yards of the ash. Though so generally dreaded, wasps are really
inoffensive insects, never attacking unless previously buffeted. You may
sit close to a wasps' nest for hours, and, if you keep still, receive no
injury. Humble-bees, too, congregate in special localities: along one
hedge half a dozen nests may be found, while other fields are searched
for them in vain.

The best time to enter such a hiding-place is a little before the sun
sinks: for as his beams turn red all the creatures that rest during the
day begin to stir. Then the hares start down from the uplands and appear
on the short stubble, where the level rays throw exaggerated shadows
behind them. When six or eight hares are thus seen near the centre of a
single field, they and their shadows seem to take possession of and
occupy it.

Pheasants, though they retire to roost on the trees, often before rising
come forth into the meadows adjacent to the coverts. The sward in front
of the pollard ash sloped upwards gradually to the foot of a low hill
planted with firs, and just outside these about half a dozen pheasants
regularly appeared in the early evening. As the sun sank below the hill,
and the shadow of the great beeches some distance away began to extend
into the mead, they went back one by one into the firs. There they were
nearly safe, for no trees give so much difficulty to the poacher. It is
not easy even to shoot anything inside a fir plantation at night: as for
the noose, it is almost impossible to use it. The lowest pheasant is
taken first, and then the next above, like fowls perched on the rungs of
a ladder; and, indeed, it is not unlikely that those who excel in this
kind of work base their operations upon previous experiences in the hen
roost.