Response in Nature I was curious to watch the response,
both generally and iit•detail, of nature to that heavy shower on St. Swithin's morning. The-rain came down suddenly, and the valley was filled with great scarves of precipi- tating cloud. Within a few minutes the colours began to soften. The ridge of oak-woodland, standard coppice, changed from a deep Hooker's green almost to emerald. The hard foliage, much of it curled into little shovel hats, opened out and gleamed sappily in the sun. The fields steamed, so that for a few minutes after the storm the wheat, rye and oats appeared to be on fire. The colour of the corn, also, had changed. It was no longer flaxen. A slight tinge of green returned to it in patches, and the general effect, field by field, was of a deepening in tone; just the opposite to the change in the woodlands. The hedgerows' too, were conscious (if I may recall the theory of Bose so late in the day?) of the welcome moisture. Honeysuckle runners, which had been hanging limp like old string, sprang to life, and little candelabra of blossom swelled up, re-kindled with perfume. Even the skeletons of early summer, the wild parsleys, the various tall grasses now mere glassy stalks and tufts, the rattling sorrel, seemed to resume a little life, and to contribute to the pot-pourri at which I and my corgi sniffed so appreciatively as we went exploring down the wet lane.
The effect- upon the animal world was intoxicating.. Finches and sparrows (both in abundance this year, sparrows most remarkable becatpse they have for so many seasons been scarce in Kent) rushed about ,in flocks, over and round the hedges, their wings raising such a draught tint showers of belated raindrops shook down from the bushes. The ousel family, black and brown, were busy, too, plugging their beaks into the softened earth and 'pulling at elastic worms. I saw a large stoat, with mustard-coloured belly, scuttle across the road, with a movement like a train on the Central London Tube.
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