THE JULY FIELDS 129 



other two months make any but an indifferent 

 attempt to approach ; and it is when these two 

 months have run their unique, dehghtful course 

 that the vast majority of our fellows arrive. How 

 strangely perverse a state of things is this I How 

 curiously sunken in the groove of custom ! 



The fields are bald, the slopes are shorn or 

 ragged, and the grass that is left standing is look- 

 ing for the most part very ** seedy." The golden- 

 flowered, pink-flowered, and white-flowered Sedums 

 are blossoming upon the field-rocks ; the Willow- 

 Herb is lighting up the rough and stony places 

 with its rosy-red spikes ; the Bilberry's fruit is 

 turning a dusty blue and its foliage here and there 

 is showing prom e of a fiery autumn ; the Rho- 

 dodendron is developing on its thick leaves the 

 brilliant red excrescences which, like the hairy, red 

 excrescences on our common Dog Rose, are said 

 to be so efficacious in cases of rheumatism ; the 

 dainty, black-bordered Damon " Blue " butterfly 

 flits from the Heather to stray blooms of Arnica 

 and Astrantia, and many a brown Erebia is 

 hampered and tired out by a horde of red parasites 

 beneath its wings. Summer, in fact, is leaning 

 obviously towards autumn, and we can expect 

 nothing more of note from these meadows, except 

 9 



