antly perched. Occasionally one would alight on the sward among
the purple flowers of the meadow orchis. From the marshy meadow across
the brook apeew it rose from time to time, uttering his plaintive call
and wheeling to and fro on the wing. At the sound a second and a third
appeared in succession, and after beating up and down for a few
minutes settled again in the grass. The meadow might have been called
a plovery--as we say rookery and heronry--for the green plovers or
peewits always had several nests in it.

The course of the humble bees that went by could be watched for some
way--their large size and darker colour made them visible--as they now
went down into the grass, and now started forward again. The honey
bees, small and somewhat lighter in colour, could not be seen so far.
They were busy in the sunshine, for the hive bee must gather most of
its honey before the end of July, before the scythe has laid the grass
in the last meadow low. Few if any flowers come up after the scythe
has gone over, except the white clover, which almost alone shows in
the aftermath, or, as country people call it, the 'lattermath.' Near
me a titlark every few minutes rose from the sward, and spreading his
wings came down aslant, singing with all his might.

Some sarsen stones just showed above the grass: the old folk say that
these boulders grow in size and increase in number. The fact is that
in some soils the boulder protrudes more and more above the surface in
the course of time, and others come into view that were once hidden;
while in another place the turf rises, and they seem to slowly sink
into the earth. The monotonous and yet pleasing cry of the peewits,
the sweet titlark singing overhead, and the cuckoos flying round,
filled the place with the magic charm of spring.

Coming to these Cuckoo-fields day after day, there was always
something to interest me, either in the meadows themselves or on the
way thither. The very dust of the road had something to show. For
under the shadowy elms a little seed or grain had jolted down through
the chinks in the bed of a passing waggon, and there the chaffinches
and sparrows had congregated. As they moved to and fro they had left
the marks of their feet in the thick white dust, so crossed and
intertangled in a maze of tracks that no one could have designed so
delicate and intricate a pattern. If it was cloudy, still, glancing
over the cornfields, just as you turned partly round to look,