universally known to children, from the most remote hamlet to the very
verge of London, and the little children who dance along the green sward
by the road here, if they chance to touch a nettle, at once search for a
dock leaf to lay on it and assuage the smart. Country children, and
indeed older folk, call the foliage of the knotted figwort cutfinger
leaves, as they are believed to assist the cure of a cut or sore.

Raspberry suckers shoot up in one part of the copse; the fruit is
doubtless eaten by the birds. Troops of them come here, travelling along
the great hedge by the wayside, and all seem to prefer the outside trees
and bushes to the interior of the copse. This great hedge is as wide as
a country double mound, though it has but one ditch; the thick hawthorn,
blackthorn, elder, and bramble--the oaks, elms, ashes, and firs form, in
fact, almost a cover of themselves.

In the early spring, when the east wind rushes with bitter energy across
the plains, this immense hedge, as far as it extends, shelters the
wayfarer, the road being on the southern side, so that he can enjoy such
gleams of sunshine as appear. In summer the place is, of course for the
same reason, extremely warm, unless the breeze chances to come up strong
from the west, when it sweeps over the open cornfields fresh and sweet.
Stoats and weasels are common on the mound, or crossing the road to the
corn; they seem more numerous in autumn, and I fear leveret and
partridge are thinned by them.

Mice abound; in spring they are sometimes up in the blackthorn bushes,
perhaps for the young buds. In summer they may often be heard rushing
along the furrows across the wayside sward, scarce concealed by the wiry
grass. Flowers are very local in habit; the spurge, for instance, which
is common in a road parallel to this, is not to be seen, and not very