ers pecking with their long beaks at the bark of a
fir-tree, in which they find a number of little insects, which serve
them for their food. I lifted Harry up to see them at their work, but he
did not frighten them, and at some long way off we could still hear them
tapping away.

[Illustration]

Just at the corner of the wood, as we were turning round by the side of
the fence, we saw two hares and a rabbit feeding among the clover; one
of them pricked up his ears and looked at us for a moment, and then all
of them ran away across the field much faster than Harry, who tried all
he could to catch them.

[Illustration]

We had not walked much further when we heard a great chattering, and
when we came to a young beech-tree close by the stile, we soon found the
cause of the noise. About two dozen or more of a little bird called the
titmouse had all perched on one tree, where they were pecking, and
fighting, and love-making, and noise-making, all at the same time.
Except the noise made by sparrows when they go to bed on a summer's
evening, I never heard the like.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

While I was amusing myself by watching the titmice, Harry, who had
rambled on a little way, came running back to ask me what the funny
thing could be that he had found. It was a mole that had been caught in
a trap, and was dangling in the air with a swarm of bees around. I told
Harry that the moles are blind, or nearly so, and that they live under
the ground, and do great good to the farmers by eating the slugs and
other things that destroy the corn; but that they turn up such great
mounds of earth when making their tunnels, that the farmers are often
glad to get rid of them, and therefore set traps to kill them.

In the next field we came to, the young wheat had grown up higher than
my knees, and Harry was greatly pleased at running down the furrows and
making the blades of corn bend before him. Presently he stopped and
peeped through an opening, whence he discovered a whole covey of
partridges, the two old birds and seven young ones; they all rose with a
whirring noise, and flew into the field we had just left.

[Illustration]

Soon after the partridges had flown away, Harry was delighted to hear
the well-known voice of the cuckoo; it sounded so near us that we both
started at the first voice, and we soon found out where the cuckoo was.
Like a lazy tyrant, instead of making a house for himself, the cuckoo
takes the fir