here and
there a dash of colour. Furze chats call, and flit to and fro; the hum
of bees is heard once more--there was not one under the vacant shadow;
and swallows pass overhead.

At last emerging from the firs the open slope is covered with heath
only, but heath growing so thickly that even the narrow footpaths are
hidden by the overhanging bushes of it. Some small bushes of furze here
and there are dead and dry, but every prickly point appears perfect;
when struck with the walking-stick the bush crumbles to pieces. Beneath
and amid the heath what seems a species of lichen grows so profusely as
to give a grey undertone. In places it supplants the heath, the ground
is concealed by lichen only, which crunches under the foot like
hoar-frost. Each piece is branched not unlike a stag's antlers; gather
a handful and it crumbles to pieces in the fingers, dry and brittle.

A quarry for sand has been dug down some eight or ten feet, so that
standing in it nothing else is visible. This steep scarp shows the
strata, yellow sand streaked with thin brown layers; at the top it is
fringed with heath in full flower, bunches of purple bloom overhanging
the edge, and behind this the azure of the sky.

Here, where the ground slopes gradually, it is entirely covered with the
purple bells; a sheen and gleam of purple light plays upon it. A
fragrance of sweet honey floats up from the flowers where grey hive-bees
are busy. Ascending still higher and crossing the summit, the ground
almost suddenly falls away in a steep descent, and the entire hillside,
seen at a glance, is covered with heath, and heath alone. A bunch at the
very edge offers a purple cushion fit for a king; resting here a
delicious summer breeze, passing over miles and miles of fields and
woods yonder, comes straight from the distant hills. Along those hills
the lines of darker green are woods; there are woods to the south, and
west, and east, heath around, and in the rear the gaze travels over the
tops of the endless firs. But southwards is sweetest; below, beyond the
verge of the heath, the corn begins, and waves in the wind. It is the
breeze that makes the summer day so lovely.

The eggs of the nighthawk are sometimes found at this season near by.
They are laid on the ground, on the barest spots, where there is no
herbage. At dusk, the nighthawk wheels with a soft yet quick flight over
the ferns and about the trees. Along the hedges bounding the heath
butcher-birds wat