38 NATURE IN DOWNLAND 



I have simply described what I saw in the course of 

 my last late July ramble on the downs ; and it seemed 

 only natural to wish to be able to set up a copy which 

 would remain unruined by time and weather for at 

 least a thousand years. The arrangement of the 

 group as well as the form of the creatures composing 

 it — men and great rough-hewn cattle — was wonder- 

 fully fine ; but I also think that colour was a principal 

 element in the fascinating effect the spectacle pro- 

 duced — the contrast of those large living black masses 

 with the shining red and gold of the wheat. How 

 strikingly beautiful — startlingly, one might almost say 

 on account of its rarity — this contrast of black and 

 gold is in nature may be seen even in so comparatively 

 small a creature as a blackbird, perched or moving 

 about amid the brilliant yellow foliage of a horse- 

 chestnut or some other tree in October. Again, a 

 large mass of yellow sunlit foliage seen against a black 

 rain-cloud shows us the same contrast on a grand 

 scale 



The downs are nowhere tame, but I seldom care to 

 loiter long in their cultivated parts. It seems better 

 to get away, even from the sight of labouring men and 

 oxen, and of golden corn and laughing bindweed, to 

 walk on the turf. This turf is composed of small 

 grasses and clovers mixed with a great variety of 

 creeping herbs, some exceedingly small. In a space 

 of one square foot of ground, a dozen or twenty or more 

 species of plants mny be counted, and on turning up 



