"When the grass grows in Janiveer It grows the worse for it all the year,"

and

"If Candlemas-Day be fine and fair The half of winter's to come and mair; If Candlemas-Day be wet and foul The half of winter was gone at Yule,"

are both rhymes suggesting the probability of wintry weather to follow, if the early weeks of the year are mild and unseasonable, and they may be considered as generally correct prognostications. A neighbouring village had the distinction of possessing a weather prophet, with the reputation also of an astrologer; he could be seen when the stars were gleaming brightly, late at night, gazing upwards and making his deductions, though, in reality, I fancy, his inspiration came from the study of almanacs which profess to foretell the future. He was quiet and reserved, with a spare figure, dark complexion, and an abstracted expression. Occasionally I could induce him to talk, but he did not like to be "drawn." He told me, as one of his original conceptions, that he thought the good people were accommodated in the after-life within the limits of the stars of good influence, and that the wicked had to be content with those of an opposite character.

The proverb about March dust, and "A dry March and a dry May for old England," are both apposite, for they are busy months on the land, and a wet March amounts to a national disaster; but everyone forgives April when showery, for we all know that "April showers bring forth May flowers." Shakespeare, too, says:

"When daffodils begin to peer, With heigh! the doxy over the dale, Why, then comes in the sweet of the year."

A charming sentiment and charmingly rendered, but possibly more accurate when the Old Style was in vogue, and the seasons were nearly a fortnight later than now. The modern "daffys" too, no doubt, "begin to peer" somewhat earlier than those of the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

During a very hot summer I suggested to the Board of Agriculture that it might be worth while to experiment with explosions of artillery, with a view of inducing the clouds to discharge the rain they evidently contain when they keep passing day after day without bursting. I had seen it stated that many great battles had ended in tremendous downpours, and that it was believed that the rain was caused by concussion from the explosions. The Board replied, however, that experiments had been conducted in America for the purpose, without in any way substantiating the theory; and the experiences of the Great War have since conclusively proved that it has no foundation.

As to weather signs, I have already quoted the original pronouncement of my carpenter, T.G., that "the indications for rain are very similar to the indications for fine weather," and there is a good deal in his words. My own conclusion, after fifty years of out-door life on the farm, in the woods, in the garden, at out-door games, and on the roads, is that fine weather brings fine weather, and wet weather brings wet weather, in other words, it never rains but it pours, in an extended sense.

My impression is that when the ground is dry there is a minimum of capillary attraction between it and the clouds, and though the sky may look threatening they do not easily break into rain. On the other hand, when the ground is thoroughly wet and evaporation is active, capillary attraction tends to unite earth and clouds, and rain results. We all know that hill-tops receive showers which frequently pass over the vales without falling, probably because of the greater proximity of the hills. In a long drought a violent thunderstorm, which soaks the ground, will often be followed by a complete change of weather, as the result of contact established between the earth and the clouds.

The best description I know of a really hot and cloudless day is that by Coleridge in the Ancient Mariner:

"The sun came up upon the left, Out of the sea came he; And he shone bright, and on the right Went down into the sea."

The succession of monosyllables expresses most forcibly the monotony of a day of blazing sunshine, unruffled by a cloud; and the absence of incident illustrates the remorseless march of the dominant sun across the heavens.

Very little of my time has been spent in London or any other town, and my early recollections of passing through London on my way to or from school after or before the holidays are of very depressing weather conditions—fog, greasy streets and pavements, or a sun veiled in a haze of smoky vapour. Even when I went to Lord's annually in July to see the Eton and Harrow match my recollection of the weather is of dull, sultry heat and oppression of spirits. Cricket never seemed the same game as I knew and loved at Harrow, or in my own home in Surrey; there was an unreality about it, and a black coat and top hat were insufferably uncongenial.

I am able, as an eye-witness on one of these occasions, to write of an incident which, I think, has been almost forgotten. It was within a year of the marriage of King Edward, then Prince of Wales, and Queen Alexandra. A ball had been hit almost to the boundary, but was stopped by a spectator close to the ropes, thrown in to the fielder, and smartly returned to the wicket-keeper. The batsmen took it for granted that it was a boundary hit, and were changing ends when, one man being out of his ground, the wicket was put down, the wicket-keeper not recognizing that the ball was "dead." The umpire gave the man "out." The man demurred, and immediately shouts arose on all sides: "Out!" "Not out!" "Out!" "Not out!" "Out!" "Not out!" rising in crescendo to a pitch of intense excitement. The boys watching the match, and the other spectators, some agreeing with, and some disputing the verdict, rushed into the centre of the ground, and completely blocked the open space still shouting vociferously. When the turmoil was at its height the carriage of the Prince and Princess was driven on to the ground; one of the players rushed up excitedly, and asked the Prince to decide the matter. The Prince had not seen the incident, and of course declined, as no doubt he would have done under any circumstances, to give an opinion. It was impossible to clear the ground and continue the play that evening, and stumps were drawn for the day. Next morning the fielding side offered the disgusted batsman to continue his innings, but he decided to play the game and abide by the umpire's decision. I forget whether Eton or Harrow was in the field at the time, and after this lapse of years it does not matter. The headmaster always sent a notice round, just before the match, to be read to every form, that the boys were desired not to indulge in any "ironical cheering" at Lord's; this was his euphemism for what we called "chaff," and I fear that on this occasion the warning was disregarded even more completely than usual.

As a child, I generally paid a visit to London with my brothers and sisters during the Christmas holidays to see a pantomime, and I remember an occasion when returning from Covent Garden Theatre after a matinee we all—nine of us—walked over Waterloo Bridge and paid nine halfpennies toll—a circumstance that had never happened before, and never happened again.

In the days before the railway was made between Alton and Farnham the old bailiff on the Will Hall Farm at Alton, who, though quite an elderly man, had never visited London, expressed a wish to visit it for once in his life. His master gave him a holiday and paid his expenses, and the old man drove the ten miles to Farnham Station. Arrived in London he started to walk over Waterloo Bridge, but the further he got the more astonished he became at the traffic, and began to wonder what "fair" all the people could be going to. Feeling very much out of his element he reached the Strand, and looking up and down he saw still greater crowds of passengers and the unending procession of 'buses, cabs, and vans. He became so confused and alarmed that he turned round, went straight back to Waterloo Station, and left by the first available train. He came home disgusted with London, and in an account of the traffic and the people, ended by saying, "I never saw such a place in my life; I couldn't even get a bit of anything to eat until I got back to Farnham." This old man was called "the Great Western": I suppose his bulk and commanding figure were reminiscent of the power and energy of one of the locomotives on that line. He wore a very wide-brimmed straw hat, and a vast expanse of waistcoat with sleeves, without a coat over it, and he had a very determined and masterful habit of speech. Caldecott's sketch of Ready-Money Jack in Bracebridge Hall always recalls him to my mind. He must have been born before the opening of the nineteenth century, for he could remember the stirring events of its early years. Any remark about unusual weather made in his hearing was at once put out of court by his recollections of "eiteen-eiteen" (1818), which seems to have been a very remarkable year for maxima and minima of meteorology. He could remember the high price of wheat during the war which ended at Waterloo, and how his old master, the grandfather of the tenant of the farm in my time, would stand by the men in the barn as they measured up the wheat, bushel by bushel, to fill the sacks, and exclaim as each bushel was poured in, "There goes another guinea, boys!" This would make the price 168s. a quarter; I find the average recorded for 1812 was 126s. 6d., so that it is quite possible that for a time in that year in places 168s. was realized; which leaves us little to grumble at in the price of 80s. during the greatest war in history.

His horizon must have been considerably widened by his brief visit to London; previous to that event it might have been nearly as extensive as that of the hero of a recent story of Pwllheli. Meeting a crony in the town, he remarked that the streets of London would be pretty crowded that day. "How's that?" said his friend. "Why, there's a trip train gone up to-day with fourteen people from Pwllheli!"

Bredon Hill, in the Vale of Evesham, is the direction in which many people look for hints of coming changes of weather.

"When Bredon Hill puts on his cap Ye men of the vale beware of that"

is a well-known proverb referring to the dark curtain of rain clouds obscuring the top, which is generally followed by heavy rain and floods in the Avon meadows and those of all the little streams which join that river. The same purple curtain can be seen on the Cotswolds above Broadway, and is likewise the forerunner of floods in the Vale:

"When you see the rain on the hills You'll shortly find it down by the mills."

There is, too, the beautiful blue hazy distance one sees in very fine weather, which gives a feeling of mystery and remoteness and unexplored possibilities. I lately read somewhere of a man who had passed his life without leaving his native village, though he had often looked far away into the blue distance, and longed to start upon a journey of discovery; for its invitation seemed an assurance that in such beauty there must be something better than he had ever experienced in his own home. There came a day when the appeal was so insistent that he braced himself to the effort, and after many weary miles reached the place of his dreams, only to find that the blue distance had disappeared. Meeting a passer-by he told him of his journey and its object, and of his disappointment, "Look behind you," was the reply. He looked, and behold! over the very spot he had left in the morning—over his own home—the blue haze hung, as a veil of beauty, with its exquisite promise. There is a moral and there is comfort in this tale for him who fancies that he is the victim of circumstances and surroundings. That is the man who, as my bailiff used to say in harvest, has always got a heavier cut of wheat than his neighbour in the same field, and is always finding himself "at the wrong job."



CHAPTER XX.



CHANGING COURSE OF STREAMS—DEWPONDS—A WET HARVEST—WEATHER PHENOMENA—WILL-O'-THE-WISP—VARIOUS.

"There rolls the deep where grew the tree. O Earth, what changes hast thou seen!" —In Memoriam.

"With many a curve my banks I fret By many a field and fallow, And many a fairy foreland set With willow-weed and mallow.

"I chatter, chatter, as I flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever." The Brook.

Living so many years in one place I had unusual opportunities, as my rounds nearly always took me beside my brooks, of watching their slowly changing courses. The roots of the pollard willows helped to keep them to their regular path by holding up the banks, but sometimes when an old tree fell into the water it had an opposite result. A fallen tree, reaching partly across the stream, has the immediate effect of damming the flow of the water on the side of its growth and diverting the current towards the opposite bank in a narrowed but more powerful advance, so that the bank is worn away and the beginning of a bend is formed. As the breach increases, the water, momentarily retarded there by the new concavity, rushes forward again in the direction of the bank from which the tree fell. So that a second concavity is produced on that side some little way below the tree, resulting in the slow formation of an extended S-like figure, or hook with a double bend. The collection of rubbish and sediment retained by the fallen tree helps to form a new bank on that side, extending further into the stream than the bank on which the tree originally stood.

As this process continues it is easy to see that a straight stretch of stream will in time assume a winding course, and the stream will be continually altering its path, so that large areas of flat meadows will be formed, every part of which has at times been the stream's course. How many ages, then, must it have taken to produce the level meadows we see extending for immense distances on either side of our big rivers, and even those adjoining quite small streams? The level surface thus created by the river or brook's course perpetually deflected and reflected, is finally completed by the floods bringing down a deposit of soil in solution, which is precipitated and settles into any surface irregularities left by the wanderings of the stream. A faint conception of an absolutely illimitable cycle of years, during which the whole extent of visible flat meadow has been again and again eroded and restored, is thus conveyed.

Confirmation of this alteration of their courses by streams is afforded when we cut a main drain through one of these meadows, to carry the water from the connected furrow drains of adjoining arable land. The alluvial soil can be found as deep as the depth of the present brook, free from the stones found in the arable land, and containing, to the same depth as the brook, fresh water shells similar to those in the brook to-day. There was a bend in course of formation in one of my brooks, where the stump of a tree, whose fall was the starting-point, could be seen standing in the newly-formed ground, a yard or more from the stream when I left, though I can remember when it was so near as almost to touch the water.

If we form an S from a piece of wire, and pinch it together from top to bottom, the loops become so flattened, [S], that one of them may almost unite with the central curve. The same thing often happens in the loops of a brook, and, in time, the stream will complete the junction, forming a short circuit.[2] Thus an island may be formed; or when the old loop opposite the short circuit gets filled up with deposit or falling banks—the water preferring the short circuit—a piece of land may be cut off from one of the former sides of the brook and transferred to the other, so that where the brook is a boundary between two owners or parishes one owner or parish may be robbed and the other owner or parish becomes a receiver of stolen goods. There was an instance of this on the farm I owned and occupied adjoining the Aldington Manor property, and the owner and the tenant of the piece transferred to my side could not reach it without walking through the brook. In this case, however, the tenant had wisely planted the ground with withies, which he managed to get at for lopping when its turn came round every seven years. Thus we have an example of the necessity of the ancient practice of beating the bounds, which, at least before the days of ordnance surveys, was not merely an opportunity for a holiday.

Another proof of the creation of new land by the meanderings of a stream is found in the ancient "carrs" of North Lincolnshire, near Brigg, where the hollowed-out logs of black bog oak, which formed the canoes of the ancient inhabitants, are sometimes discovered many feet below the surface, and long distances from the present course of the Ancholme. These having sunk to the bottom of the river in past ages, and gradually become covered with alluvium, were left behind as the river changed its course. In some cases however these canoes may have sunk to the bottom of the water when it formed a lake, and the lake having gradually silted up, the river receded to something like its present width.

The floods in the Vale of Evesham from the Avon and even from my brooks, often converted the adjoining flat meadows into lakes, and they rose so suddenly after heavy rains or the melting of deep snowfalls on the hills, that they were attended with danger to the stock.

In the summer of 1879 one of these sudden floods occurred, and people standing on Evesham bridge, saw fallen trees and hay-cocks floating down the stream. A pollard willow was noticed with a crew of about twenty land rats, which had found refuge there until the tree itself was lifted by the rising water and carried down the stream; and a floating hay-cock supported a man's jacket, his jar of cider, and his "shuppick." The local word "shuppick," a corruption of "sheaf-pike," means a pike used for loading the sheaves of wheat in the harvest field on to the waggon, and is the "fork" in general use at hay-making. During another summer flood the whole of the pleasure ground at Evesham, beside the Avon, was under water several feet deep; the water poured in at the lower windows of the adjoining hotel, and the proprietor's casks of beer and cider in the cellars, ready for the regatta, were lifted from their stands and bumped against walls and ceilings.

Every parish has its Council in these days, and in country places almost every other person one meets is a councillor of some sort, and inclined to be proud of the distinction. These Councils are excellent safety-valves for parochial malcontents who thus harmlessly let off superfluous steam which might otherwise ruffle the abiding calm of peaceful inhabitants, but their powers are really very limited. In a village in Worcestershire where an approach road crossed a brook by a ford, during floods the current was sometimes so strong as to constitute a danger to horses and carts. The village pundits therefore, in council duly assembled, considered the matter, and after an extended debate the following resolution was carried unanimously, "That a notice board be erected on the spot bearing the inscription: When this board is covered with water it is dangerous to attempt to cross the ford."

The numerous brooks in the Vale of Evesham supply ample water for the stock, but in more elevated parts, especially on the chalk Downs of Sussex, Hants, Wilts, and Dorset, provision is made for an artificial water supply by what are called "dewponds." A shallow saucer-shaped depression is dug out on the open Down, the bottom being made water-tight by puddling with a well-rammed layer of impervious clay. The first heavy rainfall fills the pond, and, the water being colder than the air, the dew or mist condenses on its surface sufficiently, in ordinary weather, to maintain the supply. In a dry time the sheep can always reach the water, the pond having no banks, by the shelving formation of the bottom. Sometimes a few trees are allowed to grow round it; they also act as condensers, and their drip helps to fill the pond. It is only in an abnormal drought that these dewponds really fail, and a thunderstorm, followed by ordinary weather, will soon refill them. Gilbert White, in The Natural History of Selborne, refers to these ponds in a very interesting letter on the subject, including details of condensation by trees, in which he gives an instance of a particular pond, high up on the Down, 300 feet above his house, and situated in such a position that it was impossible for it to receive any water from springs or drainage, which "though never above three feet deep in the middle, and not more than thirty feet in diameter, and containing, perhaps, not more than two or three hundred hogsheads of water, yet never is known to fail, though it affords drink for three hundred or four hundred sheep, and for at least twenty head of large cattle besides."

The natural well-water in the Vale of Evesham is exceedingly hard, and in the town and some villages was formerly much contaminated. After great opposition from obstructive ratepayers, a splendid supply was obtained from the Cotswolds above Broadway, about six miles away, of much softer and really pure spring water. It comes in pipes by gravitation, so there is no expense of pumping; but it was difficult to get recalcitrant ratepayers to lay the water on from the mains to their houses, as that part of the cost had to be borne by them individually; and, before compulsion could be resorted to, the Council had to prove contamination of the wells and close them. To get the evidence samples were submitted to a London analyst, and they were invariably condemned. One of the Councillors suggested sending, with a number of well samples, a sample of the new supply "for a fad." The samples were numbered, but had no other distinguishing mark, and in due course the usual condemnations were received, including that of the new town supply!

During the wet harvest of 1879, when what was called by townspeople the agricultural depression, was becoming acute, it was impossible to get a whole day on which wheat could be carried. The position was serious, because the grain was sprouting in the sheaves in the field, and time after time a fairly dry Saturday would have allowed carrying the following day, though Monday was always as wet as ever. At last at Aldington we faced the situation and decided to proceed with the work whenever possible, Sunday or no Sunday. A fine drying Saturday occurred, and my bailiff told the men what we proposed, adding that we did not wish anyone to help who had scruples as to the day. They all appeared on Sunday morning, a brilliant day, except one "conscientious objector," who, as I heard later, spent most of the day at the public-house. We got up two ricks from about ten acres, which eventually proved to be some of the driest wheat we had that year, and which I was able to sell for seed at a good price, to go into districts where no dry seed wheat could be found.

My old vicar was somewhat scandalized at this Sunday work, and some of my neighbours fancied themselves shocked, but a day or two later I happened to meet another clergyman friend, who farmed a little himself. "I was so pleased," he said, "to hear that you were carrying wheat last Sunday; when I was preaching I was strongly disposed to conclude by telling my people—'Now you have been to church, go home to your dinners, and then off with your jackets and carry wheat for the rest of the day.'" Next Sunday all my neighbours were busy with their wheat, but I had managed to complete my harvest during the previous week, on the 8th of October, quite a month or six weeks later than usual, and an extraordinary contrast to the very dry year 1868, when all the corn on the farm, I was told, was carried before the last day of July.

I attended a neighbour's sale that autumn; the wet seasons and the low prices had been too much for him, and he was leaving for the United States; his rick-yard was empty, all the corn sold, and nothing but straw left. I heard him remark, "Folks are saying that I'm very backward with my payments, but I'm very forward with my thrashing, anyway!" Before the following spring nearly all the rick-yards were empty, and wheat-ricks, it was said, were as scarce as churches—one in each parish. The situation was summed up later in a phrase which passed into a proverb: "In 1879 farmers lived on faith, in 1880 they are living on hope, and in 1881 they will have to live on charity."

The attitude of the towns was one of apathy and indifference, like that of the General in Bracebridge Hall, which, published in 1822, proves how history repeats itself in agricultural as in other matters:

"He is amazingly well-contented with the present state of things, and apt to get a little impatient at any talk about national ruin and agricultural distress. 'They talk of public distress,' said the General this day to me at dinner, as he smacked a glass of rich burgundy and cast his eyes about the ample board: 'They talk of public distress, but where do we find it, sir? I see none; I see no reason anyone has to complain. Take my word for it, sir, this talk about public distress is all humbug!'"

At Evesham, long before the depression grew into a debacle, the shadows of coming events could easily be detected. There was the disappearance of the long rows of farmers' conveyances at the inns in the town on market-days; there was the eclipse of shops—for other than necessities—such as a little fish shop, opposite the corner at the cross roads; a corner where much business was formerly transacted in the open street, and where I myself have sold by sample some thousands of sacks of wheat. A tempting little shop it used to be, displaying shining Severn salmon; and it was here that the farmers, after the market, obtained the supplies commanded by the missus at home.

And there was the abandonment of the Corn Market proper, for the class of farmers who survived hated to transact their business indoors. The attendance of millers and dealers, except of those who had cargoes of foreign corn at Gloucester or Bristol to dispose of, became irregular. Sales of farm stock and implements took place in every village on farms which had passed from father to son for generations, coupled with the sacrifice of valuable implements and machinery for want of buyers. There followed the stage when landowners who could find no tenants, and had heavily mortgaged estates, essayed to make the best of them by laying away the arable land to pasture, undertaking the management themselves with, perhaps, an old broken-down tenant as bailiff. The politicians and the general public did not apprehend the danger of the situation, in spite of innumerable warnings, until the German submarines were sending our foreign food supplies to the bottom of the sea; and now that the immediate danger of starvation has passed, they appear already to have lapsed again into an attitude of apathy.

We hear the blessed word "reconstruction" on every side, but the only official propositions for the permanent establishment of agricultural prosperity that I have heard are utterly inadequate. It is ridiculous to suppose that a few thousand acres of special crops, like tobacco, for instance, only possible in favoured spots, can in any way compensate for the loss of millions of acres of arable land under rotations of corn and green crops. Under present conditions nothing is more certain than the abandonment of arable land as such; and it is folly to talk of novel systems of transport for a dwindling output, or of building labourers' cottages at an unjustifiable cost, which are never likely to be wanted by a dying industry.

Among my experiences of abnormal weather, I have a note of a remarkable summer flood on July 21, 1875, when my hay was lying in the meadows beside the brooks, and had to be removed to higher ground in pouring rain to prevent its disappearance with the current. On the following day, July 22, the highest flood since 1845 occurred at Evesham.

October 14, 1877, was memorable for the most terrific south-west gale that happened in all the years I passed at Aldington; thirteen trees, mostly old apple trees and elms, were blown down, including the splendid veteran "Chate boy" pear tree at Blackminster, an exceedingly sad and irreparable loss. The gale blew hardest in special tracks, the course of which could be followed by the destruction of trees and branches in distinct lanes, cut through woods and plantations.

The winter of 1880-1881 was very severe, the mean temperature of January, 1881, being 27.8 degrees F., the coldest January since 1820. Ten years later, 1890-1891, another very prolonged winter occurred: the frost began on the 6th of December, and, with scarcely a break, continued till well into February. The feature of this frost was the fine settled weather, and the warmth of the midday sun in the brilliant air, when skaters could sit on the river banks and enjoy their rest and lunch in its rays. I took my elder daughter back to school at Richmond at the end of January, and in London we saw the Thames choked by huge hummocks of ice, on which people were crossing the river. An ox was roasted whole on the Avon at Evesham, and, when the frost broke up, the ice on our millpond was 17 inches thick.

Another great frost happened in 1894-1895, beginning late in December, and lasting till the end of February, with a single intervening week of thaw; and in March the ground, in places, was too hard to plough. It was the only time that I was completely at a loss to find work for my men; all the carting was finished in the early days of the frost, and all the thrashing possible followed; ploughing and all working of the land, or draining, were impracticable. The men, seeing that there would be no employment for them until the frost broke up, told me that if they might get what wood they could from fallen trees in the brook, and if I would lend them horses and carts to get it home, they would be glad to work in that way for themselves for a time. Just as they had cleared both brooks from end to end of the farm which occupied them about ten days, the thaw came and I was able to find them plenty to do.

We suffered very little from droughts at Aldington, the land was naturally so retentive of moisture, but 1893 was a dry year, not easily forgotten; no rain fell from early in March to July 13; the hay crop was the lightest in remembrance, and straw was so short and scarce that the hay-ricks of the following year, 1894, had to go unthatched until the harvest of that year provided the necessary straw.

The spring of 1895 was remarkable for a plague of the caterpillars of the winter-moth, due to the destruction of insect-eating birds by the great frost; the caterpillars devoured the young leaves of the plum-trees, so that whole orchards were completely stripped. The balance between insectivorous birds and caterpillar life was destroyed for a time, and the caterpillars conquered the plum-trees. In 1917, during the persistent north-east blasts of February, March, and part of April, the destruction of birds was terrible; all the tit tribe suffered greatly, and the charming little golden-crested wren, which here in the Forest was quite common, has scarcely been seen since. Caterpillars again were a plague in my apple trees that spring, but were not really destructive, and in the autumn the apples escaped their usual punishment from the birds and wasps. Tits are often very troublesome; they peck holes in the fruit, apparently in search of the larvae of the codlin moth, leaving an opening for wasps and flies. I find the berries of the laurel, which is a species of cherry, very attractive to blackbirds, and as long as there are any left they seem to prefer them to the apples. In 1895 cuckoos came to the rescue of my young plum orchard; there were dozens of them at work on the nine acres at once, and they must have cleared away an immense number of the grubs.

The most remarkable season we have had since I left Aldington was the great drought of 1911. There was no rain here worth mention from June 22, the Coronation of King George V., until August 30, and the pastures on this thin land were burnt up. On August 30 we had some friends for tennis, and we had not been playing long before a mighty cloud-burst occurred; the rain fell in torrents. "It didn't stop to rain, it tumbled down," as my men used to say, and in about half an hour the lawn was a sheet of water, the ground being so hard, that it could not soak away. It was all over in an hour, and a neighbour with a rain-gauge registered 0.66 of an inch of rain, equal to 66 tons on an acre, or 330 tons on my five acres.

One of my ambitions has always been to see a Will-o'-the-wisp, and I am still hoping; but that hot summer, had I known it at the time, they were quite common within an easy walk of my house in the New Forest. There was some correspondence on the subject in The Observer, and the following is extracted from one of the letters:

"As none of your correspondents seem to be aware of a comparatively recent instance, I write to say that there were enough indubitable Will-o'-the-wisps to convince the most incredulous during the extremely hot weather of July, 1911.

"From July 18 to 22 I was at Thorney Hill in the New Forest, some seven miles behind Christchurch. Owing to the abnormal drought the bogs and bog-streams at the foot of the hill westward were all but dry; a dense mist, however, sometimes rose from them at night. On July 19, and the three following nights, the Will-o'-the-wisps were in great form over the bog. They were like small balls of bluish fire, which projected themselves with hops and jerks across the most inaccessible parts of the bog, starting always, so far as could be told, from where a little stagnant moisture still remained. They moved with an erratic velocity, so to speak, appearing and reappearing at distances of several hundred yards. There wasn't the slightest doubt of their authenticity.

"The inhabitants of Thorney Hill, I believe, regarded these appearances with alarm, as being, though not exactly novelties, harbingers of much misfortune. But the drought was quite bad enough, without having the Jack-o'-lanterns to accentuate it!"

This instance was the more remarkable as I have never succeeded in finding anyone, even among people who are constantly on duty in the Forest, who could testify to having seen a Will-o'-the-wisp.

Waterspouts are, I believe, more frequently seen at sea than on land, but I have an account from my brother, Mr. F.E. Savory, of one he saw many years ago in Wiltshire. He writes:

"When I was at Manningford Bruce in 1873 or 1874, I saw a dense black cloud travelling towards the southeast, the lower part of which became pointed like a funnel in shape, waving about as it descended until, I suppose, the attraction of the earth overcame the cohesion of the cloud's vapour, and it discharged itself. I could see it looking lighter and lighter, from the middle outwards, until it was entirely dispersed. I heard that the water fell on the side of the Down near Collingbourne, about five miles off, and washed some of the soil away, but I did not see that. The weather was stormy, but I do not remember the time of year or any other particulars."

It would seem that a waterspout is caused by a whirlwind entering a cloud and gathering vapour together by its rotary action into such a heavy mass that it descends in the funnel shape described. We are all familiar with the small whirlwinds that travel across a road in summer, carrying the dust round and round with them; these are called "whirly-curlies" in Worcestershire, and are regarded as a sign of fine weather. I have sometimes seen quite a strong one crossing rows of hay just ready to carry, cutting a clean track through each row, and leaving the ground bare where it passed. The hay is often carried to a great height, and sometimes dropped in an adjoining field.

On a bright morning in summer one often sees, a little distance away, a tremulous or flickering movement in the air, not far from the ground, which Tennyson refers to in In Memoriam, as, "The landscape winking thro' the heat"; and again in The Princess:

"All the rich to come Reels, as the golden Autumn woodland reels Athwart the smoke of burning weeds."

I am told that this appearance is "due to layers of air of different degrees of refracting power, in motion, relative to one another. Air at different temperatures will refract light differently." In Hampshire this phenomenon is known by the pretty name of "the summer dance."

Since I came to the Forest I have seen two very curious and, I think, unusual natural appearances. As I was cycling one rather dull afternoon from Wimborne to Ringwood, I noticed a colourless rainbow, or perhaps I should say, "mist-bow," for there was no rain, and the sun was partially obscured. The sun was about south-west, and the bow was north-east; it was merely a series of well-defined but colourless segments of circles, close to each other but shaded so as to make them distinguishable, arranged exactly like a rainbow but without a trace of colour beyond a grey uniformity. It was on my left for several miles, perhaps half of the total distance of nine miles between the two towns.

Cycling another day between Lyndhurst and Burley, I reached the east entrance of Burley Lodge, which is on higher ground than the farm spread out to the right in the valley. The whole valley was filled with thick white mist, as level as a lake, so that nothing could be seen of the fields. The setting sun was low down at the further extremity of the valley, and the surface of the mist-lake reflected its rays in a rosy sheen, with a track of brighter light in the middle, stretching from the far end of the lake in a broad path almost to where I was standing; just as we see the track of sunlight or moonlight, sometimes, on the sea, from the shore. This phenomenon is not uncommon when one is looking down from the top of a hill in the sunshine, upon a valley full of mist, but I have never seen it before from comparatively low ground, as on this occasion.

My summers at Aldington were nearly always too busy to allow me to take a holiday, except for a very few days, but when the urgent work of the year was over, the harvest completed, and the hops and the fruit picked, we always had a clear month away from home, about the middle of October to the middle of November; and, as we found the autumn much less advanced in the south than in the midlands, we often spent the time on the south coast or in the Isle of Wight, and we were nearly always favoured by fine weather. On one of these occasions, when we were exploring the whole island on bicycles, I never once found it necessary to carry a waterproof cape, though in the course of this visit we rode over 600 miles.



CHAPTER XXI.



BIRDS: PEACOCKS—A WHITE PHEASANT—ROOKS' ARITHMETIC.

"Hail to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from heaven or near it, Pourest thy full heart." —SHELLEY: To a Skylark.

We read of the peacocks which Solomon's navy of Tarshish brought once in three years with other rare and precious commodities to contribute to the splendour of his court; and doubtless their magnificence added a distinct feature even where so much that was beautiful was to be seen; but, to show itself off to the best advantage, one cannot imagine a better place for a peacock than a grey old English home, round whose mellow stone walls time is lingering lovingly. The touch of brilliant life beside the appeal of the venerable past adds perfection to the picture. I have always had an immense admiration for peacocks, and soon after I came to Aldington I bought a pair. The cock we named Gabriel Junks, after the famous bird in one of Scrutator's books; he was a grand presence, and loved to display the huge fan of his gorgeously-eyed tail, quivering his rattling quills in all the glory of its greens and blues, and cinnamon-coloured wing feathers, on the little piece of lawn under the chestnut trees in front of the Manor.

He learned to come to the window every morning at breakfast-time for a piece of bread-and-butter, and if the window was closed he would rap impatiently upon it with his beak. He roosted in the orchard just across the road on the trunk of an ancient leaning apple-tree. One night Bell heard a terrible fluttering, and looking out saw a fox making off with the peacock; he shouted and the fox dropped the peacock and bolted. Gabriel was not hurt, but sadly ruffled inwardly and outwardly, though, next day, he was quite happy and apparently unconscious of his narrow escape. But alas! some months later Reynard paid another visit, and poor Gabriel was never seen again. Some years after we bought another pair, not nearly so tame as the first, and sometimes flying on to the cottage roofs and scraping holes in the thatch in which to bask in the sun. The villagers complained that the birds sat under their black currant bushes, and devoured the currants as fast as they ripened! We could not keep them within bounds, and later sold them to St. John's College, Oxford, where we saw them soon afterwards in good plumage, and exactly in keeping with their beautiful surroundings.

One of my neighbours appeared to find these birds a special infliction, and complained of the invasion of his premises by "them paycocks." The word "pea" is always rendered "pay" in Worcestershire, and, like "tay" for "tea," is probably the old correct pronunciation. I lately saw a notice on some tumble-down premises near Southampton, "Pay and bane stiks for sale." Another notice, not too happily composed, is to be seen at a Forest village; after the owner's name, "Carpenter, builder and undertaker—repairs neatly executed."

The neighbour referred to was exercised in his mind as to my position in various unwelcome parochial offices, but I was completely mystified when he told me that he had read in history of a King Alfred, but had never heard of a King Arthur. I did not grasp the force of his remark, possibly because King Arthur was a familiar character to me, until I was nearly at my own door, when it dawned upon me to my intense enjoyment. If the reader fails, like me, to see the point, let him turn to the title-page of this book, and read the name of the writer.

The only real objection to peacocks, under ordinary conditions, is the discordance of their cries, especially in thundery weather, when they scream in answer to every thunder-clap. Cock pheasants, relatives of the peacock, crow loudly at any unusual noise; and I have known them expostulate at the report of a gun; they took flight, after running to a safe distance, and their crow appeared to be in the nature of a challenge or defiance, just as a barn-door cock will exult if you give him the idea that he has driven you away.

When the vessel which carried the coffin of Queen Victoria was crossing the Solent, in 1901, some very heavy salutes were fired from the battleships, and, the day being still and the air clear, the detonations carried to an immense distance. They were distinctly heard at Moreton-in-the-Marsh, only fourteen miles from Aldington and a distance of nearly one hundred miles from the guns, in a direct line. The reports were so loud at Woodstock, near Oxford, that the pheasants began crowing in the Blenheim preserves.

At Alton there were some extensive woods and coppices on the farm, which were favourite breeding-places for pheasants, being dry and sunny. Some months before October 1, when pheasant shooting begins, a white pheasant was seen, and although he disappeared for a time, he fell eventually to the gun of the tenant. He was a beautiful bird, and was considered worth stuffing as a rarity. Albinism is not uncommon in the blackbird; I have seen two partial instances lately; one was constantly visible in my garden and meadows, with head nearly all white, and the other I saw in the public garden at Bournemouth, with the peculiarity still more developed. A white martin, or swallow, came into the house of a friend near Aldington, and was regarded as an unfavourable omen. Melanism, the opposite of albinism, is rarer, and the only instance I have seen was that of a black bullfinch at Aldington; it had evidently been mobbed as a stranger by other birds of its kind, as it was injured and nearly dead when captured. I had the specimen stuffed as a curiosity, though I am not fond of stuffed birds. It is said that hemp-seed, if given in undue quantities to cage bullfinches, will produce the black colour, even upon a bird of quite natural plumage originally, and a case of the kind is mentioned by Gilbert White.

Aldington, with its quiet apple orchards and the "island" and shrubberies below my garden, was a happy refuge for birds of all kinds, and the old pollard-willow heads a favourite nesting-place. Worcestershire people have some very curious names for birds, and some of these are also heard in Hampshire and Dorset. The green woodpecker is the "stock-eagle," "ekal," or "hickle," both in Worcestershire and Hampshire, and the word survives too in "Hickle Brook" in the Forest, and in "Hickle Street," a part of Buckle Street in Worcestershire. As a boy I once marked a green woodpecker into one of the round holes we see quite newly cut by the bird in an oak; getting a butterfly net I clapped it over the hole, caught the bird, took it home and placed it in a wicker cage. Then, returning to the tree with a chisel and mallet, I cut a hole about a foot below the entrance to the nest, only to find young birds instead of the eggs for which I had hoped. I went home to see how my captive was getting on; she was gone, and her method of escape was plain, one or two of the wicker bars being neatly cut through. I had forgotten the power of "stocking" of a "stock-eagle," for that is the meaning of the prefix in the name.

The laughing cry of the green woodpecker, or "yaffle," as the bird is by onomatopoeia called in some parts, is regarded as a sign of rain. I doubt whether it should be always so interpreted, for I know it is sometimes a sign of distress or call for help, having heard it from one in full flight from a pursuing hawk. Other curious local names of birds in Worcestershire are "Blue Isaac" for hedge sparrow, "mumruffin" for long-tailed tit, "maggot" for magpie, and the heron is always called "bittern" (really quite a distinct bird). There are innumerable rhymes as to the signification of numbers where magpies are concerned, but the most complete I have heard runs thus:

"One's joy, two's grief, Three's marriage, four's death, Five's heaven, six is hell, Seven's the devil his own sel'."

Other rhymes make "one" an unlucky number, and there are many people in Worcestershire who never see a solitary magpie without touching their hats to avert the omen, and convert it to one of good-luck; as a man once said to me, "It is as well not to lose a chance."

The kingfisher, I suppose the most beautiful of British birds, was, with all my brooks, a common bird at Aldington. Its steady flight, following the course of a stream, and its brilliant colouring make it very conspicuous, its turquoise blue varying to dark green, and its orange breast flashing in the sun. I found a nest in a water-rat's old hole, with six very transparent white eggs, deriving a rosy tint from the yolk, almost visible, within the shell. The hole had an entrance above the bank, descended vertically, turned at a right angle where the nest, merely a layer of small fish-bones, was placed, and ended horizontally on the side of the bank. I once saw six young kingfishers sitting side by side on a dead branch, close together, evidently just out of the nest. And I was fortunate in seeing a kingfisher dart upon the water, hover for an instant like a hawk-moth over honeysuckle, and, having caught a small gudgeon, fly away with it in its beak. They, like the martin, always perch on leafless wood, so that the leaves shall not impede their flight when pouncing upon a fish, and no doubt this is the reason they sometimes perch on the top joint of the rod of a hidden fisherman.

The nuthatch, called here the "mud-dauber," from its habit of narrowing the hole of a starling's old nest, with mud, for its own use as a nesting-place, is a more common bird in the Forest than in Worcestershire. It is a provident bird, firmly wedging hazel nuts in the autumn into crevices of the Scots-fir, for a winter store, Bewick mentions that it uses these crevices as vices, to hold the nut securely, while it cracks it; but he does not recognize the fact that they have been stored long previously. I have seen a great number of nuts so stored and quite sound.

Bewick, by the way, who wrote his History of British Birds in 1797, presents in one of his inimitable "tailpiece" wood-cuts a prevision of the aeroplane. The picture shows the airman seated in a winged car, guiding with reins thirteen harnessed herons as the motive power, and mounting upwards, apparently very near the moon. If he can see the modern interpretation of his dream he must be pleasantly surprised. Bewick's woodcock is one of the most beautiful portraits in the book: the accurate detail of the feather markings of the wings and back and the softer tone of the breast are as nearly perfection as possible. A woodcock visited Aldington in one of the very severe winters but managed to elude all pursuers. It has been said, and also contradicted, that the woodcock when rising from the ground uses its long bill as a lever to assist its starting, just as an oarsman pushes off from the bank with a boat-hook or oar; I myself have seen one rising from a bare and marshy place, and the position of its bill certainly gave me the impression that the idea was well founded.

The woodcock often breeds in the south of England, but is usually a migrating bird, arriving during the first moon in November; it is not difficult to shoot when it first rises, but when steam is really up and it is zig-zagging between the branches of an oak, it takes a good shot to make sure of it. I shall never forget the first woodcock I shot as a boy; it was a thick misty day in November, I fired, and though I felt certain I had not missed, the smoke hung and the air was too thick to see, and, after a long search, I left the wood and was going home when our old spaniel, Flush, turned his head to examine something in a deep cart rut. Following the direction of his eyes, I saw my woodcock; it must have flown 100 yards or more after I fired. I was still more pleased with the last shot I fired in our old Surrey covers at a woodcock going like an express train—and faster, for they are said to fly at the rate of 150 miles an hour—with all his tricks, through thick branches in the adjoining cover, where he fell at least 65 yards from where I stood. A friend of mine had the good-fortune to see an old woodcock, which had evidently bred in his woods, flying, followed by five or six young ones; he said it was one of the prettiest bits of natural history he had ever seen.

"If a woodcock had a partridge's breast He'd be the best bird that ever was dressed; If a partridge had a woodcock's thigh He'd be the best bird that ever did fly."

is a very old description, and fairly divides the honours between the two birds.

The hawfinch is very easily recognized by its distinct and beautiful colouring; it is a shy bird, and though it bred regularly at Aldington, we rarely saw it. It is commoner here, and is sometimes very destructive, its powerful beak making havoc with the "marrowfats"; but, though I am partial to green peas of this description, I would sooner suffer some damage than have the hawfinches shot.

In 1918 the cuckoos were exceedingly numerous here, and round my house they were calling all day long. Owing to the terrible winter and early spring months of the previous year, so many of the insectivorous birds had been destroyed, that the caterpillars had escaped, and were more numerous than ever in the following spring. The oaks in places were completely stripped of their foliage by the larvae of Tortrix viridana, almost as soon as the leaves were out. The cuckoos discovered them, but were not in sufficient numbers to keep them down, and it was midsummer before the trees recovered. I have referred to the damage in my plum orchard at Aldington from the attack of the larvae of the winter-moth; the damage is not confined to the actual year of its occurrence, the crop suffers the following year owing to the previous defoliation of the tree, which is weakened and is unable to mature healthy fruit buds. At Aldington, in a hot summer, the cuckoos used to call nearly all night, and I have heard them when it was quite dark.

For some years, until 1918, goldfinches were quite common in Hampshire and Dorsetshire. I have seen a flock of over forty together. I had seven nests on my premises here one summer; they go on breeding very late, and I have found their nests with young birds half-fledged while summer-pruning apple trees in August. They come into my garden close to the windows in May, after the ripening seeds of the myosotis (forget-me-not) in the spring-bedding. I never remember seeing a goldfinch at Aldington, which should show that the thistles were well under control, for the seed is a great attraction. One often hears the practice of allowing thistles to run to seed condemned as criminal, for everybody knows that each thistle-down, carried by the wind, contains a seed, and that the attachment of a light structure of plumes is one of Nature's methods of ensuring dissemination. But, in Worcestershire, it is always asserted that thistle seed will not germinate—I am referring to Cnicus arvensis—and it is said that a prize of L50 offered for a seedling thistle remains unclaimed to this day. I failed, myself, in trying to obtain young plants from seeds sown in a flower-pot, and I have never seen a seedling in all the thousands of miles I must have walked over young cornfields when my men were hoeing.

I have heard an interesting story about rooks which were causing a farmer much damage in a field newly sown with peas. He erected a small shelter of hurdles, from which to shoot them, and for a time the shelter was sufficient to scare them, until they got used to it; but, when he entered it with his gun, they would not come near. Thinking to deceive their sentinel, watching from a tree, he took a companion to the shelter, who remained for a time and then left, but still no rooks came near. The farmer then took two companions, and presently sent them both away. The arithmetic was too much for the rooks, and the scheme succeeded. He concluded that their powers of enumeration were limited to counting "two," and that "three" was beyond them.

Nightingales are scarce in the Forest; they do not like the solitude of the great woods, apparently preferring to inhabit roadsides and places where people and traffic are constantly passing. They are specially abundant at the foot of the Cotswolds, and it is a treat to cycle steadily along the road between Broadway and Weston Subedge on a summer evening, where you no sooner lose the liquid notes of one, than you enter the territory of another, so continuous is the song for miles together.

In severe winters wood-pigeons did much damage at Aldington to young clover a few inches high; they roosted in "the island" adjoining my garden. When they first descended they alighted in the wide-spreading branches of the leafless black poplars, where they could see all round, and reconnoitre the position; then, if all was quiet, in about ten minutes they took to the shelter of the fir trees for the night with much fluttering and beating of wings against the thick branches. They devour the acorns in the Forest very greedily in the autumn, and I have seen one with crop so full that on my approach it could only with difficulty fly away to a short distance. I found it near a small pond where, apparently, it had been drinking, and the acorns had expanded to an inconvenient extent.

The golden-crested wren was a common bird here before the severe winter of 1916-1917, but it has since become comparatively rare; it is the smallest of British birds, and could often be seen in the hedges exploring every twig and crevice for insects, and it was a great pleasure to watch the nimble movements of such a sweet little fairy. Its first cousin, the fire-crest, which is almost its exact counterpart, except for the flame-coloured crest, is much rarer; and I only remember seeing one specimen, to which with great circumspection I managed to approach quite closely, in the wood near my house.

One morning, at Aldington, the gardener came in to say there was a hawk in the greenhouse near the rickyard; we found a pane of glass broken, where it had unintentionally entered in pursuit of a sparrow; the hawk was uninjured, and flew away quite unconcernedly on the opening of the door. Another hawk, here in Burley, was found dead near my drawing-room bow-window. It had dashed itself against a pane of thick plate-glass while in pursuit of a starling, I think; seeing the light through the bow, it had not recognized the glass, and must have collided with it in the act of swooping. I have several times seen hawks descend like a flash from a tree, and select an unlucky starling from a flock; one blow on the head settled the victim before I could reach the spot, but sometimes the hawk had to leave its prize behind it.

I was watching a number of young chicks feeding outside the coops containing the mother hens, when there suddenly arose a great disturbance, and a hawk, which had pounced upon a chick, was seen flying away with it in its talons. Its flight was impeded by the weight of the chicken, and we gave chase shouting. Flying very low it carried its prey to the further side of the meadow, but, seeing that it could not get quickly through the trees there, it dropped the chicken and escaped; we picked up the poor frightened infant, which was not injured, and restored it to a perturbed but joyful mother. "As yaller as a kite's claw," is a simile one hears in the country, and it is common to both Hampshire and Worcestershire.

I never saw the wheatear in Worcestershire, but here I notice several pairs on the moors in summer. They were once very plentiful on the Sussex Downs and seaside cliffs, and as a boy walking from my first school at Rottingdean to visit my people at Brighton, from Saturday to Sunday night, I have passed hundreds of traps consisting of rectangular holes cut in the turf, having horsehair nooses inside, set by the shepherds who took thousands of wheatears to the poulterers' shops in the town. They were then considered a great delicacy. Other professional bird-catchers operated with large clap-nets, and a string attached in the hands of the catcher some distance away. When they were after larks a revolving mirror, flashing in the sun, was considered very attractive; I suppose the birds approached from motives of curiosity.[3] Many thousands were caught for the London and Brighton markets for lark pies and puddings, a wicked bathos, when we remember Wordsworth's lines:

"There is madness about thee, and joy divine In that song of thine."

One severe winter an immense flock of golden plovers haunted my land and neighbouring farms for some weeks, but they were exceedingly shy, and being perfect strangers, they were difficult to identify, until I brought one down by a very long shot, and we could see what a beautiful bird it was. We could always tell when really severe winter weather was coming, by the flocks of wild geese that passed overhead in V-shaped formation. They were said to be leaving the mouth of the Humber and the East Coast for the warmer shores of the Bristol Channel, evidently quite aware that the latter, within the influence of the Gulf Stream, were more desirable as winter-quarters. Evesham is in the direct line between the two places, and we often heard them calling at night as they passed. In the early spring when the severe weather was-over they returned by the same route.



CHAPTER XXII.

PETS: SUSIE—COCKY—TRUMP—CHIPS—WENDY—TAFFY.

"The heart is hard in nature and unfit For human fellowship, as being void Of sympathy, and therefore dead alike To love and friendship both, that is not pleased With sight of animals enjoying life, Nor feels their happiness augment his own." —COWPER.

There are many stories of the affection of the domestic goose for man, and I knew of one which was very fond of a friend of mine. The goose followed him like a dog, and would come with him on to the lawn where we were playing tennis, and sitting close beside him on a garden seat with great dignity would apparently watch the game with interest. My friend was fond of unusual pets; he had a tame hedgehog, for whom he made a most comfortable house with living-room downstairs and sleeping apartment on the first floor. His pet's name was Jacob, suggested I think by the ladder which night and morning he used for ascending to or descending from his bedroom. Hedgehogs have a bad character as robbers of partridges' nests, and in our old parish accounts, under the name of "urchins," we find entries of payments for their destruction at the rate of 4d. apiece.

My younger daughter had a tame duck, Susie by name, who gravely waddled behind her round the garden. In summer at tea-time Susie would much enjoy the company under the wych-elm on the lawn, and took her "dish of tea" out of the saucer in the antique and orthodox manner. Another amusing pet was a jackdaw who had an outdoor residence, though often allowed to be loose. He acquired an exact imitation of my old gardener's chronic cough, and enjoyed the exhibition of his achievement when the old man was working near the cage, somewhat to the man's annoyance. He was full of mischief, and was not allowed in the house; but he once got in at my study window, picked out every sheet of notepaper from my stationery case, and scattered them in all directions.

A still more accomplished mimic, a lemon-crested cockatoo, reproduced the voices of little hungry pigs. He lived indoors on a stand over a tray, with a chain round one leg, and was very clever at mounting and descending by the combined use of beak and claws, without complicating himself with his chain. He got loose one day, and ascended one of the chestnut trees, and a volunteer went up after him by a ladder. Cocky resented his interference, flew at him and bit his finger to the bone. His beak was a very powerful weapon, and, until I made him a new tray with a zinc-covered ledge, he demolished any unprotected wood or even furniture within reach.

This spring we had a blackbird's nest in some ivy near the house, and many times each day the cock bird came to watch over his household, and discourse sweet music from a neighbouring tree. A pair of jays however appeared, and seemed too much interested in the nest for the parents' comfort, approaching so near one morning that first the cock blackbird, and then the hen attacked them; and though they returned again during the day, evidently bent on mischief, the courageous parents eventually drove them from the field, and they were seen no more. Owing to the cutting of great fir woods in the Forest for timber supplies for the war, jays have become much more common here than formerly, and seem to have migrated from their former haunts and taken to the beeches and oaks in the undisturbed woods.

Birds as a rule are not well represented in books, though the drawing is more correct than the colouring. Examine Randolph Caldecott's Sing a Song for Sixpence for a really clever sketch of the four and twenty blackbirds, every one a characteristic likeness, and a different attitude; and look at his rookery in Bracebridge Hall, where, in three sketches he shows some equally exact rooks.

I always walked when on my farming rounds, for one of the first lessons I learned at Alton was that for that purpose "one walk is better than three rides." My predecessor being a hunting man and fond of horses, generally rode, but for careful observation, especially in the matter of plant diseases, one wants to "potter about" with a magnifying glass sometimes, and of course in entomology and ornithology there is no room for a horse. One of the remarks made by my men about me on my arrival was, "His mother larned him to walk," with quite a note of admiration to emphasize it. It is really remarkable how farmers and country people scorn the idea of walking either for pleasure or business, if "a lift" can be had. I was at Cheltenham with a brother, and finding we had done our business in good time, we decided to walk to the next station—Cleeve—instead of waiting for the train at Cheltenham. We asked a native the way, who replied with great contempt, "Cleeve station? Oh, I wouldn't walk to Cleeve to save tuppence!"

One of our ventures in the way of pets was a well-bred poodle; he was very amiable, handsome, and clever, but exceedingly mischievous. He thought it great fun to pull up neatly written and carefully disposed garden labels and carry them away to the lawn, for which, though a nuisance, he was forgiven; but his next achievement was a more serious matter. Finding his way about the village he would take advantage of an open door to explore the cottage larders and when a chance offered, would make off with half a pound of butter or a cherished piece of meat and bring his plunder to my house in triumph. He was succeeded by "Trump," a Dandie Dinmont, a very charming dog with a delightful disposition, and perfectly honest until my elder daughter acquired a fox terrier, "Chips," well-bred but highly nervous. Chips was a born sportsman and most useful so long as he confined his activities to rats and was busy when the thrashing-machine was at work, but when he took to corrupting Trump's morals he required watching. Trump would be lying quietly in the house or garden as good as possible, when the insinuating tempter would find him, whisper a few words in his ear, and off they went together. It was plainly an invitation, and later a dead duckling or chicken would show where they had spent their time. Trump became as bad as Chips and had to be given away. Chips was very sensitive to discordant sounds, he must have had a musical ear; his chief aversion was the sound of a gong, the beater for which was too hard and, unless very carefully manipulated, produced a jangle. My hall was paved with hexagonal stone sections called "quarries," which appeared to intensify the discordance. Chips felt it keenly, and would stand quite rigid for some minutes until the last reverberation and its effect had passed off. He was uncertain in temper and disliked some of the villagers. An old man complained that he had been bitten, and told me with great feeling, "Folks say that if ever the dog goes mad, I shall go mad too." I had much difficulty in appeasing him and assuring him that there was no truth in the statement.

How shall I do justice to the infinite variety of "Wendy," the dainty little Chinese princess who now rules my household? There are people who cannot see in an old Worcester tea-cup and saucer the eighteenth-century beauty, fastidiously sipping, what she called in the same language as the Aldington cottager of to-day, her dish of "tay." There are people who regard with indifference an ancient chair, except as an object to be sat upon, and who fail to realize its historical charm, or even the credit due to the maker of a piece of furniture that has survived two hundred and fifty spring cleanings.

And there are people who can see nothing in the Pekingese, nothing of the distinction and "the claims of long descent," nothing of the possibilities of transmigration, or of present ever-changing and human moods. Such are the people who suppose that the "dulness of the country," and the attraction of the shams and inanities of the picture palace induced the starving agricultural labourer willingly to exchange the blue vault of heaven for the leaden pall of London fogs, cool green pastures for the scorching pavement, and the fragrant shelter of the hedgerow blossoms for the stifling slum and the crowded factory.

There is nothing of the democrat about Wendy; watch her elevate an already tip-tilted nose at displeasing food, or a tainted dish, and notice her look of abject contempt for the giver as she turns away in disgust. No lover of the Pekingese should be without a charming little book Some Pekingese Pets by M.N. Daniel, with delightful sketches by the author, in which we are told that, "Until the year, 1860, so far as is known, no 'Foreign Devil' had ever seen one of these Imperial Lion Dogs. In that year, however, the sacking of the Imperial Palace at Pekin took place, and amongst the treasures looted and brought to England were five little Lion or Sun Dogs."

The author also says: "It is certain that the same type of Lion Dog as our Western Pekingese must have existed in China for at least a thousand years: that they were regarded as sacred or semi-sacred is proved by the Idols and Kylons (many of them known to be at least a thousand years old) representing the same type of Lion Dog." I have an old Nankin blue teapot, the lid of which is surmounted by one of these Kylons.

I can only describe Wendy's moods and characteristics by giving a bare catalogue: she is mirthful, hopeful, playful, despairing, bored, defiant, roguish, cunning, penitent, sensitive, aggressive, offended, reproachful, angry, pleased, trustful, loving, disobedient, determined, puzzled, faithful, naughty, dignified, impudent, proud, luxurious, fearless, disappointed, docile, fierce, independent, mischievous; and she often illustrates the rhyme:

"The dog will come when he's called, And the cat will stay away, But the Pekingese will do as he please Whatever you do or say."

Wendy is cat-like in some of her habits, prefers fish to meat, sleeps all day in wet weather but is lively towards night, is very particular about her toilet and washes her face with moistened paws passed over her ears. She is very sensitive to the weather, loves the sun, lying stretched at full length on the hot gravel so that she can enjoy the comforting warmth to her little body. She is wretched in a thunderstorm, shivering and taking refuge beneath a table or sofa; then she comes to me for sympathy, and lies on my knee, covered with a rug or a newspaper, but after a bad storm she is not herself for many hours. Anyone who does not know her may think the moods I have detailed an impossible category, but there is not one which we have not personally witnessed again and again, and no one can see her loving caresses of my wife without being assured of the soul that animates her mind and body.

Wendy is never allowed to "sit in damp clothes," or even with feet wet with rain or dew, and looks very reproachful if not attended to at once with a rough towel on coming indoors. "Why don't you dry me?" is exactly the expression her looks convey. She has a lined basket, on four short legs to keep her from draughts when sleeping, but she is often uneasy alone at night, evidently "seeing things," and, in Worcestershire language, finding it "unked," so she is now always allowed a night-light.

It is said that the dog's habit of turning round several times before settling to sleep is a survival from remote ages when they made themselves a comfortable bed by smoothing down the grass around them, but I am quite sure that Wendy does the same thing to get her coat unruffled, and in the best condition to protect her from draughts. She likes to lie curled up into a circle, so that her hind paws may come under her chin for warmth, and support her head, as her neck is so short that without a pillow of some sort she could not rest in comfort; as an alternative, she will sometimes arrange the rug in her sleeping basket to act in the same way.

We had various cobs and ponies from time to time; quite a good pony could be bought at six months old for about L12, and one of the best we had was Taffy, from a drove of Welsh. Returning from Evesham Station with my man we passed a labourer with something in a hamper on his shoulder that rattled, just as we reached the Aldington turning; Taffy started, swerved across the road in the narrowest part, and jumped through the hedge, taking cart and all; we found ourselves in a wheat-field, but were not overturned, and reached a gate in safety none the worse.

On an old May Day (May 12) I was at Bretforton Manor playing tennis and shooting rooks. About 10.30 p.m. the cart and Taffy were brought round; I had all my things in and was about to mount when, the pony fidgeting to be off, my friend's groom caught at the rein, but he had omitted to buckle it on one side of the bit. In an instant pony and trap had disappeared, and the man was lying in the drive with a broken leg. We had to carry him home on a door, and then went in search of the pony, expecting every moment to find it and the trap in a ditch; about half a mile from Aldington we met my own man who had come in search of my remains. He told us that the pony and trap were quite safe and uninjured. The clever animal had trotted the whole distance, over two miles, with the reins dragging behind him, taken the turning from the highroad, and again at my gate, and pulled up in front of the house, where someone passing saw him and brought my man out to the rescue.



CHAPTER XXIII.



BUTTERFLIES—MOTHS—WASPS.

"How like a rainbow, sparkling as a dewdrop, Glittering as gold, and lively as a swallow, Each left his grave-shroud and in rapture winged him Up to the heavens." —ANON.

I have always been fascinated by the beauty of butterflies and moths, and I think I began collecting when I was about eleven, as I remember having a net when I was at school at Rottingdean. My first exciting capture was a small tortoiseshell, and I was much disappointed when I discovered that it was quite a common insect. In 1917 some nettles here were black with the larvae of this species, but I think they must have been nearly all visited by the ichneumons, which pierce the skin, laying their eggs in the living body of the larva, as the butterflies were not specially common later. I was, however, fortunate in identifying a specimen of the curious variety figured in Newman's British Butterflies, variety 2, from one in Mr. Bond's collection; it has a dark band crossing the middle of the upper wings, but, though interesting, it is not so handsome as the type. I did not catch this specimen, as I do not like killing butterflies now, but I had ample leisure to observe it quite closely on the haulm of potatoes. It was decidedly smaller than the type.

The old garden at Aldington in the repose of a June evening was a place of fragrant joy from honeysuckle on poles and arches, and just as the light was fading the huge privet hawk-moths, with quivering wings and extended probosces, used to sip the honey from the long blossoms. I could catch them in a net, but these specimens were nearly all damaged from their energetic flight among the flowers, and perfect ones are easy to rear from the larvae, feeding in autumn on privet in the hedges.

Later in the summer the Ghost Swift appeared about twilight, the white colour of the male making it very conspicuous. Twilight at Aldington is called "owl light," and moths of all kinds are "bob-owlets," from their uneven flight when trying to evade the owls in pursuit. We often see these birds "hawking" at nightfall in my meadows round the edge of the Forest after moths.

The martagon lily flourished in the Aldington garden, and when they were blooming the overpowering scent was particularly attractive to moths of the Plusia genus, including the Burnished Brass, the Golden Y, and the Beautiful Golden Y, all exhibiting very distinctive markings of burnished gold; and other Noctuae in great variety. The latter are best taken by "sugaring"—painting patches of mixed beer and sugar on a series of tree trunks, and making several rounds at twilight with a lantern and a cyanide bottle. We had a sugaring range of about seventy pollard withies by the brook side, and being well sheltered, it was such a favourite place for moths, that it was often difficult to select from each patch, swarming with sixty or seventy specimens, those really worth taking. At sugaring moths are found in a locality where they are never seen at other times, and rarities occur quite unexpectedly. I took some specimens of Cymatophora ocularis (figure of 80). Newman says: "It is always esteemed a rarity," and mentions Worcester as a locality. Mamestra abjecta was quite a common catch, of which Newman writes:

"It seems to be very local, and so imperfectly known that the recorded habitats must be received with great doubt; it is certainly abundant on the banks of the Thames, near Gravesend, and also on the Irish coast, near Waterford."

The marks of sugaring remain on tree trunks for many years. I lately saw the faint remains on about sixty trees in Set Thorns plantation, in the Forest, which a friend and I painted on nearly forty years ago. This friend was fortunate in capturing the black variety of the White Admiral, in which the white markings are entirely absent on the upper side; and, thirty years later, his son took another near Burley. The son also caught a Camberwell Beauty on one of his sugared patches in the day-time. I believe this to be the only recorded instance of the occurrence of this rare and beautiful insect in the Forest.

The Hornet Clearwing (Sesia Apiformis) is a very interesting moth, and it was common at Aldington; the larva feeds on the wood of the black poplar. The colouring of the moth so resembles the hornet, that at first sight it is easily mistaken for the latter. It is an excellent example of "mimicry," whereby a harmless insect acquires the distinctive appearance of a harmful one, and so secures immunity from the attacks of its natural enemies.

The larva of the Death's Head was not uncommon at Aldington and Badsey on potatoes; I had a standing offer of threepence each for any that the village children could bring me. These large caterpillars require very careful handling, and I fear the children were not gentle enough with them, as I only had one perfect specimen moth from all the larvae they brought.

One of my hop-pickers captured and presented me with a very fine specimen of the Convolvulus Hawk-moth at Aldington; they were generally comparatively common that year (1901) and a collector took no less than seventeen in a few days in the public garden at Bournemouth.

The Clouded Yellow butterfly, whose appearance is very capricious, occurred one summer in Worcestershire in considerable numbers; it is strong on the wing and could easily reach the Midlands in fine weather from the south of England, where it is more often seen. Those I saw were flying high over clover fields, apparently in a hurry to get further north-west.

The Marbled White is a somewhat local butterfly; there was a spot along the Terrace on Cleeve Hill, near North Littleton and Cleeve Prior, where, at the proper time, this insect was plentiful, but I never saw it anywhere else in the neighbourhood.

One of the entomological prizes of the New Forest is the Purple Emperor; it is impossible to do justice to the wonderful sheen of its powerful wings. It inhabits the tops of lofty oaks, but does not disdain to come down for a drink of water, sometimes from a muddy pool, or even to feast on dead vermin which the keepers have destroyed.

The Comma, so called from the C-mark on the under side of the hind wings, is fairly plentiful in Worcestershire and Herefordshire in the hop-districts, for the hop is its food plant; but it is curious that, with the abundance of hops in Kent, Sussex, and Hants, it is quite a rare insect in the south of England. The ragged edge of its hind wings is probably an arrangement to baffle birds in pursuit, offering more difficulty to securing a sure hold than is afforded by the even margin of the hind wings of most butterflies.

In some years wasps were exceedingly troublesome at Aldington, and fruit picking became a hazardous business. One of my men ploughed up a nest in an open field, and was badly stung, though the horses, being further from the nest when turned up, escaped. It is quite necessary to destroy any nests on or near land where fruit is grown, as the insects increase in numbers at a surprising rate, and they travel great distances after food for the grubs. I had an instructive walk over the fruit farm of my son-in-law, Mr. C.S. Martin, of Dunnington Heath, near Alcester, with his cousin, Mr. William Martin, who is extraordinarily clever at locating the nests. He quickly recognizes a line of flight in which numbers of wasps can be seen going backwards and forwards, in a well-defined cross-country track, follows it up and locates the nest a long distance from where he first perceived the line. In this way during our walk he found a dozen or more nests. In the evening, when the inmates were at home, they were treated with a strong solution of cyanide of potassium to destroy the winged insects; and the next day the nests were dug out and the grubs destroyed, which otherwise would become perfect wasps.

Lately it has become a custom to pay a half-penny each for all queen wasps in the spring, but Mr. C.S. Martin, who had many years' experience on the fruit plantations of the Toddington Orchard Company, extending to about 700 acres, as well as on his own plantations at Dunnington, writes to me as follows on the subject:

"To catch the queens in the spring is to my mind a waste of time, and I discontinued paying for their capture, as the number visible in the spring appeared to bear no relation to the resulting summer nests. In the first place, the number of queens in spring is always greatly in excess of the numbers of nests, and to attempt to catch all the queens is a hopeless job. As a rule, I don't think one per cent, ever gets as far as a nest unless the weather conditions are very favourable. Heavy rain, when the broods begin, may easily wipe out 99 per cent., and only those on a dry bank will survive. To pay a halfpenny per queen may be equivalent to the payment of four and twopence per nest!"

Referring to the payment of school-children for the destruction of white butterflies he writes:

"The white butterfly is extraordinarily prolific, and to catch a few in the garden is a complete waste of time. Again, weather conditions are largely responsible for the occurrence of a bad attack, and the only possible time to reduce the plague is in the caterpillar stage, with hellebore powder, or one of the proprietary remedies, applied to the young plants. Scientists recommend the catching of queen wasps, and also butterflies, but I regard this as a case where science is not strictly practical."

There is, of course, the danger, too, that children will not recognize the difference between the female of the Orange Tip butterfly, which is practically colourless, and the cabbage whites, and it would be worse than a crime to destroy so joyous and welcome a creature, whose advent is one of the pleasantest signs that summer is nigh at hand. I have watched these fairy sprites dancing along the hedge sides at Aldington year by year, and in May they were extraordinarily abundant here, happily coursing round and round my meadow, and chasing each other in the sunshine. The Orange Tip is quite innocent of designs upon the homely cabbage, the food-plant of the caterpillar being Cardamine pratensis (the cuckoo flower), which Shakespeare speaks of so prettily in the lines:

"When daisies pied and violets blue, And lady-smocks all silver-white."

Possibly Hood was thinking of the Orange Tip when he wrote the lines that seem so well suited to them:

"These be the pretty genii of the flowers Daintily fed with honey and pure dew."

A story is told of an undergraduate who united the hind wings of a butterfly to the body and fore wings of one of a different species, and, thinking to puzzle Professor Westwood, then the entomological authority at Oxford, asked if the Professor could tell him "what kind of a bug" it was. "Yes," was the immediate reply—"a humbug!"

One of my schoolfellows, a boy about eleven, at Rottingdean school, and quite a novice at butterfly collecting, met a professional "naturalist" on the Warren at Folkestone, who inquired what he had taken. "Only a few whites," said the boy. The man looked at them and, eventually, they negotiated an exchange, the boy accepting three or four others for an equal number of the whites. On reaching home he found that he had parted with specimens of the rare Bath White, Pieris daplidice, for some quite common butterflies. The Bath White is not recognized as a British species, Newman supposing the specimens taken in this country to have been blown over or migrated from the northern coast of France, as they have been rarely met with away from the shores of Kent and Sussex.

It is surprising to find so many people who seem unable to exercise their powers of observation to the extent of noticing the butterflies they daily pass in the garden, or along the roads. One would expect that the marvellous colouring of even our common butterflies would arrest attention, and that interest in the names and life-history would follow.

In June in the Forest the rather alarming stag-beetle is to be seen on the wing on a warm evening; though really harmless, its size and habit of buzzing round frightens people who are not acquainted with its ways. They are called locally, "pinch-bucks," as their horns resemble the antlers of a buck, and they can nip quite hard by pressing them together. I once saw a fight between a stag-beetle and a toad, it had evidently been proceeding for some time as both combatants were exhausted, but neither had gained any special advantage.



CHAPTER XXIV.



CYCLING—PAGEANTS OF THE ROADS—ROADSIDE CREATURES—HARMONIOUS BUILDING—COLLECTING OLD FURNITURE AND CHINA.

"I may soberly confess that sometimes, walking abroad after my studies, I have been almost mad with pleasure—the effect of nature upon my soul having been inexpressibly ravishing and beyond what I can convey to you." —JOHN INGLESANT.

I suppose that the bicycle has given, and gives, as much pleasure to fairly active people as any machine ever invented. I must have been one of the first cyclists in England, as my experience dates from the days when bicycles were first imported from France. The high bicycle appeared later, but the earlier machines were about the height of the present safety, with light wooden wheels and iron tyres. The safety, with pneumatic tyres, did not arrive till nearly thirty years later, and it was the latter invention that brought about the popularity of cycling.

The difference between cycling and walking has been stated thus:

"When a man walks a mile he takes on an average 2,263 steps, lifting the weight of his body with each step. When he rides a bicycle of the average gear he covers a mile with the equivalent of 627 steps, bears no burden, and covers the same distance in less than one third of the time."

People constantly tell me that cycling is all very well for getting from place to place, but otherwise they don't care about it, which I can only account for by supposing that they find it a labour more or less irksome, or that they have never developed their perceptive faculties, and have no real sympathy with the life of woods and fields or the spirit of the ancient farms and villages.

Cycling to me is a very easy and pleasant exercise, but it is far more than that; it is like passing through an endless picture-gallery filled with masterpieces of form and colour. The roads of England not only present these delights to the physical sense, but they stir the imagination with historic visions from the earliest times. There are the ancient camps, now silent and deserted, which become at the bidding of fancy peopled with the unkempt and savage British, and later with their well-disciplined and well-equipped Roman conquerers: archers and men in armour appear; pilgrims' processions such as we read of in Chaucer; knights and ladies on their stately steeds. There are the ghosts of royal progresses, kings and queens, and wonderful pageantry gorgeous in array; decorously ambling cardinals and abbots with their trains of servitors; hawking parties with hawks and attendants; soldiers after Sedgemoor in pursuit of Monmouth's ill-fated followers; George IV. and his gay courtiers on the Brighton road; beaux and beauties in their well-appointed carriages bound for Tunbridge Wells, Cheltenham, or Bath; splendid teams with crowded coaches, and great covered waggons laden with merchandise; the highwayman at dusk in quest of belated travellers, and companies of farmers and cattle-dealers riding home from market together for safety.

I often see a vision here in the ancient Forest tracks of a gang of wild and armed smugglers, and among them still more savage-looking foreign sailors. They have two or three Forest trucks, made especially to fit the ruts in the little-used tracks, laden with casks of spirits and drawn by rough Forest ponies. I can hear the shouts of the drivers as they urge them forward, and I can see the steaming sides of the ponies in the misty moonlight of a winter night. The spirits were landed at Poole or Christchurch, and they are on their way to Burley where, under the old house I bought with my land, there is still the cellar, then cleverly concealed, where the casks were stored in safety from the watchful eyes of the Excise; a quaint old place built of the local rock.