278 CHAPTER XX XV III. 



anthers. In Autumn, as we return from the moun- 

 tains to the coast, we find this " Grassy place " lighted 

 up by the blossoms of the Colchicum. Rarely is such 

 a sight as this to be enjoyed. 



The naturalist who drives up to Levens by the 

 St. Andre Gorge, back by La Roquette and the Var 

 valley, will not regret his excursion. 



Grass, like many other things, is the more valued 

 the rarer it becomes. In Norway every tuft of her- 

 bage that hangs in the crevices of the rocks is gathered 

 in with care. Even the stray blades which spring up 

 on the thatch of the cottage are not despised. On 

 the Riviera also, where " Grassy places " are few and 

 far between, no scrap of herbage is wasted. Even the 

 grass which lines the roadside is often rented by some 

 landless peasant to feed his rabbits or his goat, and 

 throughout the Maritime Alps the sickle of the toil- 

 some villager spares no green herb that grows by 

 hedge or ditch or watercourse. Each bank is bared, 

 not a flower is left, even the Clematis is torn from the 

 hedge : a desolation, and a sad sight for the botanist. 

 A peasant living close to us in the outskirts of Nice 

 fired on an old woman who was taking a few handfuls 

 of grass. 



It is difficult for us who live where grass abounds 

 to estimate its value, but where the sun is strong and 

 grass is scarce men set great store by it. Of all the 

 honours granted by the Romans for noble deeds in 

 war, the most difficult to obtain, and that which con- 

 ferred the most dignity, was the " corona graminea " 

 or crown of grass. Now, those things on which 

 man's life depends are ever sacred : or shall we say 

 that they were accounted sacred in ancient times, and 



