NIGHTINGALE EOAD. 45 



the furrows across the wayside sward, scarce concealed 

 by the wiry grass. Flowers are very local in habit ; 

 the spurge, for instance, which is common in a road 

 parallel to this, is not to be 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 occasionally 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 corn fields 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 February ; last 

 spring the chiffchaff 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 movements of plant and bird 

 life correspond. 



In a closely cropped hedge opposite this great 



