158 BIRD LIFE THROUGHOUT THE YEAR 



avoid observation. Even the tits, irrepressible as a 

 rule, are but little in evidence. In short, there is no 

 month when birds lend less of colour and cheerful 

 activity to the country-side, in keeping with the fact 

 that August landscapes are less bright and varied than 

 those of either the preceding or the succeeding month. 



Wild flowers are largely over ; foliage has lost its 

 freshness and has the dull and tarnished look which it 

 will wear until touched by the dying glories which 

 precede its fall. The hedges along the main roads are 

 covered with a coating of dust, which grows ever deeper 

 as the automobile multiplies and spreads through the 

 land. Beside such highways dust hangs heavy on the 

 feathery-seeded clematis, renders the blackberries 

 uneatable, hides the deepening crimson of hips and 

 haws. Happy the country-lanes which are exempt 

 from the passage of the destroyer of rural peace, the 

 hot chalk-banks alive with butterflies, the low-lying 

 meads where the grass, helped by the heavy morning 

 dews of late summer, deepens into a rich aftermath. 



A moderately wet August tends to preserve the 

 beauties of summer leafage, while drought brings the 

 sere and yellow leaf before its time. In time of 

 drought, as of frost, the thrushes search the hedge- 

 bottoms to turn out the yellow-banded snails. Then 

 the shrunken ponds yield the carrion-crow a feast of 

 fresh-water mussels. Then, too, assaults upon the 

 fruit-garden become more frequent and systematic. 



