o defy the weather, and so
instead of following the bird in search of shelter I sat down among some
low furze bushes and waited and watched. By and by I caught sight of
three magpies, rising one by one at long intervals from the furze and
flying laboriously towards a distant hill-top grove of pines. Then I
heard the wailing cry of a peewit, and caught sight of the bird at a
distance, and soon afterwards a sound of another character--the harsh
angry cry of a carrion crow, almost as deep as the raven's angry voice.
Before long I discovered the bird at a great height coming towards me
in hot pursuit of a kestrel. They passed directly over me so that I had
them a long time in sight, the kestrel travelling quietly on in the face
of the wind, the crow toiling after, and at intervals spurting till he
got near enough to hurl himself at his enemy, emitting his croaks of
rage. For invariably the kestrel with one of his sudden swallow-like
turns avoided the blow and went on as before. I watched them until
they were lost to sight in the coming blackness and wondered that so
intelligent a creature as a crow should waste his energies in that vain
chase. Still one could understand it and even sympathize with him. For
the kestrel is a most insulting creature towards the bigger birds. He
knows that they are incapable of paying him out, and when he finds them
off their guard he will drop down and inflict a blow just for the fun of
the thing. This outraged crow appeared determined to have his revenge.

Then the storm broke on me, and so fiercely did the rain and sleet
thrash me that, fearing a cold soaking, I fled before it to the rim of
the plain, where the wheatear had vanished, and saw a couple of hundred
yards down on the smooth steep slope a thicket of dwarf trees. It was,
the only shelter in sight, and to it I went, to discover much to my
disgust that the trees were nothing but elders. For there is no tree
that affords so poor a shelter, especially on the high open downs, where
the foliage is scantier than in other situations and lets in the wind
and rain in full force upon you.

But the elder affects me in two ways. I like it on account of early
associations, and because the birds delight in its fruit, though they
wisely refuse to build in its branches; and I dislike it because its
smell is offensive to me and its berries the least pleasant of all
wild fruits to my taste. I can eat ivy-berries in March, and yew in its
season, pois