56 THE LIFE OF THE FIELDS. 



already strong on the wing, from field to field. An 

 egg here on the sward dropped by a starling; a red 

 ladybird creeping, tortoise-like, up a green fern frond. 

 Finches undulating through the air, shooting them- 

 selves with closed wings, and linnets happy with their 

 young. 



Golden dandelion discs gold and orange of a hue 

 more beautiful, I think, than the higher and more 

 visible buttercup. A blackbird, gleaming, so black is 

 he, splashing in the runlet of water across the gate- 

 way. A ruddy kingfisher swiftly drawing himself, as 

 you might draw a stroke with a pencil, over the 

 surface of the yellow buttercups, and away above the 

 hedge. Hart's-tongue fern, thick with green, so green 

 as to be thick with its colour, deep in the ditch under 

 the shady hazel boughs. White meadow-sweet lifting 

 its tiny florets, and black-flowered sedges. You must 

 push through the reed grass to find the sword-flags; 

 the stout willow-herbs will not be trampled down, but 

 resist the foot like underwood. Pink lychnis flowers 

 behind the withy stoles, and little black moorhens 

 swim away, as you gather it, after their mother, who 

 has dived under the water-grass, and broken the 

 smooth surface of the duckweed. Yellow loosestrife 

 is rising, thick comfrey stands at the very edge ; the 

 sandpipers run where the shore is free from bushes. 

 Back by the underwood the prickly and repellent 

 brambles will presently present us with fruit. For the 

 squirrels the nuts are forming, green beechmast is there 

 green wedges under the spray ; up in the oaks the 

 small knots, like bark rolled up in a dot, will be acorns. 

 Purple vetch en along the mour.ds, yellow lotus where 



