136 Railway Birds and Flowers 



ragged robin gleaming with the same shade of 

 pink among the green grass, spiked with little 

 rushes. There is one long tract of this kind where 

 the South- Western line from Portsmouth climbs 

 the ascent under the flank of the Hindhead Hills, 

 between Liss and Godalming ; and there, too, 

 about midsummer, the mossy banks are lit with 

 the mauve and white of dappled orchises. On 

 many chalky banks sainfoin and lucerne clover stray 

 down from the sheepfolds above, and add new 

 shades of pink and purple to the colours of the 

 native flowers. Most gorgeous of all the displays 

 of red or purple blossom which flank the line, except, 

 perhaps, for the sweeps of July and August heather, 

 are the beds of tall rose bay which fill the pine 

 woods by the side of the South- Western line near 

 Woking. This beautiful willow-herb grows three 

 or four feet high, and forms an expanse of colour 

 as level and unbroken as the bluebells in a May 

 beechwood. One of the most delicate contrasts 

 of colour in the wild railway garden is formed where 

 the deep pink of the campion mingles with the 

 slumbering crimson of the straggling sorrel heads. 

 An individual head of sorrel seems a thing of little 

 beauty ; but it attracts in mass, both now in early 

 summer, when its hues of rust and blood gleam amid 

 the rich green of the hayfields, and also on waste 

 ground in autumn, when the sere seed-heads of a 

 smaller species keep alive their smouldering glow 

 among the bleached and withered grass. 



The richness of the railway flora naturally depends 

 on the soil of the surrounding country and the 



