18 NATURE NEAR LONDON. 



positive discords and absolute antagonisms of tint 

 side by side, yet without jarring the eye. Green 

 all round, the trees and hedges ; blue overhead, the 

 sky ; purple and gold westward, where the sun sinks. 

 No part of this grass can be represented by a blur or 

 broad streak of colour, for it is not made up of broad 

 streaks. It is composed of innumerable items of grass 

 blade and flower, each in itself coloured and different 

 from its neighbour. Not one of these must be slurred 

 over if you wish to get the same effect. 



Then there are drifting specks of colour which 

 cannot be fixed. Butterflies, white, parti-coloured, 

 brown, and spotted, and light blue flutter along beside 

 the footpath ; two white ones wheel about each other, 

 rising higher at every turn till they are lost and no 

 more to be distinguished against a shining white cloud. 

 Large dark humble bees roam slowly, and honey bees 

 with more decided flight. Glistening beetles, green 

 and gold, run across the bare earth of the path, 

 coming from one crack in the dry ground and dis- 

 appearing in the (to them) mighty chasm of another. 



Tiny green "hoppers" odd creatures shaped some- 

 thing like the fancy frogs of children's story-books 

 alight upon it after a spring, and pausing a second, 

 with another toss themselves as high as the highest 

 bennet (veritable elm-trees by comparison), to fall 

 anywhere out of sight in the grass. Reddish ants 

 hurry over. Time is money; and their business 

 brooks no delay. 



Bee-like flies of many stripes and parti-coloured 

 robes face you, suspended in the air with wings 

 vibrating so swiftly as to be unseen ; then suddenly 



