212 JOTTINGS ABOUT BIRDS. 



one be chosen will quickly lead to many another 

 call for choice. A typical Devonshire lane has tall 

 banks of earth on either side clothed with grass 

 and herbs, flowers and ferns and brambles; the 

 top of each bank is crowned with a more or less 

 dense hedge of varying height, the tv^igs and 

 branches from each interlacing in many places. 

 The wonderful luxuriance of the ivy, mosses, lichens, 

 ferns, and other vegetation testifies to the humidity 

 of the Devonshire climate, and also to its ex- 

 ceptional mildness — ^a climate that admits of the 

 wild strawberry and the scabious being in bloom 

 at the winter solstice, and allows a host of plants 

 to retain their vitality and verdure throughout the 

 year, that in less favoured districts shed their leaves 

 and die completely down in autumn. 



From, the naturalist's point of view these lanes 

 are ever attractive and interesting throughout the 

 year; summer or winter the wild-life in them proves 

 a perennial charm, but never are they more alluring 

 to the lover of Nature than in the leafy months of 

 May and June. It is then the lanes of Devonshire 

 look their fairest and their best. The foliage still 

 retains that delicate shade of green peculiar to its 

 youth and to the spring. The hazels, elms, and 

 svcamores are in their fairest arrav ; the thickets 



