To reach that part of the wood where it was proposed to shoot the shortest way led across some arable fields.
Fieldfares and redwings rose out of the hedges and flew away in their peculiarly scattered manner--their flocks, though proceeding in the same direction, seeming all loose and disordered.

Where the ploughs had been at work already the deep furrows were full of elm leaves, wafted as they fell from the trees in such quantities as to make the groove left by the share level with the ridges.

A flock of lapwings were on the clods in an adjacent field, near enough to be seen, but far beyond gunshot.

There might perhaps have been fifty birds, all facing one way and all perfectly motionless.

They were, in fact, watching us intently, although not apparently looking towards us: they act so much in concert as to seem drilled.