ts yellow petals beside
the Long Ditton road: another summer flower, which comes in as the blue
veronica is leaving the sward.

As tall as the young corn the mayweed fringes the arable fields with its
white rays and yellow centre, somewhat as the broad moon-daisies stand
in the grass. By this time generally the corn is high above the mayweed,
but this year the flower is level with its shelter. The pale corn
buttercup is in flower by the New Road, not in the least overshadowed by
the crops at the edge of which it grows. By the stream through Tolworth
Common spotted persicaria is rising thickly, but even this
strong-growing plant is backward and checked on the verge of the
shrunken stream. The showers that have since fallen have not made up for
the lack of the April rains, which in the most literal sense cause the
flowers of May and June. Without those early spring rains the wild
flowers cannot push their roots and develop their stalks in time for the
summer sun. The sunshine and heat finds them unprepared. In the ditches
the square-stemmed figwort is conspicuous by its dark green. It is very
plentiful about Surbiton. Just outside the garden in a waste corner the
yellow flowers of celandine are overhung by wild hops and white bryony,
two strong plants of which have climbed up the copse hedge, twining in
and out each other. Both have vine-like leaves; but the hops are
wrinkled, those of the bryony hairy or rough to the touch. The hops seem
to be the most powerful, and hold the bryony in the background. The
young spruce firs which the wood-pigeon visited in the spring with an
idea of building there look larger and thicker now the fresh green
needles have appeared.

In the woodland lane to Claygate the great elder-bushes are coming into
flower, each petal a creamy-white. The dogwood, too, is opening, and the
wild guelder-roses there are in full bloom. There is a stile from which
a path leads across the fields thence to Hook. The field by the stile
was fed off in spring, and now is yellow with birdsfoot lotus, which
tints it because the grass is so short. From the grass at every footstep
a crowd of little "hoppers" leap in every direction, scattering
themselves hastily abroad. The little mead by the copse here is more
open to the view this year, as the dry winter has checked the growth of
ferns and rushes. There is a flock of missel-thrushes in it: the old
birds feed the young, who can fly well in the centre of the field.
L