THE HEDGE-BANK. 37 



land country, and supposing this to have been the 

 case, his attention would be naturally arrested by 

 the " Wood-Sorrel," the leaves of which are, about 

 the middle of March, (when St. Patrick's day falls,) 

 very conspicuous among the dry leaves of the pre- 

 ceding year. It is a lovely little plant, and would 

 be interesting if it had nothing to recommend it 

 but the elegance of its leaves and flowers ; but the 

 principal reason I have for mentioning it to you 

 is, that I may direct your attention to it on some 

 hot summer's day, when its flowers have faded, 

 and its leaves grown large and strong. You will 

 then find hidden among the latter 'an angular seed 

 vessel, containing several seeds, each of which is 

 enclosed in a tunic of net-work, so elastic that it 

 will, when ripe, split down on one side, and by 

 pressing on the seed project it to the distance of 

 several feet, much in the same way that you may, 

 by pressing an orange-pip between your fingers, 

 shoot it across the room. The first time that I 

 searched for the seeds of the wood-sorrel, to see if 

 the account I had heard of them was correct, I 

 met with a very convincing proof that the plant 

 had the power of scattering its own seeds, for they 

 not only escaped from my hands, leaving their 

 covering behind them, but one of them most un- 

 ceremoniously skipped into my eye, and caused 

 me no little pain and inconvenience. 



If you have ever passed through a furze-brake, 

 on a sunny day in July, you have, I dare say, 

 heard sharp crackling sounds on all sides of you : 

 these are occasioned by the sudden bursting of the 

 pods of the Furze,* which are composed of a dry, 

 horny substance, and, immediately that they are 



* Ulex 



