Life in Autumn Storm 253 



landscape in the space of a few miles. Among 

 tracts of wood and pasture such cornfield weeds 

 as the marigold and spotted dead-nettle can be 

 found clinging to a gravelly island or lodged in the 

 niche of a rock ; and typical plants of the mountains 

 may follow the torrents into the lowlands, though 

 they are absent below their normal limits at a 

 distance of a few hundred yards from the bank. 

 Seeds may be thus successfully transported at any 

 time of the year when they are ripe. But the great 

 moment for distribution is at the time of the autumn 

 floods, which gather up the whole produce of the 

 summer and lodge their burden on many high- 

 water marks, out of the reach of the ordinary flow. 

 The presence of many live seeds in the drift brought 

 down by autumn and winter floods is shown in 

 another way by the fondness of some seed-eating 

 birds, particularly the titlark and lesser redpoll, 

 for hunting in the litter strewn along the high- 

 water mark of the streams. The wildness of 

 autumn winds and rain is no mere frenzy of des- 

 truction ; beneath the darkening ruin the earth 

 is steadily looking forward to her spring. 



The rains of autumn not only enrich the soil by 

 the quick dissolution of stems and leaves as they 

 lie, but by washing the silt and drift of the rivers 

 into layers of special fertility. No soil is richer 

 than the beds of ancient alluvium which border 

 many lakes and streams ; and in barren and 

 mountainous landscapes there is a tract of com- 

 parative verdure wherever the current of ancient 

 torrents has been checked and diffused in its flow. 



