THE SINGING VALLEY 197 



wholly ludicrous skips of pleasure in the prospect of 

 more luscious feeding. The favourite heaths will respond 

 like the grass on the commons. 



Thunder-rain is the best to watch, and so is its ap 

 proach. No spectacle in all nature is more magnificent 

 than the formation of a single thunder-cloud. It grows 

 like a tree, but in the space of a few minutes. The upward 

 current of air from the hot earth to the cool heavens may 

 be almost as rapid as a waterspout twisted out of the sea 

 by a revolving storm of wind. Their speed has been 

 measured as other winds have been measured, and may 

 reach fifty or more miles an hour. Raindrops that meet 

 this ascending rush are shattered into minute particles, 

 and out of the conflict the thunderstorm is bred. We 

 may watch the quick piling up of great cloud on great 

 cloud, as if the giants and the gods were at war : 



Ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam. 



And perhaps this fable of the gods and giants was a 

 personification of the thunderstorm. The piled cloud 

 will sometimes topple at its peak, where the ascending 

 wind has begun to fail. What &quot; cloud-capped towers and 

 gorgeous palaces &quot; we see built and shattered and mingled 

 into splendid and fantastic architecture, and penetrated 

 by gold and silver lights. Of such splendour was the 

 felted monotony of the rain-clouds bred. 



These belated rains fell on an earth singularly dry 

 and hot ; and they acted like a trigger on the threads of 

 those mysterious plants the mushrooms. Did ever the 

 favourite agaric of our English fields come up more 

 quickly, more surprisingly ? It grew so hurriedly that 

 it had scarcely time to break the white crumpled curtain 

 that conceals its spores. It grew, blackened, and was 

 penetrated by its insect enemies before people noticed its 



