Country Life
By IAN NIALL
PERHAPS a person acutely sensitive to pitch and tone might not agree that there is any similarity between the hum of a combine and the sound of a beehive, but for me both have something about them, an urgency that is topical. At this moment the same urgency brings the butterflies to the buddleia bush, There is a certain sadness in the appearance of so many velvety butterflies when at the same time one notices. that birds, silent for so long, are singing rather plaintively. In the meantime, although combining is done where it can be done, on the upland farms the job is slower and is helped not at all by the fact that on out-of-the-sun slopes, and in sheltered hollows, the dew hangs longer. There is no time to spare any- where, for sheaves of the previous day's cutting have to be stooked and things made ready for the binder to whirl into action again. Here and there a hen pheasant may rise, but the excitement of the last few cuts is gone and no one brings a gun to the field now The rabbit population hasn't reached its old proPor tions yet. When it does there will be less corn to cut, much less on the headlands and brows where rabbits love to sit and crop the sprouting oats.
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