262 NOVEMBER. 



tion of the field bonfire. Incidentally, the evil itself is a 

 soft of wheat, a &quot; triticum,&quot; though &quot; repens.&quot; The 

 land is well cleaned and early sown ; and because the 

 plant is in the ground much longer on English acres than 

 in less happier lands indeed, it will probably see no 

 fewer than eleven months out of the twelve it is capable 

 of bearing a heavier weight of grain. The autumnal 

 changes have been breathless, but we shall look over 

 these green and level lines throughout the winter and 

 the spring, and the lower the sun the lovelier they look. 

 The larks will scrabble about them ; the starlings will 

 dibble holes alongside them, as is their strange and not 

 easily explicable habit; the partridges will delicately 

 nibble off the tips of the blades just here and there, and 

 the rooks, if they are too many, will eat off the bleached 

 shoots in search for the exhausted seed. The farmer may 

 shut the gate and go about other work which will give 

 htm more trouble and less pleasure though bigger returns 

 than this self-rearing grain. 



A similar field near the sea in East Anglia has aston 

 ished even the all-experienced native by its attraction for 

 that ardent follower of the plough, the British seagull. 

 The furrow immediately behind the plough has been 

 continuously white as the crest of a breaking wave ; and 

 the birds have been more various in species than usual 

 as well as more multitudinous blackheaded, herring 

 gull, even an occasional common grill, so called, and 

 lesser black-back. The clamour is more noisy than the 

 breaking wave. Here and there a jackdaw, a rook, and 

 a starling or two take part in the pursuit of the plough, 

 but the number and noise of the gulls soon rout them. 

 The birds must do a great service to the farmer, though 

 in their diet is perhaps a greater number of the beneficent 

 worm than of any harmful grub. Happily worms are 



