ANIMALS IN RAIN 1 1 1 



fall for two days exceeds two inches of water. The 

 whole surface of the arable fields is c patted ' flat by 

 the pelting rain for the drops which 'hollow the 

 stone ' flatten the earth. Wherever the surface is steep 

 or concave, it is carried away, or scooped out often to 

 depth of several inches. In the autumn rains all the 

 willows, plane trees, alders, limes, and other trees whose 

 leaves are heavy in comparison with the attaching stalk, 

 are stripped bare, and where soft ground lies beneath, 

 the leaves are beaten into it. On the open fallows 

 and stubbles every stone stands out clear like a 

 miniature cromlech from the ground. The entrances 

 of the burrows of the field mice and moles are washed 

 open, the hedge bottoms are cleared of leaves, which 

 have been carried into the ditches, and lie piled in 

 sodden heaps at the mouths of the conduits beneath 

 the gateways ; every watershoot leading from the 

 deep subsoil drains is spouting yellow water, and 

 the field ponds, which before showed a strange, un- 

 natural transparency due to the decay of the larger 

 water weeds, and the cold, which kills the summer 

 growth of algae, and precipitates all alike to the bottom 

 are brimful, turbid and discoloured. Weather which 

 lowers the land-level by the inch and raises the water- 

 level by the foot cannot fail to cause a correspond- 

 ing disturbance in animate life ; the difference between 

 April showers and Autumn rains is as great as that 



