Then, sitting on the grey and lichen-covered rail under the cover of a hawthorn, I saw sometimes two and sometimes three cuckoos following each other courting, now round the copse, now by the hedge or the brook, and presently along the rails where they constantly perched.

Occasionally one would alight on the sward among the purple flowers of the meadow orchis.

From the marshy meadow across the brook apeew it rose from time to time, uttering his plaintive call and wheeling to and fro on the wing.

At the sound a second and a third appeared in succession, and after beating up and down for a few minutes settled again in the grass.

The meadow might have been called a plovery--as we say rookery and heronry--for the green plovers or peewits always had several nests in it.
The course of the humble bees that went by could be watched for some way--their large size and darker colour made them visible--as they now went down into the grass, and now started forward again.