. Birds in town & village . am itself was (on my side) fringed with bul-rushes and other aquatic plants; on the oppositebank there were some large alders lifting theirbranches above great masses of bramble and rose-briar, all together forming as rich and beautiful atangle as one could find even in the most luxuriantof the wild unkept hedges round the village. Thebriars especially flourished wonderfully at this spot,climbing high and dropping their long slim branchesquite down to the surface of the water, and in someplaces forming an arch above the stream. A shortdistance from this tangle, so a
. Birds in town & village . am itself was (on my side) fringed with bul-rushes and other aquatic plants; on the oppositebank there were some large alders lifting theirbranches above great masses of bramble and rose-briar, all together forming as rich and beautiful atangle as one could find even in the most luxuriantof the wild unkept hedges round the village. Thebriars especially flourished wonderfully at this spot,climbing high and dropping their long slim branchesquite down to the surface of the water, and in someplaces forming an arch above the stream. A shortdistance from this tangle, so abundantly sprinkledwith its pale dehcate roses, the water was spannedby a small wooden bridge, which no person appearedto use, but which had a use. It formed the one dryclear spot in the midst of all that moist vegetation,and the birds that came from the wood to drink andsearch for worms and small caterpillars first alightedon the bridge. There they would rest a few moments,take a look round, then fly to some favourite spot. WREN. >n ]sie]-ioiis laJk nt the /rave BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 35 where succulent morsels had been picked up onprevious visits. Thrushes, blackbirds, sparrows,reed-buntings, chaffinches, tits, wrens, with manyother species, succeeded each other all day long;for now they mostly had young to provide for, andit was their busiest time. The unsullied beauty and solitariness of this spotmade me wish at first that I was a boy once more,to climb and to swim, to revel in the sunshine andflowers, to be nearer in spirit to the birds and dragon-flies and water-rats; then, that I could build acabin and live there all the summer long, forgetfulof the world and its affairs, with no human creatureto keep me company, and no book to read, or withonly one slim volume, some Spanish poet, let mesay Melendez for preference—only a small selectionfrom his too voluminous writings ; for he, albeitan eighteenth-century singer, was perhaps the lastof that long illustrious line of poet
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectbirds, bookyear1919
