THE BURNING BUSH 101 



brown ; and yet they seem the very contradiction of brown 

 leaves, to the brown leaves, for example, of the hornbeam, 

 which is very like the beech both in foliage and nature. 

 The beech is vivid and luminous, akin to the brilliant bands 

 of the spectrum. The hornbeam is dull and gloomy beyond 

 almost any leaf, unless it be the mildewed white poplar. 

 How strangely vivid the massed beech leaf is was curiously 

 illustrated one day by a party astray in a very open beech- 

 wood. They saw a cock pheasant running in front, and as 

 the wood was full of pheasants, no one looked at him with 

 any special attention ; but it was noticed by some one that 

 the bird had vanished in rather surprising fashion. He 

 walked towards the vanishing point, but could at first see 

 nothing. At last, within three or four yards of where he 

 stood, he made out with difficulty the rainbow hues of the 

 vanished bird. There is no English bird which can compare 

 with the Chinese pheasant in range of hue ; but the beech 

 leaves almost outshine him. He was at least matched by 

 the layer of leaves ; and if any Darwinian had the courage 

 to claim the example, his vanishing trick could be quoted 

 as an illustration of protective coloration. 



The beech saves many a landscape from autumn gloom. 

 Bracken alone plays as large a part. An isolated bracken 

 may look as dead as the withered stalks of the grasses or the 

 nettles, or the brittle kexes hogweed and cow's parsley 

 and the rest or the burdock stems. All these are cenotaphs, 

 unlovely places marking the extinction of sweet life, and in 

 spite of red dogwood and tawny blackberry and painted 

 spindle, giving a spent and wasted look to some autumn 

 hedgerows. But bracken, at its best, is the crowning colour 

 of many a scene that would be bare and bleak without. It 

 is best where the ground is most barren. It clothes the hills 

 all over the lake country of Westmorland and Cumberland 



