A GLANCE AT BRITISH WILD FLOWERS 167 



Coleridge perhaps knew that the lark did not perch 

 upon the stalk of the foxglove, or upon any other 

 stalk or branch, being entirely a ground bird and 

 not a percher, but he would seem to imply that it 

 did, in these lines. 



A London correspondent calls my attention to 

 these lines from Wordsworth, 



" Bees that soar 



High as the highest peak of Furness Fells, 

 Yet murmur by the hour in foxglove bells ; " 



and adds: "Less poetical, but as graphic, was a 

 Devonshire woman's comparison of a dull preacher 

 to a ' Drummle drane in a pop ; ' Anglice, A drone 

 in a foxglove, called a pop from children amusing 

 themselves with popping its bells." 



The prettiest of all humble roadside flowers I 

 saw was the little blue speedwell. I was seldom 

 out of sight of it anywhere in my walks till near 

 the end of June; while its little bands and assem- 

 blages of deep blue flowers in the grass by the road- 

 side, turning a host of infantile faces up to the sun, 

 often made me pause and admire. It is prettier 

 than the violet, and larger and deeper colored than 

 our houstonia. It is a small and delicate edition 

 of our hepatica, done in indigo blue and wonted to 

 the grass in the fields and by the waysides. 



" The little speedwell's darling blue," 



sings Tennyson. I saw it blooming, with the daisy 

 and the buttercup, upon the grave of Carlyle. The 

 tender human and poetic element of this stern rocky 

 nature was well expressed by it. 



