THE GREEN WORLD 231 



cost of anything within reach ; even a look of watch- 

 fulness. Black bryony and bindweed are climbers 

 that seem to advertise most publicly their fell purpose 

 to grasp and smother their neighbours. 



The tip of the bryony trailer has a kind of fanciful 

 likeness to a snake. It is but a blossom in embryo, 

 yet it might, by its appearance, be the most sentient 

 part of a half-plant, half-animal. Its dark green, 

 sometimes its bluish, lengths have a very snaky coil 

 they remind me of a viper reared up, wicked, ready 

 to strike and to squirt poison. A most startling 

 thing about the bryony trailer is when it adventures 

 forth from a thin hedge where, through close 

 trimming in the autumn, there is now little support 

 save grasses and small plants feels out its path two 

 or three feet over the lane ; and then, finding no cover 

 within reach, turns back ! These adventures are often 

 to be seen where bryony grows along the lanes. It is 

 adventure with risks. Some passer-by may strike at 

 the trailer with a careless stick, or thoughtlessly give 

 it a pluck with his hand; or a cart wheel strike it 

 down and cut it off; and there is a wound that must 

 take the bryony a week or two to cure. But if no 

 further ill befall the trailer, it will return to the hedge 

 whence it came. 



How it knows its search is vain in this direction we 

 cannot tell. But know it must, for it will always 

 return to shelter. Noticing this habit, is it strange 

 we should be struck by a certain animality about the 



