248 WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 



conceal its real extent : on the ridges a corresponding 

 rise yonder suggests another valley. The two rows 

 of tall elms some hundreds of yards apart the scat- 

 tered hawthorn bushes and solitary trees, groups of 

 cattle in the shade, and sheep grazing by the far- 

 away hedge, give the aspect of a wilder park, the 

 more pleasant because of its wildness. 



Near about the centre, where the land is most level, 

 an unexpected slope goes down into a cuplike depres- 

 sion. This green crater may perhaps have been formed 

 by digging for sand so long ago that the turf has 

 since grown over smoothly. Standing at the bottom 

 the sides conceal all but the sky overhead. Some 

 few dead leaves of last year, not yet decayed, though 

 bleached and brittle, lie here at rest from the winds 

 that swept them over the plain. Silky balls of thistle- 

 down come irresolutely rolling over the hedge, now 

 this way, now that : some rise and float across, some 

 follow the surface and cling awhile to the bennets in 

 the hollow. Pale blue harebells, drooping from their 

 slender stems here and there, meditate with bowed 

 heads, as if full of tender recollections. 



Now, on hands and knees (the turf is dry and soft), 

 creep up one side of the bowl-like hollow, where the 

 thistles make a parapet on the edge, and from behind 

 it look out upon the ground all broken up into low 

 humps, some covered with nettles, others plainly 

 heaps of sand. It is the site of an immense rabbit- 

 burrow, the relic of an old warren which once occu- 

 pied half the field. The nettle-covered heaps mark 



