NATURE NEAR LONDON 



seen, and not very much cow-parsnip, or "gix," 

 one of the most freely growing hedge plants, which 

 almost chokes the mounds near by. Willowherbs, 

 however, fill every place in the ditch here where they 

 can find room between the bushes, and the arum is 

 equally common, but the lesser celandine absent. 



Towards evening, as the clover and vetches 

 closed their leaves under the dew, giving the fields 

 a different aspect and another green, I used occa- 

 sionally to watch from here a pair of herons, sailing 

 over in their calm serene way. Their flight was 

 in the direction of the Thames, and they then 

 passed evening after evening, but the following 

 summer they did not come. One evening, later 

 on in autumn, two birds appeared descending across 

 the cornfields towards a secluded hollow where 

 there was water, and, although at a considerable 

 distance, from their manner of flight I could have 

 no doubt they were teal. 



The spotted leaves of the arum appeared in the 

 ditches in this locality very nearly simultaneously 

 with the first whistling of the blackbirds in Febru- 

 ary ; last spring the chifF-chafF sang soon after the 

 flowering of the lesser celandine (not in this hedge, 

 but near by), and the first swift was noticed within 

 a day or two of the opening of the may bloom. 

 Although not exactly, yet in a measure, the move- 

 ments of plant and bird life correspond. 

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