54 STUDIES IN THE FIELD AND FOREST. 



iiearer together. Their principal charm consists in the 

 character of their road sides, now overgrown with all 

 that blended variety of herbs and shrubbery which we 

 encounter in a wild pasture. We hear a great deal of 

 ^complaint of these old roads, because they are crooked 

 .and narrow, and because our ancestors did not plant 

 them with trees. But trees have grown up spontane 

 ously in many places, sometimes forming knolls and 

 'Coppices of inimitable beauty ; and often an irregular 

 .row of trees and shrubs, of different species, adds a 

 pleasing variety to the scenes. 



And how much more delightful is a ride or a stroll 

 through one of these old roads, than through the most 

 ihighly ornamented suburbs of our cities, with their 

 .streets of more convenient width. The very neglect 

 to which they have been left, on account of the small 

 .amount of travelling over them, has caused numberless 

 beauties to spring up in their borders. In these places 

 aiature seems to have regained her sovereignty. The 

 .squirrel runs freely along the walls, and the hare may 

 be seen peeping timidly out of her burrow at their 

 foundation, or leaping across the street. The hazel 

 bushes often form a sort of natural hedge-row, for whole 

 furlongs ; and the sparrow and the robin, and even some 

 of the less familiar birds, build their nests in the green 

 thickets of barberries, viburnums, cornels, and whortle- 

 tberry bushes, that grow in irregular rows and tufts 

 .along the rough and varied embankments. 



Near -these old roads we seldom meet an artificial 

 object that is made disagreeable by its manifest preten 

 sions. Little one-story cottages are frequent with their 

 /green slope in front, and a maple or an elm that affords 

 them shelter and shade. The old stonewall festooned 

 with wild grape-vines, comes close up to their in- 



