THE CROWS 



ON one side of the road immediately after quitting the 

 suburb there is a small cover of furze. The spines are 

 now somewhat browned by the summer heats, and the 

 fern which grows about every bush trembles on the 

 balance of colour between green and yellow. Soon, too, 

 the tall wiry grass will take a warm brown tint, which 

 gradually pales as the autumn passes into winter, and 

 finally bleaches to greyish white. 



Looking into the furze from the footpath, there are 

 purple traces here and there at the edge of the fern 

 where the heath-bells hang. On a furze branch, which 

 projects above the rest, a furze chat perches, with yellow 

 blossom above and beneath him. Rushes mark the 

 margin of small pools and marshy spots, so overhung with 

 brambles and birch branches, and so closely surrounded 

 by gorse, that they would not otherwise be noticed. 



But the thick growth of rushes intimates that water 

 is near, and upon parting the bushes a little may be 

 seen, all that has escaped evaporation in the shade. 

 From one of these marshy spots I once and once 

 only observed a snipe rise, and after wheeling round 

 return and settle by another. As the wiry grass be- 

 comes paler with the fall of the year, the rushes, on the 

 contrary, from green become faintly yellow, and presently 

 brownish. Grey grass and brown rushes, dark furze r 

 and fern, almost copper in hue from frost, when lit up 



90 



