4 NATURE IN DOWNLAND 



so few places abundant enough to appear as an 

 element in the scene, is beautiful too, and its beauty 

 is, I am inclined to think, all the greater because of 

 its colour. Seen against the deep greens and browns 

 of the vegetation in late summer it appears white, but 

 compared with a white feather or white flower we see 

 that it is silvery, with a faint yellow or brown tinge, 

 lighter but a little like the brown tinge in the glisten- 

 ing transparent wings of some dragon-flies and other 

 insects. 



The down on that August day was of the dwarf 

 thistle, which has an almost stemless flower, and 

 appears as a purple disc on the turf. It is the most 

 common species, universal on the sheep-walks : so 

 abundant was it this year that as you walked about 

 the brown and yellow turf appeared everywhere flecked 

 with silvery white a patch of white for every square 

 yard of ground in some places of the dry flower with 

 its mass of down spread around it. Thus it was that 

 sitting on the hill, gazing over the wide slope before 

 me, I became sensible of the way in which ball after 

 ball rose up from the ground to fly towards and past 

 me. It was as if these slight silvery objects were 

 springing spontaneously into existence, as the heat 

 opened and the wind lifted and bore them away. All 

 round me, and as far off as such slight gauzy objects 

 could be seen, they were springing up from the grass 

 in this way in hundreds and thousands. Looking 

 long and steadily at them their birth and their flight 



