118 A RAMBLE TO BRANDY COVE. 



left hide the town and the sea ; but the summit of 

 Hillsborough's great mass is visible, a noble object ; 

 and in the hollow and on the slopes are many pretty 

 white villas with their gardens and pleasure-grounds. 



Another push upward, and all this is shut out ; and 

 here we are on the top of the naked, rounded down, 

 with the expanse of the Bristol Channel before us, and 

 the sound of its waves surging among the rugged 

 rocks far beneath our feet. Here is the short, close 

 turf, and the pretty scarlet-tipped bird's-foot trefoil, 

 and the rosy, dwarf red-rattle, and the delicately- 

 formed milkwort, all tiny plants that hardly overtop 

 the turf, close as it is. The milkwort is of the blue 

 variety, the deepest, richest ultramarine, surely by 

 far the most beautiful phase of this varying little 

 flower. 



When I got up as high as this, two or three little 

 things of interest occurred to me. One was the find- 

 ing of a thrush's chopping-block. You are perhaps 

 aware that the birds of this family feed largely on 

 snails, and that they are said to carry their prey to 

 some selected stone, against which they hammer and 

 bang it till the fracture of the shell enables them to 

 pick out the morsel. I never before had personal tes- 

 timony of the habit, but here was evidence indubit- 

 able. Around a stone about as big as my head, and 

 partially imbedded in the earth, were scattered the 

 fragments of perhaps ten or a dozen snail-shells, all of 

 the same species, the pretty banded wood-snail (Hdix 

 nemoralis) ; and the smeared stone made it clear 



