t the copse are
the favourite resort of birds and the very home of flowers--more so
than extensive woods like the Chace, or the open pastures and arable
fields. Thick hedgerows attract birds, and behind such cover their
motions may be watched. There is, too, more variety of bush and tree.

In one such hedgerow leading from the copse the maple-bushes in spring
were hung with the green flowers which, though they depend in their
season from so many trees, as the oak, are perhaps rarely observed.
The elder-bushes in full white bloom scented the air for yards around
both by night and day; the white bloom shows on the darkest evening.
Besides several crab-stoles--the buds of the crab might be mistaken
for thorns growing pointed at the extreme end of the twigs--there was
a large crab tree, which bore a plentiful crop. The lads sharpen their
knives by drawing the blade slowly to and fro through a crab-apple;
the acid of the fruit eats the steel like aquafortis. They hide stores
of these crabs in holes in the hayricks, supposing them to improve by
keeping. There, too, they conceal quantities of the apples from the
old orchards, for the fruit in them is often almost as hard and not
much superior in flavour to the crab. These apples certainly become
more mellow after several months in the warm hay.

A wild 'plum,' or bullace, grew in one place; the plum about twice the
size of a sloe, with a bloom upon the skin like the cultivated fruit,
but lacking its sweetness. Yet there was a distinct difference of
taste: the 'plum' had not got the extreme harshness of the sloe. A
quantity of dogwood occupied a corner; in summer it bore a pleasing
flower; in the autumn, after the black berries appeared upon it, the
leaves became a rich bronze colour, and some when the first frosts
touched them curled up at the edge and turned crimson. There were two
or three guelder-rose bushes--the wild shrub--which were covered in
June with white bloom; not in snowy balls like the garden variety, but
flat and circular, the florets at the edge of the circle often
whitest, and those in the centre greenish. In autumn the slender
boughs were weighed down with heavy bunches of large purplish berries,
so full of red juice as to appear on the point of bursting. As these
soon disappeared they were doubtless eaten by birds.

Besides the hawthorn and briar there were several species of
willow--the snake-skin willow, so called because it sheds its bark;
the 'snap-wi