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and some have the upper surface highly polished. Of those mentioned, the transparent leaves are the sycamore, beech, lime, and oak. The most opaque is the lilac. The polished leaves are the hawthorn, birch, beech, ash, ivy, willow, and oak.

Cowper has a passage in 'The Task,' in which he carefully notes the colours of the leaves; but his observation was evidently made later in the season than my own, for the oak at the beginning of June was the lightest of all, and he speaks of it as being of the deepest green :

No tree in all the grove but has its charms,
Though each its hue peculiar; paler some,
And of a wannish grey; the willow such,
And poplar, that with silver lines his leaf,
And ash far stretching his umbrageous arm;
Of deeper green the elm; and deeper still,
Lord of the woods, the long-surviving oak.
Some glossy-leaved, and shining in the sun,
The maple, and the beech of oily nuts
Prolific, and the lime at dewy eve
Diffusing odours: nor unnoted pass
The sycamore, capricious in attire,

Now green, now tawny, and, ere autumn yet Have changed the woods, in scarlet honours bright. The poet is very accurate in his description of the sycamore. It is now the only exception to the general green. If looked at, especially from above, it will be seen that at the top of each spray there is a cluster of new leaves which are of a brilliant red.

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Behind his back a sithe, an by his side
Under his belt he bore a sickle circling wide.
SPENSER, The Faerie Queene.

The fire of July

In its passionate noon.

J. H. NEWMAN, The Queen of Seasons.

XXV.-TROPICAL SUMMER: IN THE HAYFIELD.

July 3.

IT is but little more than a week since we felt for the first time that we were fairly leaving behind us the uncertain temperature of the spring. Since then we have had not only an English summer at its best, but a summer of the Tropics. In the middle of the day the thermometers have been giving all sorts of extraordinary registers. In my garden here I know that even at half-past five in the evening of the twentysixth of June the point marked was 113; and so late as eight o'clock on the twenty-seventh, when the

coolness of night should have been coming on, the registration was still 80°. At this time I was sitting under a beech-tree at the edge of the large pond, and it seemed to me that all the birds in the garden were making incessant journeys, to and fro, across the water. Probably they found that their usually cool and shady quarters were yet burning with the heat of the day. On the twenty-eighth, although it was still unusually hot, a strong wind sprang up from the east; and after this (the wind continuing in the same quarter) each day became cooler. Many leaves were shrivelled by the great heat, and were brought to the ground in showers by the wind, which at one time became violent enough to strike off the heads of the taller flowers, and even to break down branches of the trees.

After all, this bountiful outburst of sunshine, though grievous to some people, has been a great boon to most, and has put a wealth of life into the blood which will be felt even when the snows of December are upon us. The rapidity with which the flowers came out during the days of greatest heat was very remarkable. The purple foxgloves, the orange lilies, the tall yellow iris, the campanula, the musk, the marigold, and the sweet-william were most conspicuous. But best of all were the roses. Between our orchard and the wood there is a little trellised

avenue covered on both sides with bushes of a hardy climbing rose, in colour, white, with a blush centre. These were timidly showing their buds about the middle of June, and each day two or three would open but, under the influence of the heat, they burst out in hundreds; and I observe that the scent is more delicious and the colour deeper than on any previous year. This is owing, no doubt, to the continuous sunshine and to the absence of rain. In the greenhouse the most noticeable things are the centaurea, with its yellow thistle-like bloom; the great passion-flower, and the plumbago-inharmonious name for one of our most unique and delicately coloured blossoms.

The hay harvest, later here probably than in most places, has been nearly got in. The scent of it is about the house all day long, and no garden posy is sweeter than a swath of new mown hay. There are few passages in our English country life more pleasant than this, or fuller of healthy and delightful associations. We are in the hayfield early in the morning, and realise for ourselves the truth of those fine lines in 'In Memoriam':

O sound to rout tne brood of cares,

The sweep of scythe in morning dew ;—

and again in the evening, when the long day's work is nearly done, and when groups of happy children make pictures all over the meadow.

Following the mowers yesterday we saw them cut away the grass above the nest of a poor field-mouse. The mother escaped, and the young ones were untouched by the scythe. My boys gathered them up and took them home. The nest is nothing more than a little round bed made of closely-nibbled grass, soft enough, but not shaped or woven like that of a bird. There were six in the litter. They are curious looking creatures, very light in colour, little more than an inch long altogether, and the head itself being nearly as large as the body. They are blind like young puppies, but seem able to use their tiny mouths. It seemed a hard thing to break in so rudely and so suddenly on what was probably, a moment before, a happy and contented little homestead. Some such feeling, I suppose, was in the mind of Burns when he wrote his well-known poem :

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie !

That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!

But, mousie, thou art no thy lane
In proving foresight may be vain :

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