The Open Air 



these are not to be enjoyed in their full significance 

 unless you have traversed the same places when bare, 

 and have watched the slow fulfilment of the flowers. 



The moist leaves that remain upon the mounds 

 do not rustle, and the thrush moves among them 

 unheard. The sunshine may bring out a rabbit, 

 feeding along the slope of the mound, following the 

 paths or runs. He picks his way, he does not like 

 wet. Though out at night in the dewy grass of 

 summer, in the rain-soaked grass of winter, and 

 living all his life in the earth, often damp nearly to 

 his burrows, no time, and no succession of generations 

 can make him like wet. He endures it, but he picks 

 his way round the dead fern and the decayed leaves. 

 He sits in the bunches of long grass, but he does not 

 like the drops of dew on it to touch him. Water lays 

 his fur close, and mats it, instead of running off and 

 leaving him sleek. As he hops a little way at a time 

 on the mound he chooses his route almost as we pick 

 ours in the mud and pools of February. By the shore 

 of the ditch there still stand a few dry, dead dock 

 stems, with some dry reddish-brown seed adhering. 

 Some dry brown nettle stalks remain ; some grey and 

 broken thistles; some teazles leaning on the bushes. 

 The power of winter has reached its utmost now, and 

 can go no farther. These bines which still hang in the 

 bushes are those of the greater bindweed, and will 

 be used in a month or so by many birds as conveni- 

 ently curved to fit about their nests. The stem of 

 wild clematis, grey and bowed, could scarcely look 

 more dead. Fibres are peeling from it, they come 

 off at the touch of the fingers. The few brown 

 feathers that perhaps still adhere where the flowers 

 once were are stained and discoloured by the beating 

 of the rain. It is not dead: it will flourish again ere 



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