trees, are all quarried for this purpose.

The number of different kinds of bushes in the hedgerows, entwined by
traveller's joy and the bryonies, is conspicuous compared with the hedges
of the northern counties.

March 25th [1844?].--The first period of vegetation, and the banks are
clothed with pale-blue violets to an extent I have never seen equalled, and
with primroses. A few days later some of the copses were beautifully
enlivened by Ranunculus auricomus, wood anemones, and a white Stellaria.
Again, subsequently, large areas were brilliantly blue with bluebells. The
flowers are here very beautiful, and the number of flowers; [and] the
darkness of the blue of the common little Polygala almost equals it to an
alpine gentian.

There are large tracts of woodland, [cut down] about once every ten years;
some of these enclosures seem to be very ancient. On the south side of
Cudham Wood a beech hedge has grown to Brobdignagian size, with several of
the huge branches crossing each other and firmly grafted together.

Larks abound here, and their songs sound most agreeably on all sides;
nightingales are common. Judging from an odd cooing note, something like
the purring of a cat, doves are very common in the woods.

June 25th.--The sainfoin fields are now of the most beautiful pink, and
from the number of hive-bees frequenting them the humming noise is quite
extraordinary. This humming is rather deeper than the humming overhead,
which has been continuous and loud during all these last hot days over
almost every field. The labourers here say it is made by "air-bees," and
one man, seeing a wild bee in a flower different from the hive kind,