92 HILLSIDE, ROCK, AND DALE 



fragrant as sunbeams and showers can make them. 

 In the shade we may rest and enjoy the varied out- 

 look. Dragon - flies, with wings that glisten like 

 bronze and gold, poise themselves a moment, and 



then are gone. The meadow 

 is enlivened with the calls 

 of grasshoppers, and on the 

 taller grasses blue butterflies 

 are resting. Burnets, gay in 

 their suits of metallic green 

 and crimson bodies, fly with 

 heavy flight from flower to 

 flower, and small heaths and 

 copper butterflies flit among 

 the lower grass stems. At 

 the end of this month the 

 pageant seems as it were to 

 stand still ; there is a pause 

 a gap between summer 

 and approaching autumn. 



In a distant wood, a tree 

 I think it is a silver poplar 

 stands out high above the 



others. When the sun is setting, this tree throws a long 

 shadow across the green tops of lesser trees, and as 

 this slowly lengthens, we can realise that summer is 

 passing, though slowly. With the last beams of the 

 departing sun, the shadow is gone, and we watch 



SMALL HEATH BUTTERFLY 



