A wood-pigeon comes over, flying slowly; he was going to alight on the ash tree yonder, but suddenly espying some one under the cover of the boughs increases his pace and rises higher.

Two bright bold bullfinches pass; they have a nest somewhere in the thick hawthorn.

A jay, crossing from the fir plantations, stays awhile in the hedge, and utters his loud harsh scream like the tearing of linen.

For a few hours the winds are still and the sunshine broods warm over the mead.

It is a delicious snatch of spring.
Every now and then a rabbit emerges from the burrows which are scattered thickly along the banks, and, passing among the primroses, goes through the hedge into the border of furze, and thence into the meadow-grass.