32 NATURE IN ENGLAND. 



heaps of drift bowlders ! To the returned traveler 

 the foliage of the trees and groves of New England 

 and New York looks thiii and disheveled when com- 

 pared with the foliage he has just left. This effect 

 is probably owing to our cruder soil and sharper 

 climate. The aspect of our trees in midsummer is as 

 if the hair of their heads stood on end ; the woods 

 have a wild, frightened look, or as if they were just 

 recovering from a debauch. In ur intense light and 

 heat, the leaves, instead of spreading themselves full 

 to the sun and crowding out upon the ends of the 

 branches as they do in England, retreat, as it were, 

 hide behind each other, stand edgewise, perpendicu- 

 lar, or at any angle, to avoid the direct rays. In 

 Britain, from the slow, dripping rains and the exces- 

 sive moisture, the leaves of the trees droop more, 

 and the branches are more pendent. The rays of 

 light are fewer and feebler, and the foliage disposes 

 itself so as to catch them all, and thus presents a 

 fuller and broader surface to the eye of the beholder. 

 The leaves are massed upon the outer ends of the 

 branches, while the interior of the tree is compara- 

 tively leafless. The European plane-tree is like a 

 tent. The foliage is all on the outside. The bird 

 voices in it reverberate as in a chamber. 



"The pillar' d dusk of sounding sycamores," 



says Tennyson. At a little distance, it has the mass 

 and solidity of a rock. The same is true of the 

 European maple, and when this tree is grown on our 



