in sight. There he is in full light of the morning sun, his jet-black plumage glistening, and his orange bill showing like a point of light. Stay awhile and listen as he sings his song; with it you have the life-giving scent of the woods, the very essence of their living growth.

The bird's song rises, falls, and dies away; the light wanders here and there, now up, now down, on the boles of the mossspangled giant beeches; the young golden-green foliage quivers in the light, the branches wave and softly rustle, and the bird's glorious song breaks out again and again.

The author of a popular lecture on 'Music and Morals,' would have us believe that there is no intrinsic beauty in the song of any bird; he pretends that its charm is only due to the force of association. When we hear a bird sing, straightway, he says, we picture to ourselves the bird's surroundings, and so are delighted with sounds which in themselves are not in the least musical. Nothing of the kind. In the matter of birds, I am convinced Mr. Haweis-broad as his sympathies may be in other directions-is a Philistine.

By the way, never look at preserved specimens when you can study the live bird. I have seen owls preserved so as to show three toes in front and one behind, and, though this is quite wrong, some works which the credulous public have been gulled into considering as standard works, have also represented them in the same way that is in an impossible position. One author has even offered an elaborate apology for doing this. He shifts the blame of it on to the artist's shoulders. No owl that ever I possessed and I have kept a goodly number-ever placed three toes in front and one behind, although they could do this for a moment if they chose. Another blunder I must protest against no owl seizes his prey or holds it with both feet, though both feet may be used to carry it when the prey is a large one; such quarry, for instance, as a full-grown rat, or at times a pinwire dotter, called by courtesy a rabbit. With one foot the owl grasps his prey, the other foot grasps a tuft or some other inequality of the ground. Then the bird goes to work.

A few owls remain in the wood through which I am leading my readers; some of the long-eared species, but not many, because when this particular piece of land was let for shooting, a few years back, an order to destroy all creatures that were not game was given. This applied to the utmost limits of the shooting, so that the head of game should count out better than the covers adjoining. But what with one thing and another, the man who rented it did not have anything like the head that his neighbours had, much to his own surprise. Careless and indiscriminate trapping and shooting does not often produce good results. Where so-called vermin are popped at all the day long, and the traps set for them get filled with the game itself, the creatures will seek sanctuaries where so short-sighted a policy is not in force.

Wood-pigeons shoot up with a flap-flap-flap; they soar above, where they float with outspread wings and tail like giant treepipits; then they settle again; their mates are near, sitting on their nests, or rather their twig platforms. That blackbird must have given the signal for harmony, for on all sides the thrushes sing. Loud above the other voices sound the notes of the misselthrush. But he sings best in stormy weather; on a calm, goldentinted morning such as this his voice has too trumpet-like a tone.

And now there is a lull, during which we hear close to us a plaintive hurried song. There is something that arrests your attention at once, giving one the idea that the bird was compelled through some inner stress to sing, yet against his will. We can see him hovering, like a large moth, over the top twigs of a large beech. It is the delicate tree warbler, near relative to the willow warblers and the chiff-chaffs; only he is of far more secluded habits than they. You may see fifty of the others before you meet with the little tree warbler. He frequents high beeches and great oaks as a rule, where the woods are broken by open glades; in which spots the delicate wood wren and the tree warbler are not uncommon. The parts which he resorts to are the very ones about which to look for that rare butterfly, the purple emperor.

By taking one more path, through this copse, we shall reach the foot of the fir-covered hill that overshadows the Valley Moor. The new shoots of golden-green and purple are finely contrasted, in this bright light, with the old foliage and the red stems which rise from what might be a thick lawn of whortleberry bushes. These are in flower now: when the fruit is ripe the place will be

lively for a time with children and vipers. And without harm to either, for the children know that the reptiles will get away as fast as they can, if they only frighten them a little. You will meet little toddlers, under the supervision of larger children, stained from head to feet with the deep purple juice of the 'hurts."

We gain the top and look down the valley. And what a sight is there! One worth going many more miles to see. A gentle breeze has arisen, just strong enough to bend and wave the hardly yet matured masses of green foliage, which look like a sea of rippling verdure. The fluttering whispers among the young leaves is distinctly audible.

From the firs comes that aromatic scent of resinous compound. This mingles with that of the beeches and the oaks; then there is the odour of the whortle bushes and the ferns superadded; each scent differing, yet here delightfully blended, making the finest medicine a man can take through his lungs.

Before, and below us, is a long stretch of valley moorland, fringed on either side by woods. Our readers will please bear in mind the fact that there are two kinds of moorland, the upland moors and the valley moors. The former are far more boggy than the latter, for this reason—the water continually coming down from their springs forms the beautiful little trout streams that drain the valley moors. From rills, from mere threads, and from drippings, falling drop by drop from the mosses, the water comes now as it has done from time beyond record; from the moors above to the moors below; in summer and winter a continual flow without stint. Now, as we stand on the crest of the hill the water is trickling down below our feet through the moss. At the foot of the hill, separated from the wood by a strip of bog, covered by great clumps of rushes and cotton grass, we are expecting to see some bird life, if we are very cautious; but we must avoid that bog, it quakes. I have been in it once, only at the edge, but that was quite enough. A grey alder stem, grey with moss, sticks up in the middle. That is the only object that strikes our eyes yet. I never do expect to see much at one time, and even if we see nothing we should not fret; we shall meet with all we want at some time or other, if we live long enough. Sometimes, for weeks and months together, I have not seen enough to talk to a child about if I had wished to amuse one; and then again have suddenly seen, at a time when I was not looking for it, more than I could have hoped for.