zjo NOVEMBER 



from the stark and bare downs just above them 1 But 

 what you remember is one clump of beech trees on the 

 edge of the Stonehenge plateau. It overtops, at least in 

 your memory, all the beech woods that represent autumn 

 to many of us at Burnham or High Wycombe. 



We cannot boast quite the bright variety of the berried 

 plants that cover the ground in parts of Newfoundland ; 

 but autumn colours are mostly ground colours in some 

 of the hills and steep places of western England and 

 Wales* At a distance you may be excused for wondering 

 whether the brightness that comes from the slopes is 

 bracken or gorse, so full of colour is the faded fern. 

 Bracken adds much to the autumn scene on Surrey com 

 mons, in Berkshire woods, and along Devon promon 

 tories and on Welsh hillsides. The West is peculiarly 

 rich in the Cymric variety of gorse which flowers not in 

 March but in October, and the bracken and this gorse in 

 partnership give the West its claim to an autumnal 

 brightness quite its own. We all like our home. For 

 some it is difficult to acknowledge that the Midland 

 hedgerow has any close rival. 



6. 



About twenty-six miles north of London an old cottage 

 stands in the midst of a wide orchard and meadow. It is 

 close to the road, and behind it are a congeries, as Carlyle 

 used to say, of houses, some inhabited by London 

 workers, though a part of the village retains its antique 

 charm, where it is grouped about the Common. The 

 cottage and its grounds nevertheless keep their rustic 

 savour and are regarded by a great variety of birds and 

 wild mammals as a sanctuary have long been so re 

 garded ; but the dwellers there have only just come to 



