io8 NATURE NEAR LONDON 



not unlike a stag's antlers ; gather a handful and it 

 crumbles to pieces in the fingers, dry and brittle. 



A quarry for sand has been dug down some eight or ten 

 feet, so that standing in it nothing else is visible. This 

 steep scarp shows the strata, yellow sand streaked with 

 thin brown layers ; at the top it is fringed with heath 

 in full flower, bunches of purple bloom overhanging the 

 edge, and behind this the azure of the sky. 



Here, where the ground slopes gradually, it is entirely 

 covered with the purple bells ; a sheen and gleam of 

 purple light plays upon it. A fragrance of sweet honey 

 floats up from the flowers where grey hive-bees are busy. 

 Ascending still higher and crossing the summit, the 

 ground almost suddenly falls away in a steep descent, 

 and the entire hillside, seen at a glance, is covered with 

 heath, and heath alone. A bunch at the very edge offers 

 a purple cushion fit for a king ; resting here a delicious 

 summer breeze, passing over miles and miles of fields 

 and woods yonder, comes straight from the distant hills. 

 Along those hills the lines of darker green are woods ; 

 there are woods to the south, and west, and east, heath 

 around, and in the rear the gaze travels over the tops of 

 the endless firs. But southwards is sweetest ; below, 

 beyond the verge of the heath, the corn begins, and 

 waves in the wind. It is the breeze that makes the 

 summer day so lovely. 



The eggs of the nighthawk are sometimes found at this 

 season near by. They are laid on the ground, on the 

 barest spots, where there is no herbage. At dusk, the 

 nighthawk wheels with a soft yet quick flight over the 

 ferns and about the trees. Along the hedges bounding 

 the heath butcher-birds watch for their prey sometimes 

 on the furze, sometimes on a branch of ash. Wood- 

 sage grows plentifully on the banks by the roads ; it is a 



