COUNTRY LIFE
Torrents of Spring It is March 13th when I write : the wind in the south-west, storm clouds, a watery white sun, hail in the night, altogether the promise of a bad day. At nine o'clock I put on Wellingtons and squelched into a flooded garden. Only a week to the vernal equinox : spring. Crocuses are rain-flattened every- where. Snowdrops, the pink Lent roses, the little dark Iris reticulata, a few daffodils, these are quite indomitable and stand up well. Tulips are in bud : the creamy Kaufmaniam2, the odd cluster-headed almost blue-leaved little Turkestanka, the gorgeous blood-scarlet Eichleri. But the general effect is of some horrible, bogged, altogether miserable wilderness. The herbaceous borders stand, in parts, six inches deep in yellow rain. In the grass snowdrops and yellow crocuses grow in water and have, in fact, grown and bloomed in water for weeks, like true water-flowers. The field beyond the hedge is flooded, the sheep gone. The wind has blown steadily, with miserable consistency, from the same quarter, for four months, always the south-west. It changed briefly to the east nearly a week ago : snow ; changed back to south- west: snow; changed back to north : snow; changed to south, snow again. The fat little Primula denticulata flowers looked Like potentates, mauve-headed, wearing turbans of snow:, The yellow crocuses broke through the snow-crust like spilt egg yolks. The birds' nests, begun so gaily in February, were like basins filled to the brim with snow. The birds mooned disconsolately.
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A Courageous Thrush The nests had been discovered, as I wrote here, on February 17th. Both, it subsequently turned out, were thrushes'. Within a week it was clear that one was deserted, but by the beginning of March the second was finished : roughly a fortnight to complete, fairly slow work. We then waited for eggs, looking on the first four or five days of the month. Then the thrushes seemed to appear less frequently, and about the sixth of the month we began to give up. hope. On the seventh and eighth of the month, when we caught the tail end of a blirard, we gave up hope altogether. On the eighth the nest was brimful of snow, on the night of the eighth frozen solid, on the ninth as soggy and miserable as a cold beef-pudding. Thereafter, until the t3th; it became a mere museum piece : an oddity which had been recorded and had, sadly enough, let us down. It was our earliest nest ; we had hoped much from it. Then, on the 13th, after a night of hail and smashing rain, I went to the nest out of pure idle curiosity, put my hand in, and touched eggs. There were three, milk-, warm. The persistent courage of thrushes has often astonished me. Here it defeats me. I have no other comment except wonder.
* * * Edward Thomas Memorial Some details of the proposed memorial to Edward Thomas have now appeared. The executive committee of the Memorial Fund met recently and decided on almost the only kind of memorial that would, I feel, have given Thomas any pleasure : "The purchase of the freehold of some height or solitary place—if practicable one familiar to and loved by Edward Thomas himself—and that this property should be presented. to the National Trust with the suggestion that a clump or grove of trees should be planted on it, and that a small stone should be set up, inscribed with his name." This is almost the only possible course, remembering Thomas' indifference to the pomposities of architecture and his unequalled spirit of devotion to the English countryside. _ It is an odd coincidence that, at the same time, .some 7oo acres• of land intimately associated with Richard Jefferies are up for sale. This land, lying near Surbiton golf-course, was. much loved by Jefferies and described with intimacy in Nature near Loudon. It would, in some ways, make a happy memorial to Thomas, though I fancy the price would be fantastic. In any case Thomas' genius calls for a remoter memorial : some hill, preferably, from. which .one could see an expanse of the south country he loved and described. In any case it will all cost money. I have not been, asked to appeal for that money, but those interested should write _to R. L. Watson, 55 Redcliffe-Gardenn- S:W.io. "The Countryman's" Birthday - The Countryman has reached its tenth year. Every reader of this page, I hope, knows it. Produced on the edge of the Cotswolds, in a fine stone house that must have made many visitors' mouths water, by a man who in England's Green and Pleasant Land gave us a classic, it has now a circulation of 12,000, receives an almost fabulous number of bouquets from the great (unlikely fellows like Shaw included), and has in- numerable imitators all over the world. It is admired by sociologists and prime ministers, was admired by Hardy, and would, I think, have been admired by Cobbett. It is non-party. It nevertheless hits hard, on occasion, and haS been known to spill unpleasant beans on topics like parish government. It is illustrated, always by out-of-the way stuff, and this quarter carries photographs by Shaw himself. The only criticism I have ever offered or have ever heard offered of it is that it remains a quarterly. I should like it monthly. But in its quarterliness, its editor declares, lies its strength, and he must be right. He has increased the size of this in- comparable review by almost two hundred pages in to years, and has reached a point, now, where advertisements threaten to swamp print. There is something in it for every sort of countryman.
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Mysteries of Wild Life In the current issue Mr, R. M. Locldey raises an ir.teresting question, and is gently taken to task for it by the editor. (Mr. Lockley's bird _articles have been one of The Countuman's most consistent and delightful features for. years). Mr. Loc.kley is troubled, by, and deprecates, the great fuss that certain nature lovers make over the natural mysteries, of wild life: the mystery of bird migration, "the midday retirement of Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon," why the blackbird, unlike the thrush, neglects to line its nest with mud, why, birds sing and such things. as, though he does not mention it, the hunting of rabbits by stoats. Why trouble ? says Mr. Lockley in effect. "Thank whatever gods there be that the intricate impulse works its will . . . according . to a plan that all our brains together can , never understand." In part, I agree with this. But I agree also with the editor, who says : " So, surely, might Harvey have rested satisfied with contemplating the beautiful and awesome sight of the beating of the pulse, and never have discovered the eh-dilation of the blood."
Wonder not enough. It is odd to hear, at this time of day, of the "birds singing to man" suggestion, as the editor of The Countryman goes on to say. What of, for instance, the coloration of birds' eggs ? Some light on that mystery would, for me at any rate, treble wonder at it. Why are thrushes' eggs blue, blackbirds' green, yellow-hammers' scribbled ? Why are the eggs of the peewit perfectly camouflaged, when the eggs of the hedge-sparrow seem painted for contrast ? The Victorian naturalists smoothly passed it off as some expression of "the Divine Will" and crept out by the back door. Is it true that fear or fright can alter the colouring of an egg? that all eggs are white up to twenty-four hours before being laid ?
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The Rabbit Problem When an animal becomes so pestilential that it requires a Government Committee to deal with it then it would seem reasonable to ask that, among other things, its natural enemies should be a little encouraged, if not pretected. " The rabbit has now become a nuisance, in this country, comparable only with the rat. It breeds at an astounding pace, for almost twelve months of the year, and a single pair is said to multiply roughly fifty times in 'a months. The question of the best methods of rabbit-killing has been discussed over and over again : trapping, wiring, gassing, poisoning and so on. On the other hand one hears little mention of the rabbit's (and the rat's) most powerful natural enemies, stoat and weasel. The extent to which the natural law between these three animals is upset by game- keepers is, to my mind, serious. Every keeper's gibbet bears witness to the colossal and increasing slaughter of stoat and weasel that goes on in the business of-preservation. In this way the rabbit is becoming more and more an animal enjoying a Special degree of protection.' The country is paying for this, and must go on paying, for it so long- as stoat and weasel are
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