138 COUNTRY ESSAYS, 



grow everywhere in profusion, running down to the water's 

 edge, and starring its thickets and nestling round every tree- 

 stem; while it is only by much searching that any are to be 

 found in the hedgerows and on the hills contiguous to it on the 

 west. The foxglove, which there grows luxuriantly, is com- 

 paratively rare on the East Hill, while the blue bell (or wild 

 hyacinth), which lower down the river on the left absolutely 

 gives the predominant hue to the meadows in spring, is seldom 

 found on the opposite banks. An extreme sensitiveness to unkindly 

 conditions also distinguishes the ferns in this district ; they are 

 distributed in patches, and sometimes in an elevation of thirty 

 feet one species wholly disappears and gives place to another, 

 to be succeeded by a third, it may be, in a hundred yards. 

 This would be a delightful region for such a poet-naturalist as 

 the American Thoreau to investigate. Its anomalies and 

 characteristic beauties would have ample justice done to them 

 by a mind so much alive to the charms of a familiar district, 

 and so lovingly attracted to its flowers and animals. 



But the pride of the day is declining, and weather is very 

 treacherous close to the Atlantic. Already the granite peaks of 

 Dartmoor are veiled in mists, and, while we look, from the 

 rounded summits of the white cloud-range which rises out of 

 that rainy district, ray-like streams course through the heaven 

 towards us and "the useful trouble of the rain" begins in 

 earnest. No one need wonder, seeing how often it rains here, 

 that the ferns are so luxuriant, the foliage so abundant and 

 deeply tinted, at a time when farmers in the Midland Counties 

 are hailing with joy any signs of green in the grey boughs. Far 

 overhead a couple of seagulls are wheeling in wide circles and 

 screaming to each other, as if they scented a storm. A mighty 

 gloom, too, falls upon the fir-trees, and that hoarse murmur, 

 which the poets dwell on as portending bad weather, swells 

 from their great ^Eolian harp. We must hurry downwards. 

 This western climate is lovely in spring when it is wreathed in 



