Indian Summer
A late spell of midsummer heat makes it seem as though summer indeed has lingered in the woods. With the oak-trees still heavily canopied with green leaves, the season of pheasant-shooting seems an anomaly. A varied bunch of wild flowers may be picked, many belonging to June rather than to the months of nuts and berries. Primroses bloom freely. Flowers are to be found everywhere, and cottage gardens are ablaze with Michaelmas and tall yellow daisies and dahlias; the coming of the first keen frost will mean a floral massacre. On hedges laden with blackberries and the red bryony berries there are sprays of honeysuckle, and there are many bright blooms of scabious, knapweed, corn-poppy, daisy, harebell, violet, and scarlet pimpernel. Even some of the old cock pheasants seem to imagine that April has come, judging by their spring-like crowing, and some of the hens nest who should have done with nests by the end of July. One very late nest we saw with eleven eggs, on which the hen was only beginning to sit, as shown by a broken egg. She had been cut out by the mowing of seed-clover heads, but returned to her mistaken duties, and was sitting on the evening of September 30.
