Natural history -- Outdoor books; Nature; Nature study; Paris (France) -- Description and travel
Leaving the lane by a waggon track--a gipsy track through a
copse--there were large bunches of pale-red berries hanging from the
wayfaring trees, or wild viburnum, and green and red berries of bryony
wreathed among the branches. The bryony leaves had turned, some were
pale buff already. Among the many berries of autumn those of the
wayfaring tree may be known by their flattened shape, as if the sides
had been pressed in like a flask. The bushes were not high enough for
shadow, and the harvest sun was hot between them. The track led past
the foot of a steep headland of the Downs, which could not be left
without an ascent. Dry and slippery, the short grass gave no hold to
the feet, and it was necessary to step in the holes cut through the
turf for the purpose. Pushed forward from the main line of the Downs,
the buff headland projected into the Weald, as headlands on the
southern side of the range project into the sea. Towards the summit the
brow came out somewhat, and even the rude steps in the turf were not
much assistance in climbing this almost perpendicular wall of sward.
Above the brow the ascent became easy; these brows raised steeper than
the general slope are often found on the higher hills. A circular
entrenchment encloses the summit, but the rampart has much sunk, and is
in places levelled. Here it was pleasant to look back upon the beech
woods at the foot of the great Downs, and far over the endless fields
of the Weald or plain. Thirty fields could be counted in succession,
one after the other, like irregular chess-squares, some corn, some
grass, and these only extended to the first undulation, where the woods
hid the fields behind them. But beyond these, in reality, succeeded
another series of fields to the second undulation, and still a third
series to the farthest undulation visible. Yet farther there was a
faint line of hills, a dark cloud-like bank in the extreme distance. To
the right and to the left were similar views. Reapers were at work in
the wheat below, but already much of the corn had been carried, and the
hum of a threshing engine came up from the ricks. A woodpecker called
loudly in the beech wood; a "wish-wish" in the air overhead was caused
by the swift motion of a wood-pigeon passing from "holt" to "hurst,"
from copse to copse. On the dry short turf of the hill-top even the
shadow of a swallow was visible as he flew but a few yards high.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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