TITMOUSE TREASURE 



too gross to take heed of the golden wren's call-cry. 

 Sometimes the bird will change its needle-sharp and 

 simple note for a quick little shiver of a more 

 song-like or courting character. 



The Eye for Flowers 



The refined eye for the wild flower, singly or 

 in a little group or company, brings pleasure of a 

 choice kind. It is one thing to fare richly on the 

 sight of a great field or down-side sheeted with 

 the poppy flame, or on the massed blossoms of the 

 riverside mimulus, shining yellow boldly spotted 

 with brown another to spy out shy flowers that 

 are only for the careful eye. One may live long 

 among hedges and coppices favoured in March 

 by the moschatel, and yet not know of its existence 

 close at the very garden gate. It may take us 

 twenty years to see toothwort or herb Paris or 

 butterfly orchid growing in coppices of whose life 

 we imagine we have taken a census. For solid 

 glows of wild-flower colour I should not choose 

 the Isle of Wight, but for rare plants and their 

 combination, and for early flowering ones, no part 

 of England is more favoured. 



A Hampshire friend often writes to me of the 

 Island flower life in spring and summer and the 

 colouring of the autumn. Any day in the year a 

 bouquet can be gathered. Now the rare narrow- 

 leaved lungwort is in bloom. I saw the garden 



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