THE CROWS 91 



by a gleam of winter sunshine form a pleasant breadth 

 of warm colour in the midst of bare fields. 



After continuous showers in spring, lizards are often 

 found in the adjacent gardens, their dark backs as they 

 crawl over the patches being almost exactly the tint of 

 the moist earth. If touched, the tail is immediately 

 coiled, the body stiffens, and the creature appears dead. 

 They are popularly supposed to come from the furze r 

 which is also believed to shelter adders. 



There is, indeed, scarcely a cover in Surrey and Kent 

 which is not said to have its adders; the gardeners 

 employed at villas close to the metropolis occasionally 

 raise an alarm, and profess to have seen a viper in the 

 shrubberies, or the ivy, or under an old piece of bast. 

 Since so few can distinguish at a glance between the 

 common snake and the adder it is as well not to press 

 too closely upon any reptile that may chance to be heard 

 rustling in the grass, and to strike tussocks with the 

 walking-stick before sitting down to rest, for the addei 

 is only dangerous when unexpectedly encountered. 



In the roadside ditch by the furze the figwort grows, 

 easily known by its coarse square stem ; and the woody 

 bines, if so they may be called, or stalks of bitter-sweet, 

 remain all the winter standing in the hawthorn hedge. 

 The first frosts, on the other hand, shrivel the bines of 

 white bryony, which part and hang separated, and in the 

 spring a fresh bine pushes up with greyish green leaves 

 and tendrils feeling for support. It is often observed 

 that the tendrils of this bryony coil both ways, with and 

 against the sun. 



But it must be remembered in looking for this that it 

 is the same tendril which should be examined, and not 

 two different ones. It will then be seen that the tendril, 

 after forming a spiral one way, lengthens out like a tiny 



