kets to shield their freshly gathered watercresses from the
sunshine; creeping avens, with buttercup-like flowers and long stems
that straggle across the ditch, and in autumn are tipped with a small
ball of soft spines; mints, strong-scented and unmistakable; yarrow,
white and sometimes a little lilac, whose flower is perhaps almost the
last that the bee visits. In the middle of October I have seen a wild
bee on a last stray yarrow.

On the higher and drier bank some few slender square stems of betony,
with leaves in pairs like wings, stand up tall and stiff as the summer
advances. The labiate purplish flowers are all at the top; each flower
is set in the cup by a curve at the lesser end, like a crook; the
leaves and stalk are slightly rough, and have an aromatic bitter
perfume when crushed. On the flower of a great thistle a moth has
alighted, and hidden under its broad wing is a humble-bee, the two
happy together and neither interfering with the other. Sometimes a bee
will visit the white rose on the briar.

Near the gateway, on the edge of the trodden ground, grows a tall,
stout, bushy plant, like a shrub, with pale greyish-green leaves, much
lobed and divided: the top of each branch in August is thick with
small whitish-green flowers tipped with brown. These, if rubbed in the
hand, emit a strong and peculiar scent, with a faint flavour of
lavender, and yet quite different. This is the mugwort. Still later
on, under the shade of the trees on the mound, there appear bunches of
a pale herb, with greenish labiate flowers, and a scent like hops: it
is the woodsage, and if tasted the leaf will be found extremely
bitter.

In the mornings of autumn the webs of the spiders hang along the hedge
bowed a little with dew, like hammocks of gossamer slung from thorn to
thorn. Then the hedge-sparrows, perching on the topmost boughs of the
hawthorn, cry 'peep-peep' mournfully; the heavy dew on the grass
beneath arranges itself in two rows of drops along the edges of the
blades. From the day when the first leaf appears upon the hardy
woodbine, in the early year, to the time when the partridge finds the
eggs in the ant-hill, and on again till the last harebell dies, there
is always something beautiful or interesting in these great hedgerows.
Indeed, it is impossible to exhaust them. I have omitted the wild
geranium with its tiny red petals scarce seen in the mass of green,
the mosses, the ferns, and have scarcely said a word about