THE LAP OF PROSERPINE 133 



than that between the pie's pompous, ineffectual passage 

 and the grand rush of a wood-pigeon on the wing. 

 He sets the air humming from his pinions, and one 

 can almost fancy his wake visible in it as he passes. 



To name another more familiar kind of lane that 

 possesses a special flora, I will choose those wind- 

 ing ways upon the limestone, that climb up to 

 grassy headlands by the sea, or sink down into the 

 combes of the coast. These bedeck their stony 

 bosoms with some of the fairest gems I know, and 

 from the leafless stars of colt's-foot to the purple tufts 

 of the autumnal squill, such spots daily adorn their 

 turfy banks and stony ledges with fresh flowers, and 

 shine into November with the snow of the seeding 

 clematis, the scarlet fruit of bryony and rose, honey- 

 suckle and hawthorn. Here most surely shall be 

 found the pink centaury great and small, the pleasant- 

 smelling rest-harrow, the privet, and the dogwood. 



Parsley piert and cudweed are among the very little 

 folks ; and the sprays of the shaking-grass and the 

 cathartic flax will certainly dance their minute blos- 

 soms on the breeze beside them. Butcher's-broom, 

 laden with bright scarlet berries in Spring, is a 

 likely visitor tucked into the hedge-bank ; the 

 ox-eye daisy and other daisy-flowered folk, such as 

 mayweed and scentless mayweed, are present also ; 

 black medick and melilot may greet you, and a jewel 

 of crimson and cream in the shape of the dropwort — 

 most beautiful of English spiraeas — will surely nod 

 its lovely head hard by. The stork's-bill, with fleeting 



