ON SURREY HILLS. 



I claim Mary Howitt as one of our company of road- 

 side naturalists. 



Donkeys are credited with feeding largely on 

 thistles, those prickly roadside products. He may 

 munch the tender tops of the plants now and then, 

 but you do not catch the asinus harmonious, grass- 

 organ, thistle-puke, or beesweet — all these names are 

 given to that animal in our rural district — eating 

 thistles when he can get better food. The donkey 

 is very fastidious in many of his habits ; in drinking 

 he is particularly so. Shakespeare noted this, and 

 one of his characters says — 



" Would that the fountain of thy mind was clear, 

 That I might water an ass at it." 



No, not for donkeys do those thistles grow so rank 

 and so luxuriously, but for the birds that flock to 

 them for food when their seeds are ripe. It is one of 

 the prettiest of my roadside sights, that of a flock of 

 twenty or thirty goldfinches fluttering over the stems 

 and heads of the thistles, and clinging to them in all 

 manner of positions. Twenty or thirty I call a large 

 flock — goldfinches are getting scarcer with us. Tit- 

 mice — all the tits — feed more or less on thistle-seeds ; 



