WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 53 



of the vale. They resemble, only on a greatly length- 

 ened scale, the beams that may be seen in churches 

 of a sunny afternoon, falling from the upper windows 

 on the tiled floor of the chancel, and made visible by 

 motes in the air. So through such slits in the cloudy 

 roof of the sky the rays of the sun shoot downwards, 

 made visible on their passage by the moisture or the 

 motes floating in the atmosphere. They seem to 

 linger in their place as the clouds drift with scarcely 

 perceptible motion ; and the labourers say that the 

 sun is sucking up water there. 



In the evening of a fine day the mists may be seen 

 from hence as they rise in the meadows far beneath 

 beginning first over the brooks, a long white winding 

 vapour marking their course, next extending over the 

 moist places and hollows. Higher in the air darker 

 bars of mist, separate and distinct from the white 

 sheet beneath them, perhaps a hundred feet above 

 it, gradually come into sight as they grow thicker and 

 blacker, one here, one yonder long and narrow in 

 shape. These seem to approach more nearly in char- 

 acter to the true cloud than the mist which hardly 

 rises higher than the hedges. The latter will some- 

 times move or draw across the meadows when there 

 is no apparent wind, not sufficient to sway a leaf, as 

 if in obedience to light and partial currents created 

 by a variation of temperature in different parts of the 

 same field. 



Once now and then, looking at this range of hills 

 from a distance of two or three miles on moonless 



