moving restlessly about among the animals. As
we stand under the elder-bushes we can look down among the sheep, for
they have not the wild animal's sense of smell, or else the presence of
man disturbs them not. One of the flock gives an almost human cough, as
if protesting against the dampness of the night.

_The Early Bird_.

Swish! Something soft, silent, and white comes across the hedge almost
in our eyes, and settles in that oak without a sound. It is a barn-owl.
After him a wood-pigeon, the whistling swoop of whose wings you can hear
half a mile. The owl is just going to bed. The pigeon is only just
astir. He is going to have the first turn at Farmer Macmillan's green
corn, which is now getting nicely sweet and milky. The owl has still an
open-mouthed family in the cleft of the oak, and it is only by a strict
attention to business that he can support his offspring. He has been
carrying field mice and dor-beetles to them all night; and he has just
paused for a moment to take a snack for himself, the first he has had
since the gloaming.

But the dawn is coming now very swiftly. The first blackbird is pulling
at the early worm on the green slope of the woodside, for all the world
like a sailor at a rope. The early worm wishes he had never been advised
to rise so soon in order to get the dew on the grass. He resolves that
if any reasonable proportion of him gets off this time, he will speak
his mind to the patriarch of his tribe who is always so full of advice
how to get "healthy, wealthy, and wise." 'Tis a good tug-of-war. The
worm has his tail tangled up with the centre of the earth. The blackbird
has not a very good hold. He slackens a moment to get a better, but it
is too late. He ought to have made the best of what purchase he had.
Like a coiled spring returning to its set, the worm, released, vanishes
into its hole; and the yellow bill flies up into the branches of a thorn
with an angry chuckle, which says as plainly as a boy who has chased an
enemy to the fortress of home, "Wait till I catch you out again!"

Nature is freshest with the dew of her beauty-sleep upon her. The copses
are astir, and the rooks on the tops of the tall trees have begun the
work of the day. They rise to a great height, and drift with the light
wind towards their feeding-grounds by the river. Over the hedge flashes
a snipe, rising like a brown bomb-shell from between our feet, and
sending the heart into the mouth. The heron, which w