200 AUGUST 



listener was startled and the warbler for a moment 

 silenced. It is a place beloved of birds. On a willow that 

 grows almost horizontally across the narrow current was 

 the relic nest of a dabchick, a bird at least as furtive as 

 the moorhen which originally claimed the adjective 

 and much more charming. Wild duck and snipe 

 both nest near by, the duck sometimes in the sedge or 

 on the ground, sometimes quite high up in the pollard 

 willows. 



No heat or drought is ever fierce enough to hamper 

 the freedom of growth in this place. A narrow path has 

 been trodden by bathers ; and it might be a forest path. 

 On either side the great hairy willow herb, which, at 

 its smallest, has the appearance rather of perennial bush 

 than a herbaceous plant, grows in a dense mass, with 

 stems like trunks, to a height of seven or eight feet. 

 Hereabouts, too, it flowers only less profusely than the 

 annual rosebay willow herb (the American fire-weed) 

 which loves the dry as exclusively as this species loves 

 the wet. The sun and wet bring out the quaint domestic 

 scent. The place smells like a kitchen when some fruit 

 is being stewed is this why the folk call it &quot; Codlins and 

 Cream,&quot; or is that a reference to the very white centre (in 

 the form of a cross) and the pink surroundings ? Any 

 way, it is a dish fit for a king, sweet and splendid. Only 

 the immense reeds tower over the willow herb as it 

 towers over the purple loosestrife. Here these two 

 grow almost cheek by jowl, both in masses, and it is, in 

 my experience, rare to find loosestrife closely massed or 

 in association with the Codlins and Cream. The butter 

 flies prefer the loosestrife, especially at mating hours, and 

 this patch is the surest find for some of the rarer sorts, 

 including a clouded yellow. The loosestrife has other 

 neighbours, and is set in a circle of meadow-sweet. 



