Alas! I fear I shall not again see the lesser whitethroat as I saw him in that favoured year: in 1901 he came not, or came in small numbers; and it was the same in the spring of 1902. The spring was cold and backward in both years, and the bitter {62} continuous east winds which prevailed in March and April probably proved fatal to large numbers of the more delicate migrants. In this low, level country, sheltered by woods and hedgerows, we feel the tremendous power of the sun even before the last week in June. It is good to feel, to bathe in the heat all day long; but at noon one sometimes finds it too hot even on the open heath, and is forced to take shelter in the woods. It was always coolest on the high ground among the pines, where the trees are very tall and there is no underwood. In spring it was always pleasant to walk here on the thick carpet of fallen needles and old dead fern; now, in a very short time, the young bracken has sprung up as if by miracle to a nearly uniform height of about four feet. It spreads all around me for many acres--an unbroken sea of brilliant green, out of which rise the tall red columns of the pines supporting the dark woodland roof. [Sidenote: A sheet of bracken] Why is it, when in June the luxuriant young bracken first drops its fully developed fronds, so that frond touches frond, many overlapping, forming a billowy expanse of vivid green, hiding, or all but hiding, the brown or red soil beneath--why is it the eyes rest with singular satisfaction on it? It is not only because of the colour, nor the beauty of contrast where the red floor of last year's beech leaves is seen through the fresh verdure, and of dark red-boled pines rising from the green sea of airy fronds. Colours and contrasts more beautiful may be seen, and the pleasure they give is different in kind. {63}