purple heath-bells, thyme and flitting stonechats.

The lone barn shut off by acres of barley is noisy with sparrows. It is
their city, and there is a nest in every crevice, almost under every
tile. Sometimes the partridges run between the ricks, and when the bats
come out of the roof, leverets play in the waggon-track. At even a
fern-owl beats by, passing close to the eaves whence the moths issue. On
the narrow waggon-track which descends along a coombe and is worn in
chalk, the heat pours down by day as if an invisible lens in the
atmosphere focussed the sun's rays. Strong woody knapweed endures it, so
does toadflax and pale blue scabious, and wild mignonette. The very sun
of Spain burns and burns and ripens the wheat on the edge of the coombe,
and will only let the spring moisten a yard or two around it; but there a
few rushes have sprung, and in the water itself brooklime with blue
flowers grows so thickly that nothing but a bird could find space to
drink. So down again from this sun of Spain to woody coverts where the
wild hops are blocking every avenue, and green-flowered bryony would fain
climb to the trees; where grey-flecked ivy winds spirally about the red
rugged bark of pines, where burdocks fight for the footpath, and
teazle-heads look over the low hedges. Brake-fern rises five feet high;
in some way woodpeckers are associated with brake, and there seem more of
them where it flourishes. Ifyou count the depth and strength of its roots
in the loamy sand, add the thickness of its flattened stem, and the width
of its branching fronds, you may say that it comes near to be a little
tree. Beneath where the ponds are bushy mare's-tails grow, and on the
moist banks jointed pewterwort; some of the broad bronze leaves of
water-weeds seem to try and conquer the pond and cover it so firmly that
a wagtail may run on them. A white butterfly follows along the
waggon-road, the pheasants slip away as quietly as the butterfly flies,
but a jay screeches loudly and flutters in high rage to see us. Under an