WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 43 



vapours, that even in the early mornings of the hot 

 summer days so frequently cling about the downs. 

 These more than supply the waste from evaporation, 

 so that the basin may be called a dew-pond. The 

 mists that hang about the ridges are often almost as 

 laden with moisture as a rain-cloud itself. They 

 deposit a thick layer of tiny bead-like drops upon the 

 coat of the wayfarer, which seem to cling after the 

 manner of oil. Though these hills have not the faintest 

 pretensions to be compared with mountains, yet when 

 the rainy clouds hang low they often strike the higher 

 ridges, which from a distance appear blotted out en- 

 tirely, and are then receiving a misty shower. 



Then -there rise up sometimes thick masses of vapour 

 which during the night have gathered over the brooks 

 and water-meadows, the marshy places of the vale, 

 and now come borne on the breeze rolling along the 

 slopes ; and as these pass over the dew-pond, doubt- 

 less its colder water condenses that portion which 

 draws down into the depression where it stands. In 

 winter the vapours clinging about the clumps of 

 beech freeze to the boughs, forming not a rime merely, 

 like that seen in the vale, but a kind of ice casing, 

 while icicles also depend underneath. Now, if a wind 

 comes sweeping across the hill with sudden blast, 

 these glittering appendages rattle together loudly, 

 and there falls a hail of jagged icy fragments. When 

 one has seen the size and quantity of these, it 

 becomes more easy to understand the amount of 

 water which an intangible vapour may carry with 



