1 82 Wild Life in a Southern County 



over them. Here and there upon the bank wild gooseberry 

 and currant bushes may be found, planted by birds carry- 

 ing off ripe fruit from the garden. A wild gooseberry 

 may sometimes be seen growing out of the decayed 

 ' touchwood ' on the top of a hollow withy-pollard. Wild 

 apple trees, too, are not uncommon in the hedges. 



The beautiful rich colour of the horse-chestnut, when 

 quite ripe and fresh from its prickly green shell, can hardly 

 be surpassed ; underneath the tree the grass is strewn with 

 the shells, where they have fallen and burst. Close to the 

 trunk the grass is worn away by the restless trampling of 

 horses, who love the shade its foliage gives in summer. 

 The oak-apples which appear on the oaks in spring — 

 generally near the trunk — fall off in the summer, and lie 

 shrivelled on the ground not unlike rotten cork, or black 

 as if burned. But the oak-galls show thick on some of 

 the trees, light green, and round as a ball ; they will re- 

 main on the branches after the leaves have fallen, turning 

 brown and hard, and hanging there till the spring comes 

 aofain. 



One of the cottagers in the adjacent hamlet collects 

 these brown balls and strings them upon wire, making 

 flower-stands and ornamental baskets for sale. They seem 

 to appear in numbers upon those oak bushes rather than 

 trees which spring up when an oak has been cut down but 

 the stump has not been grubbed up. These shoots at 

 first often bear leaves of great size, many times larger than 

 the ordinary oak leaf ; some are really immense, measuring 

 occasionally fourteen or fifteen inches in length. As the 

 shoots grow into a bush the leaves diminish in size and 

 become like those of the tree. 



In the ditch the tall teazle lifts its prickly head. The 

 large leaves of this plant grow in pairs, one on each side 



