THE CROWS. 105 



round return and settle by another. As the wiry 

 grass becomes paler with the fall of the year, the 

 rushes, on the contrary, from green become faintly 

 yellow, and presently brownish. Grey grass and 

 brown rushes, dark furze, and fern almost copper in 

 hue from frost, when lit up by a gleam of winter 

 sunshine, form a pleasant breadth of warm colour in 

 the midst of bare fields. 



After continuous showers in spring, lizards are often 

 found in the adjacent gardens, their dark backs as 

 they crawl over the patches being almost exactly the 

 tint of the moist earth. If touched, the tail is im- 

 mediately coiled, the body stiffens, and the creature 

 appears dead. They are popularly supposed to 

 come from the furze, which is also believed to shelter 

 adders. 



There is, indeed, scarcely a cover in Surrey and 

 Kent which is not said to have its adders ; the 

 gardeners employed at villas close to the metropolis 

 occasionally raise an alarm, and profess to have seen 

 a viper in the shrubberies, or the ivy, or under an old 

 piece of bast. Since so few can distinguish at a 

 glance between the common snake and the adder it 

 is as well not to press too closely upon any reptile 

 that may chance to be heard rustling in the grass, 

 and to strike tussocks with the walking stick before 

 sitting down to rest, for the adder is only dangerous 

 when unexpectedly encountered. 



In the roadside ditch by the furze the figwort grows, 

 easily known by its coarse square stem; and the 

 woody bines, if so they may be called, or stalks of 

 bitter-sweet, remain all the winter standing in the 



