182 NATURE NEAR LONDON 



woodbine crowns the bushes. The sickle has gone 

 over, and the poppies which grew so thick a while ago 

 in the corn no longer glow like a scarlet cloak thrown 

 on the ground. But red spots in waste places and by 

 the ways are where they have escaped the steel. 



A wood-pigeon keeps pace with the train his vigor- 

 ous pinions can race against an engine, but cannot 

 elude the hawk. He stops presently among the trees. 

 How pleasant it is from the height of the embankment 

 to look down upon the tops of the oaks ! The stubbles 

 stretch away, crossed with bands of green roots where 

 the partridges are hiding. Among flags and weeds the 

 moorhens feed fearlessly as we roll over the stream : 

 then comes a cutting, and more heath and hawkweed, 

 harebell, and bramble bushes red with unripe berries. 



Flowers grow high up the sides of the quarries ; flowers 

 cling to the dry, crumbling chalk of the cliff-like cutting ; 

 flowers bloom on the verge above, against the line of 

 the sky, and over the dark arch of the tunnel. This, it is 

 true, is summer ; but it is the same in spring. Before 

 a dandelion has shown in the meadow, the banks of 

 the railway are yellow with coltsfoot. After a time the 

 gorse flowers everywhere along them ; but the golden 

 broom overtops all, perfect thickets of broom glowing 

 in the sunlight. 



Presently the copses are azure with bluebells, among 

 which the brake is thrusting itself up ; others, again, are 

 red with ragged robins, and the fields adjacent fill the 

 eye with the gaudy glare of yellow charlock. The note 

 of the cuckoo sounds above the rushing of the train, and 

 the larks may be seen, if not heard, rising high over the 

 wheat. Some birds, indeed, find the bushes by the 

 railway the quietest place in which to build their nests. 



Butcher-birds or shrikes are frequently found on the 





