Railway Birds and Flowers 137 



character of the vegetation which it fosters. On 

 a long railway journey across England many changes 

 may be noticed, both in the profusion of the display 

 beside the line and in the species of which it is 

 composed. As we leave the chalk of the Chiltern 

 Hills for the clays of the Midland pastures, there 

 is a remarkable decrease both in the number and 

 the variety of the blossoms to be seen from the 

 windows of the train. On the main North- Western 

 line the wealth of the Chiltern flora is equalled no 

 more till the Midland clays and the Lancashire 

 factory chimneys are successively left behind, and 

 the train enters the scarred hills of grey mountain 

 limestone that gaze across the sands of Morecambe 

 Bay. Then the wild gardens become rich again, 

 but rich with flowers that have not yet been seen 

 on this journey. In June on the Windermere 

 branch the pink bistort, or snake-weed, stands 

 massed on the cool banks with its erected spikes ; 

 the beautiful meadow geranium shines blue among 

 the grass, as it does, far to southward, in the 

 meadows by the line through the Kennet Valley ; 

 and beside the rills that fall from the edge of the 

 cutting shines the golden globe-flower, noblest of 

 our native buttercups. It is a flora of moisture 

 and of the north. But in many places the railway 

 does much to induce plants to colonize neighbour- 

 hoods which are strange to them, both by the 

 transference of soil from cuttings to distant em- 

 bankments during the construction of the line, 

 and also by providing a continuous and unbroken 

 seedbed along which the plant can steadily push 



