122 SPRING 



birds. Bluish green seems to be the normal colour of an 

 atrophied egg-shell in the case of most species ; such eggs 

 are usually very thin shelled, and often yolkless or infertile. 



When the copse has just been cut, and is too low to give 

 the nightingale shelter, it is the great flowering time of the 

 primroses, woodspurge, red robin, and all the plants which 



delight in plenty 

 of spring sun- 

 shine. These 

 plants lie half 

 dormant during the dark 

 and shady years of the copse's 

 cycle, and spring in fresh vigour 

 first spring after the cutting, 

 floor of the copse grows as bright as 

 a gay mosaic from the middle of April 

 until June ; and among the flowers the 

 leaves on the young stems of copse- 

 wood shoot vividly green. Bugle raises 

 its blue spires by the turfy ruts, drawing 



the rare bee-hawk moths to hover at the blossoms ; herb-paris 

 spreads in some copses its four large equal leaves, with one 

 fringed purple blossom sitting in their midst. Commoner 

 than the herb-paris, but local, is Solomon's seal, with its 

 drooping arch hung with a long row of little greenish white 

 bells. Blue speedwells abound in the grass, and here and 

 there broad beds of wild garlic or ramsons exhale a rank 

 breath when the wind stirs the white blossoms and glossy 



SOLOMON'S SEAL 



