Natural history -- England -- Wiltshire; Wiltshire (England) -- Description and travel
Such places, close to cultivated land yet undisturbed, are the best in
which to look for wild flowers; and on the narrow strip beside the hedge
and on the crumbling rubble bank of the rough track may be found a
greater variety than by searching the broad acres beyond. In the season
the large white bell-like flowers of the convolvulus will climb over the
hawthorn, and the lesser striped kind will creep along the ground. The
pink pimpernel hides on the very verge of the corn, which presently will
be strewn with the beautiful `blue-bottle' flower, than whose exquisite
hue there is nothing more lovely in our fields. The great scarlet poppy
with the black centre, and `eggs and butter'--curious name for a
flower--will, of course, be there: the latter often flourishes on a high
elevation, on the very ridges, provided only the plough has been near.
At irregular intervals along the slope there are deep hollows--shallow
near the summit, deepening and widening as they sink, till by the hedge
at the foot they broaden out into a little valley in themselves. These
great green grooves furrow the sides of the downs everywhere, and for
that reason it is best to walk either on the ridge or in the plain at
the bottom: if you follow the slope half-way up you are continually
descending and ascending the steep sides of these gullys, which adds
much to the fatigue. At the mouths of the hollows, close to the hedge,
the great flint stones and lumps of chalky rubble rolling down from
above one by one in the passage of the years have accumulated: so that
the turf there is almost hidden as by a stony cascade.
On the ridge here is a thicket of furze, grown shrub-like and strong,
being untouched by woodman's tool; here the rabbits have their `buries,'
and be careful how you thread your way between the bushes, for the
ground is undermined with innumerable flint-pits long abandoned. This
is the favourite resort of the chats, who perch on the furze or on the
heaps of flints, perpetually iterating their one note, from which their
name seems taken. Within the enclosure of the old earthwork itself the
flint-diggers have been at work: they occasionally find a few fragments
of rusty metal, doubtless relics of ancient weapons; but little worth
preserving is ever found there. Such treasures are much more frequently
discovered in the cornfields of the plain immediately beneath than here
in the camp where one would naturally look for them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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