I Have Heard People Say
That The Red Ones Are Venomous, But The Grey Harmless.
The red are
spiteful, and if you see them in the road you should always kill them.
It
is curious that in places where blindworms are often seen their innocuous
nature should not be generally known. They are even called adders
sometimes. At the farm below, the rooks have been down and destroyed the
tender chickens not long hatched; they do not eat the whole of the
chicken, but disembowel it for food. Rooks are very wide feeders,
especially at nesting-time. They are suspected of being partial to the
young of partridge and pheasant, as well as to the eggs.
Looking down upon the treetops of the forest from a height, there seemed
to come from day to day a hoariness in the boughs, a greyish hue,
distinct from the blackness of winter. This thickened till the eye could
not see into the wood; until then the trunks had been visible, but they
were now shut out. The buds were coming; and presently the surface of the
treetops took a dark reddish-brown tint. The larches lifted their
branches, which had drooped, curving upwards as a man raises his arms
above his shoulders, and the slender boughs became set with green buds.
At a distance the corn is easily distinguished from the meadows beside it
by the different shade of green; grass is a deep green, corn appears
paler and yet brighter - perhaps the long winter has given it the least
touch of yellow.
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