92 THE LIFE OF THE FIELDS. 



they confine their miserable feathery victims (in cages 

 just to fit the bird, say six inches square) in cells 

 where movement or rest would be alike impossible. 

 Yet goldfinches are still to be seen close to the town ; 

 they are fond of the seeds which they find wherever 

 there is a waste place, and on the slopes of unfinished 

 roads. Each unoccupied house, and many occupied, 

 has its brood of starlings; a starling the other day 

 was taking insects from the surface of a sheep pond 

 on the hill, flying out to the middle of the pond and 

 snatching the insects from the water. During the 

 long weeks of rain and stormy weather in the spring 

 of 1883, the Downs looked dreary indeed ; open, un- 

 sheltered, the grass so short as scarcely to be called 

 grass, wet and slippery. But a few glimpses of 

 sunshine soon brought a change. Where the furze 

 bushes had been cut down, the stems of furze began 

 to shoot, looking at a little distance like moss on the 

 ground. Among these there were broad violet patches 

 — scentless violets, nothing to gather, but pleasant to 

 see — colouring the earth. Presently the gorse flowered, 

 miles of it, and the willow wrens sang plaintively 

 among it. The brightest bird on the Downs was then 

 the stonechat. Perched on a dead thistle, his blackest 

 of black heads, the white streak by his neck, and the 

 brilliance of his colouring contrasted with the yellow 

 gorse around. In the hedges on the northern slopes 

 of the Downs, towards the Weald, or plain, the way- 

 faring tree grows in large shrubs, blooming among the 

 thorns. 



The banks by Brighton in early spring are 

 purple with the flowers of ground ivy, which flowers 



