Blossomed Boughs 71 



the grass, are carried ; and when they, too, have 

 vanished, the youth of the year is gone. The latest 

 birds sing only a short time longer ; and the keener 

 spirit of life has fled to the mountain and moorland, 

 where the heather is now purpling the wildernesses. 



The trees and shrubs which have been so far 

 named are common in nearly every type of English 

 scenery. There are many others which are chiefly 

 confined to particular kinds of soil, or regions of a 

 certain elevation and climate. In the hilly counties 

 of the north and west one of the most conspicuous 

 trees of spring is the bird cherry, which is distinct 

 in appearance from either the tall wild cherry or 

 the more bushy dwarf cherry which are common in 

 the south. Its white flowers form long clusters or 

 racemes, which at first are uplifted, like the blossom 

 of the Portugal laurel, but later droop, like that of 

 the pink ribes or flowering currant. No flower is 

 more deeply associated than the bird cherry with 

 April in the wooded valleys of western streams, 

 when the grey wagtail and water- ouzel are already 

 busy with their young, and the sandpipers are re- 

 turning to their sand-spits and pebbly flats. 



Another group of shrubs finds its favourite home 

 on a soil of chalk or grey mountain limestone ; for 

 although the broken contours and bare scars of the 

 limestone hills present so great a contrast with the 

 vast simplicity of the chalk down's curves, the simi- 

 larity of the soil nurtures a closely kindred flora. 

 Thyme and the golden cistus, or rock-rose, abound 

 in the close, sweet turf of either formation, though 

 the rock-rose, at any rate, may not be found in the 



