Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 29, 2025
On the ridge the low trees and bushes have an outline like the flame of a candle in a draught the wind has blown them till they have grown fixed in that shape. In an oak across the ploughed field a flock of wood-pigeons have settled; on the furrows there are chaffinches, and larks rise and float a few yards farther away.
It was an enchanted world of green shadows and silent movement; countless yellow caterpillars hung there, dangling to and fro, each on its slender thread; chaffinches and yellow-hammers swung themselves impetuously from bough to bough, and at every swoop snapped up a caterpillar; but these never became any fewer.
'Ah, Gustavo, Constance asked over her shoulder, 'is there a washer-woman here at the Hotel du Lac named Costantina? 'Si, signorina, zat is Costantina standing on ze bridge wif ze yellow handkerchief on her head. Constance looked at Costantina, and nodded and smiled. Then she laughed out loud, a beautiful rippling, joyous laugh that rang through the grove and silenced the chaffinches.
I have seen flocks of wood-pigeons immensely larger than any here; but then it was only occasionally. They came, passed over, and were gone. Here the flocks, though not very numerous, seem always to be about. Sparrows crowd every hedge and field, their numbers are incredible; chaffinches are not to be counted; of greenfinches there must be thousands. From the railway even you can see them.
There has evidently been some heavy weather near us, as there is a tremendous swell on, and the ship lurches until the end of the fore-yard nearly touches the water. Had a refreshing walk up and down the quarter-deck, though I have hardly found my sea-legs yet. Several small birds chaffinches, I think perched in the rigging.
'What are you doing here? I asked sternly. 'Why, look here, he responded, never leaving off smiling, 'I'm calling the little birds to sing. He showed me his little cups. 'The chaffinches answer splendidly! You, at your tender years, take delight, no doubt, in the feathered songsters' notes! Listen, I beg; I will begin chirping, and they'll answer me directly it's so delightful!
There is no room for big-winged sparrow-hawks in close cover, anyway, and Blackie, who was born to the leafy green ways, knew that. Blackie's yells had called up, as if by magic, a motley crowd of chaffinches, hedge-sparrows, wrens, robins, &c., from nowhere at all, and they could be seen whirling in skirmishing order not too close about the retreating foe.
This is the picture, partially screened by noble acacia trees, that I have from my window, accompanied by the music of waving barley and wheat, dancing leaves, and chaffinches, tame as canaries, singing in the branches. About a mile off is the little village of Villiers, which is even prettier than our own, and which of course artists have long ago found out.
The feathered company was soon swelled by the arrival of some impudent and very quarrelsome sparrows, a pair of chaffinches, and a darling little blue titmouse, who, with his cousin a cole-titmouse, soon became quite at their ease. By common consent all the other birds avoided the sparrows.
And why should there be so many sorts of birds, all robbing the garden at once? Thrushes, and blackbirds, and sparrows, and chaffinches, and greenfinches, and bullfinches, and tomtits. And there are four kinds of tomtits round here, remember: but we may go on with such talk for ever. Wiser men than we have asked the same question: but Lady Why will not answer them yet.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking