A COUNTRYMAN'S YEAR. By John Humphreys.

(1996) 1997 reprint. Landscape 4to. Pp160. Colour plates and b/w illustrations by John Paley, pictorial end-papers. Red-brown boards.

This is a collection of accounts of rural life and work up to the disappearance of the horse from British farms. The material is aranged season by season. Chapters include; Spring - sable parliament, the keeper's tale, the hare in the furrow, the old school, the vicarage garden, Frog Hall Marsh; summer - the fenland flyer, mayfly time, Romany morning, mailed warrior, fall of a tyrant, singing masons, Tarka's return; Autumn - shock-horse boy, muir cock, harvest home, Coney Bill, country bike, Blind Bob's, mellow fruitfulness; Winter - hedging bets, wild goose chase, the scythe, harmonious blacksmith, the poacher's tale, falcon gentle, bats in the belfry.