146 NATURE NEAR LONDON. 



following spring as brown spots among the green. 

 These snapped boughs never bore leaf again. It was 

 the young fresh green leaves of the elms, those that 

 appeared in the spring of 1881, that withered as if 

 scorched. The boughs upon which they grew had 

 not been injured ; they were small boughs at the 

 outside of the tree. I hear that this scorching up of 

 elm leaves has been noticed in other districts for 

 several seasons. 



The dewdrops of the morning, preserved by the 

 mist, which the sun does not disperse for some hours, 

 linger on late in shaded corners, as under trees, on 

 drooping blades of grass, and on the petals of flowers. 

 Wild bees and wasps may often be noticed on these 

 blades of grass that are still wet, as if they could 

 suck some sustenance from the dew. Wasps fight 

 hard for their existence as the nights grow cold. 

 Desperate and ravenous, they will eat anything, but 

 perish by hundreds as the warmth declines. 



Dragon-flies of the larger size are now very busy 

 rushing to and fro on their double wings ; those who 

 go blackberrying or nutting cannot fail to see them. 

 Only a very few days since it does not seem a week 

 there was a chiffchaff calling in a copse as merrily 

 as in the spring. This little bird is the first, or very 

 nearly the first, to come in the spring, and one of 

 the last to go as autumn approaches. It is curious 

 that, though singled out as a first sign of spring, the 

 chiffchaff has never entered into the home life of 

 the people like the robin, the swallow, or even the 

 sparrow. 



There is nothing about it in the nursery rhymes 



