All through the year the cornfield gives food and shelter to a host
unnumbered--from seed-time to harvest, in the days of stubble and of
fallow. To all manner of creatures in fur and feather, insects as the
grain in number, grubs below ground, butterflies above, to rank weeds
and flowers, the cornfield gives more freely than it yields bread to
man. Seagulls come from the coast. Peewits make the field their home
in the spring. There are congregations of sparrows and finches. Hosts
of starlings that go to roost in the reeds. Wood-pigeons stuff their
crops to bursting; turtle-doves come and go. Yellow-hammers sing in
the hedges through the midsummer days. The corn-crake runs swiftly
through the stems where the partridge has her young brood. Rooks follow
the plough, with wagtails that run and dart over the furrows as if
gliding on ice. Overhead are larks; and the corn-bunting flies heavily
from field to field, his legs trailing as if broken. And birds of prey
take their toll of the feeding multitudes. All through the year animal
life finds sanctuary in the cornfield. Underground are the moles; the
harvest mouse weaves its nest in the corn-stems; the rabbit makes a
stop in the field near the hedge, and eats the green blades. To the
ripening corn the fox brings her cubs to play. In the ditches are
hedgehogs; everywhere are rats, mice, and shrew-mice. The hare follows
secret paths, and there are stoats and weasels seeking prey, and
finding it on every side. But nowadays there is little or no work for
our mills, as wheat-field after wheat-field is turned into grass. The
miller is only one among ten thousand sufferers.
The days spent in the cornfield must pass pleasantly for the little
foxes in a fine summer. In cornfields, unlike hayfields, there is room
between the stems for free movement, there is some chance to look
about, there is air and light, cover and shade. Corn-stems are firm
and dry, but grass-stems hold the soaking moisture of rain and dew,
which saturates the skin even through fur and feather, and quite beyond
the remedy of dog-like shakings. Wheat, as we have said, is the corn
most favoured of all creatures--where not planted too thickly, and
growing on ground not over clean, but dotted plentifully with bunches
of knapweed, thistles, and bindweed, and intersected by furrows where
the corn has grown poorly, and with open spaces bare to the wind and
sun. Winged game, in case prompt flight is necessary, find it easier to
start up into the air through the straight, stiff ears of wheat than
through the ears of oats and barley. Barley that shares the ground
with a rank plant of grass-seeds finds small favour among those many
creatures that forsake the airless woods in summer.
* * * * *