THROUGH THE YEAR 177 



probably on the south coast of Cornwall and Devon- 

 shire. 



The Bass is left as roosting-place to a fewkittiwakes, 

 common gulls, guillemots and herring gulls, with 

 perhaps a pair or two of the great blackbacked gull. 

 The kittiwake I do not remember to have watched 

 feeding inland in the South, but here it will visit 

 the new ploughed fields, like the other gulls. It is 

 beautiful almost as a tern on the wing ; and, flying 

 about a field, will drop now and then and pick up 

 a scrap of food without alighting. 



THE LANE 



Even after dark in December the leafless English 

 lane has a charm in landscape. There is a lane that 

 straggles from the river valley into the downs, 

 growing wilder and grassier as it mounts to the high 

 ground. Passing through on a winter evening I 

 found the place not so disconsolate as I expected. 

 True, the merit of the English lane in landscape 

 chiefly lives in tangle of flower and creeper and 

 tree foliage and all that is gone with the autumn. 

 The thickest parts of the lane can easily be seen 

 through, whilst the thin parts, which could be just 

 seen through in summer, are gaps now. The hedges 

 are bare, except for ragged scraps of traveller's joy, 

 which are only good to look at when dry and 

 glistening in the winter sunlight. Yet a beauty is 

 in the bare lane now after dusk or darkness has 

 blotted most of the landscape. Through the gaps 

 in the hedge the wind, blowing up for rain from the 



