WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 313 



While the hedges are so bare the rabbits are un- 

 mercifully ferreted, for they will before long begin to 

 breed. On the milder mornings the thrushes are sing- 

 ing sweetly. Clouds of tiny gnats circle in the shel- 

 tered places near houses or thatch. In February " fill 

 ditch," as the old folk call it, on account of the rains, 

 although nominally in the midst of the winter quarter, 

 there is a distinct step forward. If the clouds break 

 and the wind is still, the beams of the sun on the 

 southern side of the wall become pleasantly genial. 

 In the third week they bring forth the yellow butterfly, 

 fluttering gaily over the furze ; while the larks on a 

 sunny day, chasing each other over the ploughed 

 fields, make even the brown clods of earth seem instinct 

 with awakening life. The pairing off of the birds is 

 now apparent in every hedge, and at the same time 

 on the mounds, and under sheltering bushes and trees 

 a deeper green begins to show as the plants push up. 



The blackthorn is perhaps the first conspicuous 

 flower ; but in date it seems to vary much. On the 

 22nd of February 1877, there were boughs of black- 

 thorn in full bloom in Surrey, and elder trees in leaf ; 

 nearly three weeks before that, at the beginning of the 

 month, there were hawthorn branches in full leaf in 

 a sheltered nook in Kent. A degree farther west, on 

 the contrary, the hawthorn did not show a leaf for 

 some time after the blackthorn had bloomed in Surrey. 

 The farmers say that the grass which comes on rapidly 

 in the latter days of February and early days of 

 March, "many weathers" (in their phrase), often 



