qually
suitable. But nightingales will not pass their limits; they seem to
have a marked-out range as strictly defined as the line of a
geological map. They will not go over to the next hedge, hardly into
the field on one side of a favourite spot, nor a yard farther along
the mound. Opposite the oak is a low fence of serrated green. Just
projecting above the edges of a brook, fast-growing flags have
thrust up their bayonet-tips. Beneath, these stalks are so thick in
the shallow places that a pike can scarcely push a way between them.
Over the brook stand some high maple-trees: to their thick foliage
wood-pigeons come. The entrance to a combe--the widening mouth of a
valley--is beyond, with copses on the slopes.

Again the plover's notes, this time in the field immediately behind;
repeated, too, in the field on the right hand. One comes over, and
as he flies he jerks a wing upwards and partly turns on his side in
the air, rolling like a vessel in a swell. He seems to beat the air
sideways, as if against a wall, not downwards. This habit makes his
course appear so uncertain: he may go there, or yonder, or in a
third direction, more undecided than a startled snipe. Is there a
little vanity in that wanton flight? Is there a little consciousness
of the spring-freshened colours of his plumage and pride in the
dainty touch of his wings on the sweet wind? His love is watching
his wayward course. He prolongs it. He has but a few yards to fly to
reach the well-known feeding-ground by the brook where the grass is
short; perhaps it has been eaten off by sheep. It is a straight and
easy line--as a starling would fly. The plover thinks nothing of a
straight line: he winds first with the curve of the hedge, then
rises, uttering his cry, aslant, wheels, and returns; now this way,
direct at me, as if his object was to display his snowy breast;
suddenly rising aslant again, he wheels once more, and goes right
away from his object over above the field whence he came. Another
moment and he returns, and so to and fro, and round and round, till,
with a sidelong, unexpected sweep, he alights by the brook. He
stands a minute, then utters his cry, and runs a yard or so forward.
In a little while a second plover arrives from the field behind;
he, too, dances a maze in the air before he settles. Soon a third
joins them. They are visible at that spot because the grass is
short; elsewhere they would be hidden. If one of these rises and
flies to a