America in the winter. Here the fields are green through the
coldest months. No deep and drifting snows cover a frozen earth for
ten or twelve weeks, as with us. There is plenty of shelter and
seeds for birds that can stand an occasional frost or wintry storm,
and a great number of them remain the whole year around the English
homesteads.

If such a difference were a full compensation, our North American
birds make up in dress what they fall short of English birds in
voice and musical talent. The robin redbreast and the goldfinch
come out in brighter colors than any other beaux and belles of the
season here; but the latter is only a slender-waisted brunette, and
the former a plump, strutting, little coxcomb, in a mahogany-colored
waistcoat. There is nothing here approaching in vivid colors the
New England yellow-bird, hang-bird, red-bird, indigo-bird, or even
the bluebird. In this, as well as other differences, Nature adjusts
the system of compensation which is designed to equalise the
conditions of different countries.



CHAPTER IV.



TALK WITH AN OLD MAN ON THE WAY--OLD HOUSES IN ENGLAND--THEIR
AMERICAN RELATIONSHIPS--ENGLISH HEDGES AND HEDGE-ROW TREES--THEIR
PROBABLE FATE--CHANGE OF RURAL SCENERY WITHOUT THEM.

From Tiptree I had a pleasant walk to Coggeshall, a unique and