THE HEDGE-BANK. 41 



their deposits ; and, as they often collect more 

 than they can consume during the winter, the 

 spring converts their barns into a nursery of forest- 

 trees. The seeds of the Dandelion (" clocks," as 

 they are sometimes called,) are too well known to 

 you to need any description. Their curved taper- 

 ing seeds, their feathery crown, supported on a 

 stalk so slender that you would fancy the slight- 

 est breath would at once demolish it ; there 

 they sail, looking as if they were delighting in the 

 sunshine and breeze, equally with yonder gnats 

 or dragon-flies. Now they rise for a few feet, 

 and are wafted straight in the direction of that 

 clump of beeches, where they will certainly be 

 stopped ; and, if this once happens, they will 

 scarcely be able to set out again on another 

 voyage ; for, though while they are floating in 

 the air they are perfectly safe, let the wind blow 

 as hard as it please, as soon as they touch the 

 ground their sport is at an end, they. fall over 

 on their side, the stem which supports their 

 crown is snapped, the seed remains on the 

 ground, the down rises again, and flies about, 

 perhaps, till it is caught in the web of some spider, 

 who soon sets it free again as a very unprofitable 

 visitor, or till some hungry bird snatches at it, and, 

 to his disappointment, finds that it will not supply 

 him with the food which he expected to find ; for 

 this portion has been left behind in some crevice 

 of the ground, where it will next year spring up, 

 and in due time send out a fresh colony of ad- 

 venturers. 



We shall probably find, as we stroll by the 

 wayside, some plants of " Burdock."* These have 

 * Arctium Lappa. 



