green.  The drooping foliage of the birch exhibits a paler yellow; the nut-tree bushes shed brown leaves upon the ground.  Perhaps the beech leaves are the most beautiful; two or three tints are blended on the topmost boughs.  There is a ruddy orange hue, a tawny brown, and a bright green; the sunlight comes and mingles these together.  The same leaf will sometimes show two at least of these colours—­green shading into brown, or into a ruddy gold.  Later on, the oaks, in a monochrome of buff, will rival the beeches.  Now and then an acorn drops from the tree overhead, with a smart tap on the hard earth, and rebounds some inches high.  Some of these that fall are already dark—­almost black—­but if opened they will be found bored by a grub.  They are not yet ripe as a crop; the rooks are a good guide in that respect, and they have not yet set steadily to work upon this their favourite autumn food.  Others that have fallen and been knocked out of the cup are a light yellow at the base and green towards the middle and the point; the yellow part is that which has been covered by the cup.  In the sward there is a small hole from out of which creeps a wasp at intervals; it is a nest, and some few of them are still at work.  But their motions are slow and lack vivacity; before long, numbers must die, and already many have succumbed after crawling miserably on the ground which they spurned a short while since, when with a brisk buzz they flew from apple to plum.

In the quiet woodland lane a covey of partridges are running to and fro on the short sward at the side, and near them two or three pheasants are searching for food.  The geometrical spiders—­some of them look almost as big as a nut—­hang their webs spun to a regular pattern on the bushes.  The fungi flourish; there is a huge specimen on the elm there, but the flowers are nearly gone.

A few steps down the lane, upon looking over a gate into a large arable field where the harrow has broken up the clods, a faint bluish tinge may be noticed on the dull earth in the more distant parts.  A second glance shows that it is caused by a great flock of woodpigeons.  Some more come down out of the elms and join their companions; there must be a hundred and fifty or two hundred of them.  The woodpigeon on the ground at a distance is difficult to distinguish, or rather to define individually—­the pale blue tint seems to confuse the eye with a kind of haze.  Though the flock take little notice now—­knowing themselves to be far out of gunshot—­yet they would be quickly on the alert if an attempt were made to approach them.