THE LIFE OF THE FIELDS.*

THE magazine or newspaper first, and then the volume, is the literary order of the day ; and to this rule The Life of the Fields is no exception. The book consists of brief sketches of Nature, in the style with which Mr. Jefferies has made his readers familiar. He is at home in the woods and fields ; and his description of natural objects is that of a careful and loving observer. Nothing in out-of-door life escapes him ; he sees all • The Life of the Field,. By Richard Jefferies. London : Ohatto and M I mdami. ••

the beauty of Nature, hears all her voices, notes her form and colour, and writes in a style admirably salted to his purpose as a contributor to periodicals. We are not so sure that Mr. Jefferies' method will be as much appreciated, or his matter prove so attractive, when the public is asked to pass judgment upon it in book-form. A single paper composed in this writer's vein is charming, and the reader will gladly turn to a second and a third ; but by the time be has reached so far he begins to see the author's limitations, and perhaps to weary just a little

of what seems like repetition. We do not assert that every one will feel this—our impatient age has still its patient readers—

but the effect of The Life of the Fields upon the general reader will probably be what we have stated. The genuine lovers of Nature for herself and by herself, apart from human interests, are comparatively few in number ; and most men probably feel, with Sydney Smith, that " the delusions of flowers, green turf, and birds all afford slight gratification, but are not worth an hour of rational conversation." A strong proof of this indifference may he seen in the fact that Mr. Jefferies' accurate observa- tions on the common objects of rural life are regarded as some- thing new and strange, and appreciated for their novelty. He sees what everybody might see, but which not ten people iu thousand ever see at all.

Mr. Jefferies believes that the time will come when "the sun-

shine and the summer, the flowers and the azure sky, shall become, as it were, interwoven into man's existence ;" when "he shall take from all their beauty and enjoy their glory." There

is, he thinks, a good time coming for the race in this respect,— a time when Nature will reveal her secrets and make the world happy. It is a beautiful dream, and likely to remain one. Those who love Nature most, and are conscious of intense joy in her presence, will be most ready to acknowledge that the joy thus felt is closely allied to pain. The greater the glory, the more painful is the sense of its evanescence, the more difficult do we find it to harmonise the beauty that takes us captive with the daily events of life. And the multitudes who have never felt the breeze of Nature stirring in their souls are not likely, amidst the portentous growth of bricks and mortar which drives the fields further and further from us, to crave for an intercourse which the cares of life and the unwholesome size of great cities make more difficult every clay.

In the delights of summer and the delicious glow of sunshine, such apprehensions are, however, forgotten. We are content to live and to enjoy, to be satisfied with feeling, and to put aside the burden of thought. A chapter called " The Pageant of Summer" expresses, with great felicity, the beauty of the season

in the early days of June. One passage shall be quoted, because it illustrates the close observation which accompanies the

anthor's brightly coloured pictures of country life in England. He has sometimes spent hours in the trees watching the signs of life around him ; and the result of this patient waiting upon Natnre is seen in the following extract :—

" Watching the line of the hedge, about every two minutes, either near at hand or yonder a bird darts out just at the level of the grass, hovers a second with labouring wings, and returns as swiftly to the cover. Sometimes it is a flycatcher, sometimes a greenfinch, or chaffinch, now and then a robin, in one place a shrike, perhaps another is a redstart. They are fly-fishing all of them, seizing insects mm the sorrel tips and grass, as the kingfisher takes a roach from the water. A blackbird slips np into the oak and a dove descends in the corner by the chestnut tree. But these are not visible together, only one at a time and with intervals. The larger part of the life of the hedge is out of sight. All the thrnah-fledglings, the young black- birds, and finches are hidden, most of them on the mound among the ivy, and parsley, and rough grasses, protected too by a roof of bram- bles. The nests that still have eggs are not, like the nests of the early days of April, easily found ; they are deep down in the tangled herbage by the shore of the ditch, or far inside the thorny thickets which then looked mere bashes, and are now so broad. Landrails are running in the grass concealed as a man would be in a wood ; they have nests and eggs on the ground for which you may search in vain till the mowers come. Up in the corner a fragment of white fur and marks of scratching show where a doe has been preparing for a litter. Some well-trodden runs lead from mound to mound ; they are sandy near the hedge where the particles have been carried out adhering to the rabbits' feet and fur. A crow rises lazily from the upper end of the field, and perches in the chestnut. His presence, too, was unsuspected. He is there by far too frequently. At this season the crows are always in the mowing-grass, searching about, stalking in winding tracks from furrow to furrow, picking up an egg here and a foolish fledgling that has wandered from the mound yonder. Very likely there may be a moorhen or two slipping about under cover of the long grass ; thus hidden, they can leave the shelter of the flags and wander a distance from the brook. So that beneath the surface of the grass and under the screen of the leaves there are ten times more birds than are seen. Besides the tinging and calling, there is a peculiar sound which is only heard in summer. Waiting quietly to discover what birds are about, I become aware of a sound in the very air. It is not the midsummer ham which will soon be heard over the heated hay in the valley and over the cooler hills alike. It is not enough to be called a bum, and does but just tremble at the extreme edge of hearing. If the branches wave and rustle they overbear it ; the buzz of a passing bee is so mach louder it overcomes all of it that is in the whole field. I cannot define it, except by calling the hours of winter to mind—they are silent ; you hear a branch crack or creak as it rubs another in the wood, you hear the hoar frost crunch on the grass beneath your feet, but the air is without sound in itself. The sound of summer is everywhere—in the passing breeze, in the hedge, in the broad- branching trees, in the grass as it swings ; all the myriad particles that together make the summer are in motion."

Mr. Jefferies' talk about animals and birds is always interesting. He states that in Southern England the pine-martin has been_ exterminated, and the otter nearly so ; that the polecat is practically extinct ; that eagles have left our island, though a stray one may be seen now and then in Wales and Scotland ; that buzzards are to be found only on the moors ; that the raven is "quite put out ;" that owls are growing rare, and that the large hawks have disappeared from our woods and fields. On the other hand, in spite of constant efforts to destroy them, the stoat and weasel prosper and multiply ; and the kestrel and sparrowhawk, although destroyed unsparingly, remain numerous just the same. The crow, too, survives, although not a voice is raised in his favour ; and he is hated by all gamekeepers, sportsmen, and farmers. Jays and magpies, too, have had a hard life of it ; yet they survive, and in large woods, especially where there is much fir, jays are so numerous that to destroy them seems almost impossible. " Twenty creatures, furred and feathered, have undergone severe persecution since the extension of pheasant-covers ; and of these the first nine have, more or less, succumbed, namely, pine-martin, polecat, eagle, buzzard, falcon, kite, horned owl, harrier, and raven. The remaining eleven have survived, namely, stoat, weasel, rat, crow, kestrel, sparrowhawk, brown and barn owl, jay, magpie and woodpecker." The writer adds, that it is quite open to argument that pheasant-covers have saved as well as destroyed " Wood-pigeons could scarcely exist in such numbers without the quiet of preserved woods to breed in ; nor could squirrels."

Foxes owe their preservation to the love of sport; so do the stag and fallow-deer. Woodcocks, too, are protected; and, in a measure, the rook's existence is due to the same cause. In England the number of small birds is infinite,—a fact that has often attracted the attention of foreigners.

In a chapter called " The Sacrifice to Trout," Mr. Jefferies remarks that sixteen creatures are killed in order that one may flourish, which seems an unfair proportion. Students of fish-life, he says, believe that almost all wild fowl will swallow the ova or fry of trout ; and with the worst enemies of this fish are ranked the heron and the king- fisher. " Were it not for the fact that herons nest like rooks, and that heronries are valued appurtenances in parks, they would soon become scarce. Kingfishers prey on smaller fish, but are believed to eat almost as many as herons. Kingfishers resort in numbers to trout nurseries, which are as traps for them, and there they are more than decimated." It is the rule of the age that beauty must in all cases give place to utility ; it may be a wise rule in the main, but the lover of Nature is often forced to feel the pity of it A chapter on the instinct of fishes, entitled "Mind Under Water," shows that Mr. Jefferies does not belong to the class whom he designates as " indoor people." Fish are quick of hearing, and while exhibiting great sensitiveness to certain sounds, are indifferent to others. The jack will not heed the horse's hoofs upon the river bank, or the movements of a herd of cattle ; but a man's light step causes him to swim away instantly. Most animals, says the writer, except man, move with a slow motion, paradox as it may seem, even when they are going fast. Man moves with a brisk step; and the poacher who wishes to deceive the fish " walks as slowly as possible, not patting the foot down hard, but feeling the ground first, and gradually pressing it. In this way progress may be made without vibration. The earth is not shaken, and does not com-

municate the sound to the water." The vibration of the ground seems to be a warning also to birds and animals of the approach of the enemy. Mr. Jefferies' remarks on this subject will be new to most of our readers, and are worth quoting :- " Very probably not only fish, bat animals and some birds hear as much by the vibration of the earth as by the sound travelling in the atmosphere, and depend as mach upon their immediate perception of the slightest tremor of the earth as upon recognition by the ear in " the manner familiar to ourselves. When rabbits, for instance, are out feeding in the grass, it is often possible to get quite close to them by walking in this way, extremely slowly, and carefully placing the foot by slow degrees upon the ground. The earth is then merely pressed, and not stepped upon at all, so that there is no jar. By doing this I have often moved up within gunshot of rabbits without the least aid from cover. Once now and then I have walked across a field straight at them. Something, however, depends on the direction of the wind, for then the question of scent comes in. To some degree it is the same with hares. It is certainly the case with birds, as wood-pigeons, a flock of them, will remain feeding only just the other side of the hedge ; but, if you stamp the earth, will rise instantly. So will rooks, though they will not fly far if you are not armed. Partridges certainly secure themselves by their attention to the faint tremor of the ground. Pheasants do so too, and make off, running through the underwood long before any one is in eight. The most sensitive are landrails, and it is difficult to get near them, for this reason. Though the mowing-grass must conceal an approaching person from them as it conceals them from him, these birds change their positions, no matter how quietly he walks. Let him be as cun- ning as he will, and think to cut off corners and cross the landrail's retreat, the bird baffles him nine times in ten. That it is advised of the direction the pursuer takes by the vibration of the surface is at least probable. Other birds sit, and hope to escape by remaining still, till they detect the tremor coming direct towards them, when they rise. Rain and dry weather change the susceptibility of the surface to vibrate, and may sometimes in part account for the wild- ness or apparent tameness of birds and animals. Should any one doubt the existence of such tremors, he has only to lie on the ground with his ear near the surface ; bnt, being unused to the experiment, he will at first only notice the heavier sounds, as of a waggon or a cart-horse. In recent experiments with most delicate instruments devised to show the cosmic vibration of the earth, the movements communicated to it by the tides, or by the of the sun and moon, it has been found almost impossible as yet to carry out the object, so greatly are these movements obscured by the ceaseless and inexplicable vibrations of the solid earth. There is nothing unreason- able in the supposition that, if an instrument can be constructed to show these, the ears of animals and birds—living organisms, and not iron and steel—should be able to discover the tremors of the surface."

The chapter from which this passage has been taken is, per- haps, the most suggestive in the volume ; but almost every chapter in the book is fruitful in observation, and will interest the lover of Nature. The interest excited, however, is not likely to be wholly pleasurable, for a man is never happy while discovering his ignorance. Probably there is not a reader who, on closing these chapters, will say, " I knew all this before ;" and by far the greater number of readers, albeit country-livers, will feel a regretful wonder that so much of the world lying near to their homes has been left to Mr. Jefferies to discover.