FROM EAR TO BLADE 263 



plentiful enough, and the superfluity may be spared with 

 out a qualm. Some of the gulls after all are land-birds 

 rather than sea-birds. The black-headed species nest 

 inland, preferably in grass, love London better than the 

 seaside, and are much more skilful in earning a livelihood 

 by the river or on the field than anywhere about the sea. 

 They follow the plough for grubs as the wagtails follow 

 the haycutter for fly and moth. 



The quick growing of wheat sown early in the year is 

 usual, though some seasons will accelerate it. The soil is 

 most alive, and in its most active state of ferment, in 

 September. Its population of invisible life is thus 

 greatest; and thanks to their energy, then does the 

 turned-in straw most quickly moulder into fertility, and 

 the seed most surely sprout. How often we say, was ever 

 an autumn more like spring ? Alongside the thirty-acre 

 field of springing wheat is a garden bed where grew a 

 group of perennial larkspurs (known by a too Latin 

 generation as delphiniums). You can scarcely distin 

 guish the bed from the surrounding grass, so thick is the 

 surface with sprouted seedlings. The wheatfield, how 

 ever well-cleaned by man and bird, is hardly a better 

 witness to the fertility of autumn. Every other weed- 

 seed seems to have germinated ; but the wheat had the 

 start of it, and though it is Eastern, and an alien plant, 

 that would vanish within a few years if left to its own 

 devices, in this Northern island, will out-top, if not van 

 quish, the native herbs, or so we may hope. There will 

 be exceptions. The pads of knotgrass will prevail on 

 some of the light soils of Norfolk, and twitch (like the 

 African Fuzzy-wuzzy) is &quot; generally shamming when it s 

 dead &quot; ; but though pink convolvulus and yellow char 

 lock and red poppy and purple thistle and blue corn 

 flower will appear amongst the wheat of autumn next, 



