Railway Birds and Flowers 131 



forty miles the profusion and diversity of wild 

 blossoms is in summer a feast to the eye. As the 

 slopes of cuttings receive the drainage from the 

 land above, they are often too chill and damp for 

 most flowers' perfect well-being, and are therefore 

 not so brightly carpeted as the sides of an embank- 

 ment. Where, however, there is a fourfold set of 

 rails, there is ample space for the sunlight to sweep 

 the cutting-side, and, by adding warmth to moisture 

 on its slopes, to nurse into prosperity some of the 

 richest of all wild railway gardens. A sweep of 

 flowers in a cutting is also more on a level with the 

 eye. The minority of British plants which prefer 

 the damper and cooler phases of our climate have 

 also their special requirements provided from time 

 to time along the course of the line. Brooklime 

 and meadowsweet can plunge their roots in the 

 moisture of the little ditch that often runs at the 

 foot of the embankment, under the trim bordering 

 hedge ; and in the level Eastern counties, where 

 cuttings and embankments are seldom needed, and 

 wild railway gardens therefore not at their best, 

 the long, flanking dykes give harbourage to yellow 

 kingcup and mauve water-violet in April, and 

 later to green reed and shining sedge. Where the 

 cutting is scarped in the cleaner and firmer rocks, 

 ferns choose their foothold on the ledges with all 

 the delicacy of the plants in a nurtured rock-garden, 

 and with more than their charm of wildness. Even 

 among the sliding shales of Devon the tufted heather 

 twists its roots between the knife-like rock-edges, 

 and props a little heap of trickling stones. The 



