OCTOBER JOTTINGS, 1899 187 
of the others round about, the sloe-bushes, the privet, with its 
black clusters of berries, and here and there an elder, black- 
berried likewise. 
The creeping, climbing plants claim our attention next. All 
over the hedgerow, climbing up the brambles, struggling even 
to the top of the yew-tree opposite, is the wild clematis, the 
traveller’s joy, with its silky-looking tufts conspicuous above 
everything else. We may well be confident of our immunity 
from molestation by the natives here, if the old belief have 
any foundation in it, that the “ traveller’s joy ” will never grow 
save on the ground of an honest man. But there is room for 
doubt as to the infallibility of the saying, for no creeper is 
commoner than this one all over the chalk downs of the south, 
and none is prettier. And mixed with it here and there are the 
bright berries of the bryony straggling in the hedge. 
But this is the great time for the ivy. There is not so much 
of it up here on the down as below, but enough to be noticeable ; 
and even if the eye does not notice it at once, if but the sun 
is shining the ear will soon be saluted by the sounds of insect 
life that make its presence known. For the ivy is flowering 
now, and bees and wasps and belated butterflies hold high 
revel amongst its sweet-smelling blossoms. There is little else 
for them to feed on now that October has come, and most of 
the sweet flowers are over and perished, but a mass of ivy 
bloom on a sunny day is an enlivening sight ; every 'duster of 
its flowers is furnishing a sweet meal to hungry wasp or bee, 
and were the insect hunter to be out on some mild evening with 
his lantern, no doubt the moths would be seen holding high 
festival where their hymenopterous cousins have been disporting 
during the sunny hours ; for ivy shares with the sallows of the 
spring the honour of being the greatest favourite of the insect 
hosts. 
Lower down in the undergrowth there is not much to strike 
the eye at this late season, for most of the herbaceous plants 
have died down long ere this, but just a few survivals give a 
last parting hint of summer glories. There is the woody night- 
shade, or bittersweet, with its berries growing close beside the 
gate — a plant that often gets a worse name than it deserves, for 
it is not the deadly nightshade. That is the Atvopa Belladonna, and 
a very different plant, with dark, almost repulsive bell-shaped 
flowers and large leaves, a rarity too, not often found. But this 
woody nightshade is own brother to the potato and tomato, as a 
look at its leaves will tell everyone who knows the cultivated 
garden forms of those species of Solanum. The berries, however, 
must be let alone. A few bracken ferns adorn a corner of a gap 
just opposite, where a cart-track leads through to a cultivated 
field, and some withered stalks of knapweed and a few umbel- 
liferous plants show that there were glories of crimson and 
white not long ago. But at present none but a few dandelions 
and hawkweeds survive in the hedgerow. It is not the flowers, 
but the foliage and berries that constitute autumnal glories. 
