In the ditch the tall teazle lifts its prickly head. The large leaves of this plant grow in pairs, one on each side of the stem, and while the plant is young are connected in a curious manner by a green membrane, or continuation of the lower part of the leaf round the stem, so as to form a cup. The stalk rises in the centre of the cup, and of these vessels there are three or four above each other in storeys. When it rains, the drops, instead of falling off as from other leaves, run down these and are collected in the cups, which thus form so many natural rain-gauges. If it is a large plant, the cup nearest the ground--the biggest--will hold as much as two or three wine-glasses. This water remains there for a considerable time, for several days after a shower, and is fatal to numbers of insects which climb up the stalk or alight on the leaves and fall in. While the grass and the earth of the bank are quite dry, therefore, the teazle often has a supply of water; and when it dries up, the drowned insects remain at the bottom like the dregs of a draught the plant has drained. Round the prickly dome-shaped head, as the summer advances, two circles of violet-hued flowers push out from cells defended by the spines, so that, seen protruding above the hedge, it resembles a tiara--a green circle at the bottom of the dome, and two circles of gems above. Some of the grasses growing by the hedge are not to be handled carelessly, the edge of the long blade cutting like a lancet: the awn-like seeds of others, if they should chance to get into the mouth, as happens occasionally to the haymakers, work down towards the throat, the attempt to get rid of them causing a creeping motion the opposite way. This is owing to the awns all slanting in one direction. On the sultry afternoons of the latter part of the summer the hedge is all but silent. Waiting in the gateway there is no sound for half an hour at a time, no call or merry song in the branches, nothing but the buzz of flies. The birds are quiet, or nearly so: they slip about so noiselessly that it is difficult to observe them, so that many perhaps migrate before it is suspected, and others stay on when thought to be gone. In the grass the grasshoppers make their hiss, and towards evening the yellowhammers utter a few notes; but while the corn is being reaped the meadows are all but still. CHAPTER TWELVE. THE ASH COPSE--THE NIGHTINGALE--CLOUD OF STARLINGS--HEDGEHOGS--HERON'S HEAD--MOORHENS--AMONG THE REEDS.