544 



THE NATURE BOOK 



Like the Great Crested Grebes, Coots 

 seem to prefer reed-surrounded waters, 

 amongst the stems of which useful and 

 graceful plant their nests are usually to 

 be found. They are large structures, 

 which are raised in height when floods 

 threaten the protectively coloured eggs, 

 which are stone-coloured and peppered 

 over with black markings ; they closely 

 assimilate to the fungus-stained over- 

 yeared reed leaves, with which the nest 

 is lined. 



I write feehngly when I say that the 



eggs are thus " protectively coloured." 

 I once invested a few shillings in order to 

 save some Great Crested Grebes' eggs 

 from being added as specimens to collec- 

 tors' cabinets, and as an experiment I 

 placed them in convenient Coots' nests — 

 a proceeding to which the Coots did not 

 object. Sad to relate, however, every one 

 of those grebes' eggs was sucked by Grey 

 crows, though many Coots' eggs hard by 

 were left untouched, and were probably 

 undiscovered by the destructive crows. 

 Maurice C. H. Bird. 



Note. — I regret that by a slip of the pen the descriptions of the Rock and Stock Doves (p. 362) were transposed. 

 It is the Rock Dove which has the white rump and two bars across the wing. — M. C. H. B. 



THE GRASS OF THE WASTE PLACES 



By MAUD U. CLARKE 

 With Photographs by HENRY IRVING 



GI\'EN some moisture, and any possible 

 roothold that can be assimilated 

 by these grasses, and there is 

 scarcely any limit to where they will not 

 spring up and beautify the place. In spite 

 of rough regions, rough treatment, and 

 scanty benefaction of any kind, they yet 

 hold their own. The apparently barren 

 region of the roadside can be really a land 

 of choice possibilities for many such grasses, 

 and compared with other places where I 

 have seen them living and flowering, it 

 is by no means a starved land. If there 

 be one situation par excellence ugly, deso- 

 late, and far removed from the beauty 

 of Nature, it is that hideous conglomerate 

 of chaos represented by the site on which 

 houses have been, or are in process of 

 being pulled down in towns. Yet I have 

 seen e\-cn there the Soft Brome on the 

 rubl)ish mounds, just kept in counten- 

 ance by stray plants of groundsel. 



Decayed mortar is not bad plant-food, 

 but the surrounding conditions are remote 

 from the miracle of the flowering grass. 

 The tufts of grey-green blades were the 

 only clean and beautiful things visible in 



a smirched area of everything ruinous and 

 depressing. I know the Bromiis mollis 

 can give cheer even to those grisly rail- 

 way embankments that surround London. 

 For there are embankments and embank- 

 ments, of widely differing character, since 

 those cutting through the chalk hills or 

 red loam of the country are often nurseries 

 for the plants after their own heart. In 

 the grime of coal-yards, in the cracked 

 paving of dubious streets, in the very 

 teeth of the unnatural conditions of town 

 life, the grass of the waste places creeps 

 in maybe to cheer someone with eyes to 

 see, and very certainly the sparrows. 



But I would show the Soft Brome in 

 better circumstances than these, for the 

 Lop Grass, as it is sometimes called, is 

 a true country roadside grass. It has 

 there many pleasant neighbours surround- 

 ing it, such as the wild camomile, the 

 company of thistles in variety, tall docks, 

 or trailing mallows, with perhaps the 

 white clo\-er springing amongst it. It is 

 a soft-lea\-ed grass with twisted blades 

 and soft hair covering the flower spikelets 

 also, whilst the edges of the overlapping 



