JULY. 207 



the shade of a venerable oak, in such a scene, and 

 listen to the summer sound of u bees, grasshoppers, 

 and ten thousand other insects, mingled with the 

 more remote and solitary cry of the peewit and 

 curlew ! Then to think of the coach-horse, urged 

 on his sultry stage, and the ploughboy and his team 

 plunging in the depths of a burning fallow or of 

 our ancestors, in times of national famine, plucking 

 up the wild fern-roots* for bread and what an en- 

 hancement of our own luxurious ease ! 



But woods, the depths of woods, are the most 

 delicious retreats during the fiery noons of July. 

 The great azure campanulas, or Canterbury bells, 

 are there in bloom ; and in chalk or limestone dis- 

 tricts there are also now to be found those curious 

 plants the bee and fly orchis. The soul of John 

 Evelyn well might envy us a wood lounge at this 

 period ; 



All the cool freshness of the humid air ; 



the walk by the border of the brook chiming over 

 the shadow-chequered pebbles, the green and breezy 

 canopy above us, and luxurious thoughts in our 

 hearts. 



Throughout the month, the halloo and clapper of 

 the birdboy, a classical being since the days of 

 Giles Bloomfield, are heard amongst the fields of 



* It is perhaps not known to every juvenile lover of nature that 

 a transverse section of a fern -root presents a miniature picture of 

 an oak-tree. 



