40 NATURE NEAR LONDON 



in this locality very nearly simultaneously with the first 

 whistling of the blackbirds in February ; last spring the 

 chiffchaff sang soon after the flowering of the lesser 

 celandine (not in this hedge, but near by), and the first 

 swift was noticed within a day or two of the opening of 

 the May bloom. Although not exactly, yet in a measure, 

 the movements of plant and bird life correspond. 



In a closely cropped hedge opposite this great mound 

 (cropped because enclosing a cornfield) there grows a 

 solitary shrub of the wayfaring tree. Though well known 

 elsewhere, there is not, so far as I am aware, another 

 bush of it for miles, and I should not have noticed this 

 had not this part of the highway been so pleasant a place 

 to stroll to and fro in almost all the year. The twigs of 

 the wayfaring tree are covered with a mealy substance 

 which comes off on the fingers when touched. A stray 

 shrub or plant like this sometimes seems of more interest 

 than a whole group. 



For instance, most of the cottage gardens have fox- 

 gloves in them, but I had not observed any wild, till one 

 afternoon near some woods I found a tall and beautiful 

 foxglove, richer in colour than the garden specimens, and 

 with bells more thickly crowded, lifting its spike of purple 

 above the low cropped hawthorn. In districts where the 

 soil is favourable to the foxglove it would not have 

 been noticed, but here, alone and unexpected, it was 

 welcomed. The bees in spring come to the broad way- 

 side sward by the great mound to the bright dandelions ; 

 presently to the white clover, and later to the heaths. 



There are about sixty wild flowers which grow freely 

 along this road, namely, yellow agrimony, amphibiou 

 persicaria, arum, avens, bindweed, bird's foot lotus, 

 bittersweet, blackberry, black and white bryony, brook- 

 lime, burdock, buttercups, wild camomile, wild carrot, 



