Passing gently along a hedge thickly timbered with oak and elms, a hawk may perhaps start forth: hawks sometimes linger by the hedges till late, but it is not often that you can shoot one at roost except in spring.

Then they invariably return to roost in the nest tree, and are watched there, and so shot, a gunner approaching on each side of the hedge.

In the lane dark objects--rabbits--hasten away, and presently the footpath crosses the still motionless brook near where it flows into the mere.
The low brick parapet of the bridge is overgrown with mosses; great hedges grow each side, and the willows, long uncut, almost meet in the centre.

In one hedge an opening leads to a drinking-place for cattle: peering noiselessly over the parapet between the boughs, the coots and moorhens may be seen there feeding by the shore.

They have come up from the mere as the ducks and teal do in the winter.