March 9.—
I had a very odd dream last night, and take it as an ill omen, for I don't expect that the book will meet a better fate. I thought I had one of the proofs of the new poems from London, and after looking at it awhile it shrank through my hands like sand, and crumbled into dust. The birds were singing in Oxey Wood at six o'clock this evening as loud and various as in May.
March 31.—
Artis and Henderson came to see me, and we went to see the Roman station agen Oxey Wood, which he says is plainly Roman.
April 16.—
Took a walk in the fields, bird-nesting and botanizing, and had like to have been taken up as a poacher in Hilly Wood, by a meddlesome, conceited gamekeeper belonging to Sir John Trollope. He swore that he had seen me in the act, more than once, of shooting game, when I never shot even so much as a sparrow in my life. What terrifying rascals these woodkeepers and gamekeepers are! They make a prison of the forest, and are its gaolers.
April 18.—
Resumed my letters on Natural History in good earnest, and intend to get them finished with this year, if I can get out into the fields, for I will insert nothing but what has come under my notice.
May 13.—
Met with an extraordinary incident to-day, while walking in Openwood. I popt unawares on an old fox and her four young cubs that were playing about. She saw me, and instantly approached towards me growling like an angry dog. I had no stick, and tried all I could to fright her by imitating the bark of a fox-hound, which only irritated her the more, and if I had not retreated a few paces back she would have seized me: when I set up an haloo she started.