the battleships, and, the day being still and the air clear, the
detonations carried to an immense distance. They were distinctly heard
at Moreton-in-the-Marsh, only fourteen miles from Aldington and a
distance of nearly one hundred miles from the guns, in a direct line.
The reports were so loud at Woodstock, near Oxford, that the pheasants
began crowing in the Blenheim preserves.

At Alton there were some extensive woods and coppices on the farm,
which were favourite breeding-places for pheasants, being dry and
sunny. Some months before October 1, when pheasant shooting begins, a
white pheasant was seen, and although he disappeared for a time, he
fell eventually to the gun of the tenant. He was a beautiful bird, and
was considered worth stuffing as a rarity. Albinism is not uncommon in
the blackbird; I have seen two partial instances lately; one was
constantly visible in my garden and meadows, with head nearly all
white, and the other I saw in the public garden at Bournemouth, with
the peculiarity still more developed. A white martin, or swallow, came
into the house of a friend near Aldington, and was regarded as an
unfavourable omen. Melanism, the opposite of albinism, is rarer, and
the only instance I have seen was that of a black bullfinch at
Aldington; it had evidently been mobbed as a stranger by other birds
of its kind, as it was injured and nearly dead when captured. I had
the specimen stuffed as a curiosity, though I am not fond of stuffed
birds. It is said that hemp-seed, if given in undue quantities to cage
bullfinches, will produce the black colour, even upon a bird of quite
natural plumage originally, and a case of the kind is mentioned by
Gilbert White.

Aldington, with its quiet apple orchards and the "island" and
shrubberies below my garden, was a happy refuge for birds of all