Not far from him there was a bunch of beautiful meadow geraniums; some of their blue cups had already dropped, leaving the elongated seed-vessel or crane’s bill, something like the pointed caps worn by mediaeval ladies. The leaves are much divided; perhaps the wind-anemone leaves (but these had withered long since) are most finely divided, and if you will hold one so that its shadow may be cast by the sun on a piece of white paper, you cannot choose but admire it. While he sat there, now and then changing the position of a limb with the utmost care and deliberation, not to rustle the grass or to attract attention by moving quickly (for kangaroos do not heed anything that moves very slowly), he saw a brown furze-chat come to a tall fern and perch sideways on the flattened yellow stalk. Half an hour afterwards there came a sound like “top-top” from an oak on his left hand--not the ivy-grown one--and when he had by great exertion turned himself round, it is difficult to turn and still occupy the same space, he followed up all the branches of the oak cautiously till he found the bird. If you glance, as it were, broadcast up into a tree when it is in leaf, you see nothing, though the bird’s note may fall from just overhead. Bevis first looked quickly up the larger leading branches, letting his glance run up them; then he caused it to travel out along the lesser boughs of one great branch, then of another, till he had exhausted all. Still he could not find it, though he heard the “top-top.” But as he had now got a map of the tree in his eye, the moment the bird moved he saw it. It ran up a partly dead branch, then stopped and struck it with its beak, and though the bird was no larger than a sparrow the sound of these vehement blows could have been heard across the glade. He saw some white and red colour, but the glimpse he had was too short to notice much. The spotted woodpecker is so hasty that it is not often he is in sight more than half a minute. Bevis saw him fly with a flight like a finch across to the ivy-grown oak, and heard his “top-top” from thence. One of the tits has a trick of tapping branches so much in the same manner that if he is not seen the sound may be mistaken. There was now a little rabbit out, but not worth shooting. Restless as Bevis was, yet the moment he fixed his mind to do a thing his will magnetized the nerves and sinews. He became as still as a tree and scarcely heeded the lapse of time. Bees went by, which reminded him of the honey in the hollow ash, and he heard mice in the fern. The shadows had now deepened, and there were two thrushes and a blackbird out in the grass. Another little kangaroo appeared, and a third, and a long way off, too far to shoot, there was one about three parts grown, which he hoped would presently feed over within range.