THE NATURALIST.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1248, 30 January 1896, Page 11

THE NATURALIST.

FIELD AND HEDGE GLEANERS. A SON OF THE MARSHES. The fields are bare; only the stubble remains in those that will, for a time, be left fallow. Wild fruits and berrius have ripened off on trees and bushes, the twigs only remaining on some of them, those that are most favoured by the birds. At this particular time of the year, the borderland, so to speak, between autumn and winter, all creatures are busy in and about the fields, the greater portion well on the feed while it lasts, and a few busy in storing up for the future. " Samples of weather," as the country folks have it, come and go in fitful changes : for a day or two the sun shines out, brightening up the face of the country, then the wind shifts, and gray tones meet the eye far and near —tones that vary in depth from warm purple-grays to the most light and pearly. This scale of colouring is etched up by bits of bright colour, formed by the patches of leaves that still hang here and there upon the twigs, combined with the brightly tinted wild fruits and berries. Heavy fogs hang about, drenching the woodlands, and these end, if there is not enough air to lift them, in drizzling rain. Then suddenly there is a change : all is clear and bright once more, to finish with a sharp frost when the night falls. See what this has done in the fields. With the exception of the beeches, it is one continual fall of leaves ; in fact, they will be down in the course of the day. Although there is not a breath of air stirring, even the beech trees are very nearly bare in places where the frost has nipped keenly.

The hedgehog, finding that the crimson clusters of the white leaf berries —good to eat, sweet and mealy—are no longer to be found, travel and root as he may, has decided to curl up for the season ; but even in his own domain the little hedgepig is not quite secure. He has his own fourfooted enemies. Humming, whistling and cracking through the woods and over the fields comes the keen north wind, clearing off all mists, and drying everything above and below, rattling the crabs off ; and the beautiful led and yellow fruit lies at the foot of the trees, not in gallons, but in bushels, where the trees are numerous, and in out-of-the-way spots that I know, to be covered ultimately by drifting leaves, and finally ripened. This is a matter of time. We have found crab apples sound and in first-class condition months after they have fallen from the trees : so had some other creatures, for the leaves had bean moved about in all directions by them to find the fruit. The hedge bullaces are not speckled over with brown yet; and the black jacks, as the wild plums are called, do not yield to the gentle nip of finger and thumb ; but they will soon be fit, and, when that time does come, other creatures will have their share of them as well as yourself, In that matter the advantage is certainly on their side : you may have seven, or it may be ten, miles to go—that is really about the distance at the present time—before you can get where they grow ; whereas, birds, for the time, live and roost there. The leaves are whirled in cartloads all over the place ; this dries them completely, and the creatures that line their winter homes with them are not slow to take advantage of it. For hours we have watched squirrels making up their bundles to line their winter nests with. Even here, with blaster Scug's care, matters do not go right at times; cleverly as his forehands have made the bundle up. I have seen it slip. Then the little fellow would show temper in utter amazement that such a mishap could take place ; up went his eartufts and his tail, but only for a few moments ; with stamps and scolding chatter he dashed here and there, collecting his scattered treasures, and finally carrying his bundle off into safety. The dormouse, although ifi does haunt and hunt the nut trees and bushes —-for there is a very wide difference between the two —will not, as a rule, confine itself to them when the winter nest is made. For, if sloe bushes or pickets are in the hedgerow or on the copse banks, you may look about the centre of them for it. If, as is usually the case, the bushes are well laced round with brambles of the most robust and thorny nature, the chances of a capture will be slight ; he may be drowsy, but he is not asleep yet —far from it. With the greatest care you find that your hands are scratched severely, and that matters are not quite pleasant about your legs, but still you persevere. At last your hands are near the grass ball ; very gingerly your fingers touch the sides, so as to close round it. Is he at home '? you think, after all this trouble. He is, for he slips through, not out of his grass house, glides over the twigs, sits up for a moment to look at you with his full dark eyes, as much as to say, " serve you right for meddling I" and then he springs down into the thick tangle at the bottom. I have made captures at times when I kept pets, but my misses have been far in excess of my captures. Torn hands, torn clothes, and a general all-over feeling of being outwitted by a mouse are slightly humiliating. Sleep-mouse he may be called, and rightly so, for the dormouse does sleep both soundly and long; but in his time —that is, his ap- i pointed seasons—a brighter or more wide- I awake creature than the little dormouse j it would be hard to find. A southerly i wind and rain with it, sheets of rain that

turn when the wind lulls into a steady downpour. The brooks' are bank-high and the rivers in flood ; as to the fields,the furrows are edge-high with water that is not able to get away. A dreary outlook this, and far more dreary to be out in, as I am, not from choice, but necessity; some matters must be attended to, let the weather be what it may. Weather not fit for a dog to be out in it is, I am told as I start on my journey, eleven miles. I must go through it all. Not a rock out, and it takes something to keep these birds at home; not a sound is to be heard but the splash and drip of the rain ; for the time the land is drowned and silent.

The rain ceases, the waters lower, and ' the furrows in the fields are dry, but the fields are no longer tenantlesa. Where have the birds come from all at once 9 Flocks of small birds there are, and in the centres of the stubbles are hosts of woodpigeons. As to the rooks, they have been in the grazing meadows, and they rest for a time in the trees, too full of drowned-out worms to care to fly. Acorns will come in presently, for the pigeons and for the rooks also; but all the time that scattered grains of oats, barley, and wheat can be got at, after rain, nicely moistened to a sprouting point, the pigeons will hunt for them. Field and hedge gleaners leave little behind them when they have done. Wild creatures are not the only ones that glean when the crops are off. Sheep find sweet feed in between the rows of stubble —a bite here and a bite there, as they move along ; and the peewits follow the sheep. All through the year, the land, no matter if in cultivation or not, provides something for the various creatures on or about it. One lot of gleaners we have missed of late years—the women and children that at one time one used to see coming home at night from the fields with their bundles of wheat on their heads. There may not be any necessity for this now, for bread at least is cheap, which is certainly a matter to rejoice over. And customs, no doubt, have changed with the times, for old time-honoured customs have of lata not been considered to constitute prescriptive rights. The custom of gleaning may be carried out now in some places remote from great labour centres, but in our own immediate neighbourhood it has died out.

It is the same with hedge gleaners ; they are no more seen with their bundles of deadwood along the roads going home. Not that this y, as taken from the hedge ; it was picked up between the copse and the wood near to it. If you walk along country roads or lanes now, when the people are coming home from work, not one in twenty will you see with a fagot of either lop, top or rough wood. They will tell you that they have now to buy all that they require, which at any rate puts them on a more independent footing ; and as ordinary grates have in most out-of-the-way places taken the place of brand irons and fires on the hearths, lai'ge wood could not be burnt there. Just at present there appears to be a slight hitch in the movement for the general welfare, aided as it is by all the modern improvements, ready to hand, for working it along. Time will prove all things ; if tbe changes had been gradual they would not have been noticed so much, but they have been extremely rapid, and the rustic mind is slow in accepting them. —English Illustrated Magazine.