Who would have thought to find a tree-planter in the wheatear,
the bird of the stony waste and open naked down, who does not
even ask for a bush to perch on?
It then occurred to me that in every case where I had observed
a clump of elder bushes on the bare downside, it grew upon a
village or collection of rabbit burrows, and it is probable
that in every case the clump owed its existence to the
wheatears who had dropped the seed about their nesting-place.
The clump where I had sought a shelter from the storm was
composed of large old dilapidated-looking half-dead elders;
perhaps their age was not above thirty or forty years, but
they looked older than hawthorns of one or two centuries; and
under them the rabbits had their diggings--huge old mounds and
burrows that looked like a badger's earth. Here, too, the
burrows had probably existed first and had attracted the
wheatears, and the birds had brought the seed from some
distant bush.
Crouching down in one of the big burrows at the roots of an
old elder I remained for half an hour, listening to the
thump-thump of the alarmed rabbits about me, and the
accompanying hiss and swish of the wind and sleet and rain in
the ragged branches.
The storm over I continued my rambles on Whitesheet Hill, and
coming back an hour or two later to the very spot where I had
seen and followed the wheatear, I all at once caught sight of
a second bird, lying dead on the turf close to my feet! The
sudden sight gave me a shock of astonishment, mingled with
admiration and grief.
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