BANKS OF THE YANG-TSZE-KIANG. 
85 
crone is usually spinning at tlie open door. There 
are ducks in the dykes which always encircle the 
houses, and in the elm and willow trees are the 
himiliar magpies and mina-hirds. As the fields are 
now dry, rice, j^^idi-birds, and frogs are gone ; not 
even a land-crab sidles along the muddy banks. 
All around the yellow blossoms and snowy pods of 
the cotton are mingled with the foxglove flowers of 
Sesamum, from the seeds of which an oil is ex- 
pressed. AVheat and barley form undulating fields, 
together with purple tares and sweet-scented flower- 
ing beans. A granite arch, dedicated to filial 
piety, often rears its quaint form above the cotton- 
fields, and everpvhere wooden coffins are seen ex- 
posed in the open air. TJ\e grassy grave mounds 
are yellow with Chrysanthemum chinense, and from 
them is heard the sibilant song of the gfassliopper- 
lark. The pheasant crows in the young corn, and 
the pretty ringdove flies across the path to join her 
mate in the bamboo thicket. 
The banks of the river are covered with violets 
and dandelions, mixed with patches of yellow 
