168 BRITISH GRASSES. 



the candles which lighted the assembly when nature's 

 light was withdrawn shone from tin sconces, but, what- 

 ever the light was, it flashed on silvery crowds of insect- 

 like florets, which quivered from their pendent position, 

 and displayed a beauty which would have done honour 

 to Belgravia. 



The Tufted Hair-grass is a treasure in a bouquet of 

 wild flowers. It is often found growing side by side 

 with the Purple Lythrum and the Orange and Lemon 

 Toadflax ; add to these a fern frond or two, or even some 

 of the sword-shaped leaves of the Water Iris or Reed, 

 and you have a group of exquisite beauty. 



But in praising the pictorial charm of this giant Aira 

 we have exhausted the list of its good qualities. We 

 can judge by the dense tufts of coarse grass remaining 

 in pastures that are otherwise bare of herbage, that the 

 cattle disdain to feed on that species ; these unsightly 

 tufts, which are called by farmers " hassocks," or " rough 

 caps/' or "bulls' faces/' are neither more nor less than 

 dense masses of Aira ccespitosa. Cows, goats, and swine 

 can be compelled to eat it, but only by sheer hunger ; 

 and horses invariably refuse it. It is the roughest and 

 coarsest grass that grows in meadows and pastures. 

 It is very fond of moist situations, and the farmer who 

 wishes to be rid of its unprofitable presence should drain 

 the land well, and pare off the tufts of hassock, the ashes 

 of which make good manure, though in life it was worse 

 than useless. It grows in such masses that it must both 

 exhaust the soil, and cover an amount of land which 

 would be much more profitably employed to rearing a 

 useful crop ; so, much as we love its beauty, we cannot 

 plead for its toleration in meadow and pasture lands. 

 We would petition for its home on the river-bank, and 



