170 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 
soil looked black and fertile, and new-comers thought. 
they were going to have good crops, but: when these 
failed they found, upon examining the earth, that it was 
little more than black sand, and the particles of silica 
glittered if a handful were held in the sun. Such a 
sand would give the impression of dryness, instead of 
which it was extremely damp—damp all the year round. 
For contrast, a place on the coast just opposite, as it 
were, and almost within view, at the same time of year 
seemed to have no bees. A great field of clover in, 
flower was silent; there was no hum, nor glistening of 
wings. Butterflies rarely came along. Swallows were 
not common. In the rich loam ‘it was curious to note 
mussel-shells, quite recent, in good preservation, and a 
geologist might wonder at the layers of them in such an 
earth ; the farmer would smile, and say the mussels were. 
carted there for manure. Another place, again, in the 
same county is full of rooks, and the arum is green on 
the banks. These items in a small area show how 
different places are, and if you move. from locality to 
locality everything you have read about is by degrees 
seen in reality. In an old book, the History of North: 
ampton, which I chanced to look at, among other 
curiosities, the author a hundred years ago mentioned 
a substance called star shot, which appeared in the 
meadows overnight, and seemed to have dropped from 
the sky. This I had not then seen, but many years 
afterwards came suddenly, by a copse, on a quantity of 
jelly-like substance with a most unpleasant aspect, but 
which did not in any other way offend the senses. It 
had shot up in the night, and was gone next day. It is 
a fungus unnoticed till it suddenly swells ; I suppose this 
was the old chronicler’s star shot. Nor do I think it too. 
small a thing that the common snail makes a straight 
