THE FAERY YEAR 



to leave out of reckoning that unanchored gossamer 

 which often on such a day sails through the serene 

 air, the spectacle prettily described in Germany as 

 " the flying summer " Der fliegende Sommer. 

 This gossamer is darted into the air and spread over 

 the earth by spiders of a tiny size. They are ex- 

 tremely numerous, hundreds of thousands perhaps 

 in a single large field ; yet even so, how marvellous 

 that they can spin out within an hour or two for 

 quite early in the morning we often see the ground 

 glittering with their work such a vast mileage 

 of matter ; that such long lines, no matter how 

 attenuated, can come from a creature cast almost 

 on the microscopic scale ! 



The choicest of all gossamer sights is when these 

 fine webs are weighted with rows of dewdrops. In 

 the bright sunshine, then, each little line from 

 stubble to stubble is like a necklace of threaded 

 pearl or opal made for a fairy. Certainly no pearl or 

 opal shows lovelier colour than the gems on the gos- 

 samer, which have those of the rainbow. 



Ragwort Gold and Gloom 



The blackthorn common, high in the oak and 

 hazel woods, on some of these mid-winter days, is 

 almost as forlorn a spot as the peewit marsh. The 

 coarse ragwort has been encroaching on its turf for 

 years past. At one time the village freeholders' 

 306 



