8 
NATURE NOTES 
And let us compare the sort of observation bestowed by each 
both in notes and finished writing. 
“ The chiff chaff,” says White, “ utters two sharp, piercing 
notes, so loud in hollow woods as to occasion an echo, and is 
usually first heard about March 20.” “ The Whitethroat,” says 
Jefferies, “feeds on the brink of the ditch, perching on fallen 
sticks or small bushes ; there is then no appearance of a crest ; 
afterwards he flies up to the topmost twig of the bush, or on a 
sapling tree, and immediately he begins to sing, and the feathers 
on the top of his head are all ruffled up, as if brushed the WTong 
way.” 
“ Ivy berries,” says White, “ form a noble and providential 
supply for birds in winter and spring ; for the first severe frost 
freezes and spoils all the lawns by the middle of November. Ivy 
berries do not seem to freeze.” “ Berries on wild ivy, on birch 
tree, round and fully formed and plentiful ; berries not formed on 
garden ivy,” runs a note by Jefferies, again : “ ivy, brown reddish 
leaves and pale green ribs.” While living at Surbiton he saw 
“ street mist, London, not fog, but on clear day comes up about 
two-thirds the height of the houses.” And White, fifty miles from 
London, observed the same thing nearly one hundred years before 
Jefferies: “ This is a blue mist which has somewhat the smell 
of coal smoke, and, as it always comes to us with a N.E. wind, 
is supposed to come from London. It has a strong smell, and is 
supposed to occasion blights. When such mists appear they are 
usually followed by dry weather.” We have ourselves seen this 
mist driven, on a bright May-day, over Colnbrook, twenty-five 
miles from London. It looked like an impenetrable wall coming 
nearer and nearer, far above the height mentioned by Jefferies, 
and gradually blotting out the whole world till it lapped the very 
sunshine at our feet. As White says, it has a strong odour, but 
it is not blue, except perhaps when seen from a great distance. 
It is murky brown. One doubts whether White had much sense 
of colour. He rarely mentions it. He tried once to write a poem 
on wintry scenery, and failed to do in verse what Jefferies effected 
in prose (see the bit about January, quoted by Besant in his 
“ Eulogy,” p. 246). Instead of the blazing dandelion and emerald 
moss, which fascinated Jefferies, White did not get beyond the 
old-fashioned painter’s conventional yellow-and-brown trees. 
Thoreau, amidst infinitely more striking surroundings than 
those of White, could not fail to be impressed by colour. He 
chronicles the gorgeous red-and-yellow of the splendid American 
maple in a passage which seems to illustrate Lowell’s criticism, 
viz., that Thoreau is incapable of sustained thought and style. 
“ A large red-maple swamp, when at the height of its change, 
is the most obviously brilliant of all tangible things, where I 
dwell, so abundant is this tree with us. It varies much both in 
form and colour. A great many are merely yellow, more scarlet, 
others scarlet deepening into crimson, more red and common.” 
“ Look at yonder swamp of maples mixed with pines, at the 
base of a pine-clad hill, a quarter of a mile off, so that you get 
