Marsh. 209 



panion known as " Gamp," may occasionally be seen as night 

 approaches wending his way to marsh or sylvan solitude, to 

 shake the intoxicated moths after nightfall from the catkins 

 into the ample folds of outspread " Sairey.'' Carefully he 

 handles them ; longingly he looks at them ; triumphantly he 

 transfers them in little boxes to the pockets of his coat. 

 What a world of labour he bestows on the treasures which 

 he finds on his lonely rounds ! Lonely ? Scarcely lonely you 

 would think if you were to follow the wanderer on his 

 rounds and hear his muttered thoughts, or see in the flicker 

 of the lamplight the smile beaming on his face as he espies a 

 special favourite, or the gesture of disgust as Sairey is turned 

 upside down owing to the plebeian nature of her contents. 

 You would be quite satisfied that he was far from being 

 lonely, that he had companions you wot not of, that he was 

 holding communion with spirits far enough away, aye, alto- 

 gether unseen by you, but near enough to hold his mind in 

 constant action. No, he is not lonely, with Sairey, the lantern 

 and his thoughts. 



The flowers of the willow have neither calyx nor corolla. 

 The stamina te flower consists usually of two stamens, on 

 slender stalks, enclosed in a leafy scale; the pistillate 

 flower consists of a simple ovary with a forked stigma, also 

 enclosed in a leafy scale. But a large number of these small 

 leafy scales with their contained stamens or pistils, as the 

 case may be, are congregated close together on a central 

 stem, and thus form a conspicuous bunch or catkin ; the sta- 

 minate catkins are covered with the beautiful bright yellow 

 pollen dust which is set free when the stamen is mature. 



One broad-leaved species of willow is called sallow, and 

 the catkins of this, which by Kentish people is called 



