MOORLAND IDYLLS. 



remind me of the Pilgrim Fathers in Mas- 

 sachusetts. Foxgloves, you know, cannot 

 compete with ling or Scotch heather on its 

 native heath. They are denizens of a deeper 

 and richer mould, growing generally on fat 

 wayside banks or in the ditches by hedge- 

 rows always the wealthiest and most 

 luxuriantly manured of any wild places, 

 because there birds perch, and wild animals 

 take refuge, and snails and beetles die, and 

 robins perish, that hedgerow weeds may 

 batten on their decaying bodies. The 

 hedge, in point of fact, is the main shelter 

 and asylum for beasties great and small in 

 our workaday England. There the hedge- 

 hog skulks, and the field-mouse hides, and 

 the sparrow builds her nest, and the slow- 

 worm suns himself; there the rabbit burrows, 

 and the thrush sits mocking, and the dor- 

 mouse dreams, and the lizard lies in wait 

 for the dancing midges. All the waste 

 richness of the field finds its rest at last by 

 the roots of the whitethorn, to reappear in 

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