There
Were Rookeries Beneath In The Plains Where The Elms And Beeches Grew
Tall, But The Birds Never Came Up To Forage.
Crows could be found, and
stopped on the hill all the year.
Wood-pigeons, like the rooks, went
over, but did not stay. Starlings were not at all plentiful; blackbirds
and thrushes were there, but not nearly so numerous as is usually the
case; fieldfares and redwings drifted by in the winter, but never
stopped. Slow-worms lived in the sand under the heath, and lizards, but
no snakes and only a few adders. Inquiring of an old man if there were
many snakes about, he said no; the soil was too poor for them; but in
some places down in the vale he had dug up a gallon of snakes' eggs in
the 'maxen.' The word was noticeable as a survival of the old English
'mixen' for manure heap. Swallows, martins, and swifts abounded; and as
for insects, they were countless - honey-bees, wild bees, humble-bees,
varieties of wasps, butterflies - an endless list. So common a plant as
the arum did not seem to exist; on the other hand, ferns literally made
up the hedges, growing in such quantities as to take the place of the
grasses. There was, too, a great variety of moss and fungi. The soil
looked black and fertile, and new-comers thought they were going to have
good crops, but when these failed they found, upon examining the earth,
that it was little more than black sand, and the particles of silica
glittered if a handful were held in the sun.
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