132 WILD BIRDS 



Some of the leaves are stained with black, one of the 

 terrible colours of fading things in the autumn, since 

 in it we can find no beauty, only decay. The maple 

 of the hedgerows sometimes turns from green to 

 black almost in autumn, and there are other hedge- 

 row trees that shrivel into ugly black. That and 

 the mildew grey of oak underwood at this season 

 are among the evil-looking touches of a time that 

 on the whole burns with beauty. But not all bryony 

 plants turn thus. Here and there are bryony leaves 

 richly bronzed in early October. Most often the 

 green turns pale yellow, and so effective is this 

 colour just before the general heightening of autumn 

 that at dusk and even so late as between six and 

 seven o'clock the large leaves in places light up the 

 dusky hedgerows. You can pick out a bryony leaf 

 when the rest of the hedgerow foliage at this hour is 

 an obscure, confused mass. 



Among these yellowing and blackening bryony 

 leaves we see stems with leaves still unstained green ; 

 but these, too, declare autumn. We look at the 

 cotton-fine end of the climber, and see at once it has 

 shrivelled to nothing. No frost has nipped its deli- 

 cate tip, yet it has perished there. Bryony has come 

 to recognise by the beginning of October that the 

 game of green life is played out. So millions of 

 bryony shoots that started in summer later than 

 their fellows come to nothing ; they climbed high up 

 the hedgerow, and put out a long succession of leaves 

 tapering and tapering in size to the tip, and were 

 destined never to fruit or flower. 



