230 © Wild Life in a Southern County. 
little careful while stepping across the narrow water- 
course that winds between the stoles. Rushes grow 
thickly by the side, and the slender stream seems to 
ooze rather than run, trickling slowly down to the 
brook in the meadow. But the earth is treacherous 
on its banks—formed of decayed branches, leaves, 
and vegetable matter, hidden under a thin covering 
of aquatic grasses. Listen! there is a faint rustling 
and a slight movement of the grass: it is a snake 
gliding away to its hole, with yellow-marked head 
lifted above the ground over which his dull green 
length is trailing. Stepping well over the moist earth, 
and reaching the firmer ground, there the thistles grow 
great and tall, many up to the shoulder ; it is a little 
more open here, the stoles having been cut only two 
years ago, and they draw the thistles up. 
Sometimes the young ash, shooting up after being 
cut, takes fantastic shapes instead of rising straight. 
The branch loses its roundness and flattens out to a 
width of three or four inches, curling round at the top 
like the conventional scroll ornament. These natural 
scrolls are occasionally hung up in farmhouses as cu- 
riosities. The woodmen jocularly say that the branch 
grew in the night, and so could not see its way. In 
some places (where the poles are full-grown) the upper 
branches rub against each other, causing a weird 
creaking in a gale. The trees as the wind rises find 
their voices, and the wood is full of strange tongues. 
From each green thing touched by its fingers the 
