been;
some bunches of mayweed, too, are visible in the corners of the stubble.

Silverweed lays its golden flower--like a buttercup without a
stalk--level on the ground; it has no protection, and any passing foot
may press it into the dust. A few white or pink flowers appear on the
brambles, and in waste places a little St. John's wort remains open, but
the seed vessels are for the most part forming. St. John's wort is the
flower of the harvest; the yellow petals appear as the wheat ripens, and
there are some to be found till the sheaves are carted. Once now and
then a blue and slender bell-flower is lighted on; in Sussex the larger
varieties bloom till much later.

By still ponds, to which the moorhens have now returned, tall spikes of
purple loosestrife rise in bunches. In the furze there is still much
yellow, and wherever heath grows it spreads in shimmering gleams of
purple between the birches; for these three, furze, heath, and birch are
usually together. The fields, therefore, are not yet flowerless, nor yet
without colour here and there, and the leaves, which stay on the trees
till late in the autumn, are more interesting now than they have been
since they lost their first fresh green.

Oak, elm, beech, and birch, all have yellow spots, while retaining their
groundwork of green. Oaks are often much browner, but the moisture in
the atmosphere keeps the saps in the leaves. Even the birches are only
tinted in a few places, the elms very little, and the beeches not much
more: so it would seem that their hues will not be gone altogether till
November. Frosts have not yet bronzed the dogwood in the hedges, and the
hazel leaves are fairly firm. The hazel generally drops its leaves at a
touch about this time, and while you are nutting, if you shake a bough,
they come down all around.

The rushes are but faintly yellow, and the slender tips still point
upwards. Dull purple burrs cover the burdock; the broad limes are
withering, but the leaves are thick, and the teazles are still
flowering. Looking upwards, the trees are tinted; lower, the hedges are
not without colour, and the field itself is speckled with blue and
yellow. The stubble is almost hidden in many fields by the growth of
weeds brought up by the rain; still the tops appear above and do not
allow it to be green. The stubble has a colour--white if barley, yellow
if wheat or oats. The meads are as verdant, even more so, than in the
spring, because of the rain,