the ground.

By the same wayside of which I have already spoken there is a birch
copse, through which runs a road open to foot passengers, but not to
wheel traffic, and also a second footpath. From these a little
observation will show that almost all the life and interest of the copse
is at, or near, the edge, and can be readily seen without trespassing a
single yard. Sometimes, when it is quiet in the evening and the main
highway is comparatively deserted, a hare comes stealing down the track
through the copse, and after lingering there awhile crosses the highway
into the stubble on the other side.

In one of these fields, just opposite the copse, a covey of partridges
had their rendezvous, and I watched them from the road, evening after
evening, issue one by one, calling as they appeared from a breadth of
mangolds. Their sleeping-place seemed to be about a hundred yards from
the wayside. Another arable field just opposite is bounded by the road
with iron wire or railing, instead of a hedge, and the low mound in
which the stakes are fixed swarmed one summer with ant-hills full of
eggs, and a slight rustle in the corn as I approached told where the
parent bird had just led her chicks from the feast to shelter.

Passing into the copse by the road, which is metalled but weed-grown
from lack of use, the grasshoppers sing from the sward at the sides, but
the birds are silent as the summer ends. Pink striped bells of
convolvulus flower over the flints and gravel, the stones nearly hidden
by their runners and leaves; yellow toadflax or eggs and bacon grew here
till a weeding took place, since which it has not reappeared, but in its
place viper's bugloss sprang up, a plant which was not previously to be
found there. Hawkweeds, some wild vetches, white yarrow, thistles, and