168 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



some spot or other of the earth is always becoming 

 consecrated. 



There is, however, something curious about this but- 

 terbur. It is related to the coltsfoot of the arable fields, 

 and the coltsfoot sends up a stalk without a leaf, and 

 flowers before any green appears. So, too, the butter- 

 bur of the river flowers before its great leaf comes. 

 Nothing is really common either, for everything is so 

 local that you may spend years, and in fact a lifetime, 

 in a district and never see a flower plentiful enough in 

 another. Just where I am staying now the pennywort 

 grows on every wall attached to the mortar between the 

 cobbles. In some places you may search the roads in 

 vain for this little plant, which has this merit, that its 

 rounded leaf presents a fresh green in February. It does 

 not die away, it appears as green as spring, and pieces 

 of the wall are ornamented with it as thickly as the iron- 

 headed nails in old doors. One plant grows out of the 

 hard stem of a hawthorn tree, as if it were a parasite 

 like the mistletoe ; probably there is some crack which 

 the plant itself has hidden. If every plant and every 

 flower were found in all places the charm of locality 

 would not exist. Everything varies, and that gives the 

 interest. These purplish stones, where they lie in the 

 water, seem to have a kind of growth upon them — small 

 knobs on the surface. On examination each small rough- 

 ness or knob will be found composed of a number of 

 very minute fragments of stone. It is a sort of cell, 

 probably built by a species of caddis. There was hardly 

 a stone in the rivers that was not dotted with these little 

 habitations, so that it seemed difficult to overlook them ; 

 but upon showing one to a mighty hunter to know 

 the local name, he declared he had never noticed it 

 before, and added that he did not care for such little 



