34 BY MEADOW AND STREAM. 



an adder's fat you cut a strip out of the back. Now 

 I am not quite sure whether the fat has to be eaten or 

 only applied to the wound. I think a little of both 

 would be good. I have slaughtered many of these 

 creatures in my boyish days, by a good swish on the 

 tail with a hazel rod. This may account for my 

 desire, in my old age, to renew acquaintance with 

 ''them. 



Now that we have advanced so much further into 

 summer, and have become accustomed to the sights 

 and scents of all kinds of flowers, one almost wonders 

 at the childish delight one feels at the first sight of a 

 bright bunch of milk-white May. Here and there in 

 the hedgerows I came across many white and pink 

 May trees just bursting into bloom. These and the 

 pink-tipped apple blossoms are amongst the first 

 harbingers of spring. 



A few days later on we took a drive through the 

 extensive and lovely park which surrounds and over- 

 hangs the fair Castle of Arundel. Here the foliage 

 was just bursting into leaf ; but the undulating meads 

 and bosky dells were sad to see, for the long drought 

 and the hot sun had burnt up the grass, and left the 

 ground bare and hard and pastureless. The deer were 

 herded together in the shadiest spots, for the sun was 

 fierce as midsummer, and they had still to be fed vuth 

 hay strewn over the brown fallow-like pasture. It 

 was curious to notice here and there, far away from 

 the herd, a solitary and melancholy buck standing 

 beneath a spreading oak, and looking the very picture 

 of misery, as if for some misdeed he had been banished 

 from the herd, and was weeping and bemoaning the 



