1 52 NATURE NEAR LONDON 



searching about, not five yards from the road, nor 

 twenty from a row of houses. It was at the corner of a 

 copse which adjoins them. If not so constantly shot at 

 the jay would be anything but wild. 



Notwithstanding all these magpies and jays, the part- 

 ridges are numerous this year in the fields bordering 

 the highway, and which are not watched by keepers. 

 Thinking of the partridges makes me notice the ant- 

 hills. There were comparatively few this season, but on 

 the 4th of August, which was a sunny day, I saw the 

 inhabitants of a hill beside the road bringing out the 

 eggs into the sunshine. They could not do it fast 

 enough; some ran out with eggs, and placed them on 

 the top of the little mound, and others seized eggs that 

 had been exposed sufficiently and hurried with them 

 into the interior. 



Woody nightshade grows in quantities along this road 

 and, apparently, all about the outskirts of the town. 

 There is not a hedge without it, and it creeps over the 

 mounds of earth at the sides of the highways. Some 

 fumitory appeared this summer in a field of barley ; till 

 then I had not observed any for some time in that 

 district. This plant, once so common, but now nearly 

 eradicated by culture, has a soft pleasant green. A corn- 

 flower, too, flowered in another field, quite a treasure to 

 find where these beautiful blue flowers are so scarce. 

 The last day of August there was a fierce combat on the 

 footpath between a wasp and a brown moth. They 

 rolled over and struggled, now one, now the other 

 uppermost, and the wasp appeared to sting the moth 

 repeatedly. The moth, however, got away. 



There are so many jackdaws about the suburbs that, 

 when a flock of rooks passes over, the caw -cawing is 

 quite equalled by the jack-jucking. The daws are easily 



