THE BEE-PASTURES 345 



By the end of January four species of plants 

 were in flower, and five or six mosses had already 

 adjusted their hoods and were in the prime of life ; 

 but the flowers were not sufficiently numerous as 

 yet to affect greatly the general green of the young 

 leaves. Violets made their appearance in the first 

 week of February, and toward the end of this 

 month the warmer portions of the plain were al 

 ready golden with myriads of the flowers of rayed 

 composite. 



This was the full springtime. The sunshine 

 grew warmer and richer, new plants bloomed every 

 day ; the air became more tuneful with humming 

 wings, and sweeter with the fragrance of the open 

 ing flowers. Ants and ground squirrels were get 

 ting ready for their summer work, rubbing their 

 benumbed limbs, and sunning themselves on the 

 husk-piles before their doors, and spiders were 

 busy mending their old webs, or weaving new ones. 



In March, the vegetation was more than doubled 

 in depth and color; claytonia, calandrinia, a large 

 white gilia, and two nemophilas were in bloom, to 

 gether with a host of yellow composite, tall enough 

 now to bend in the wind and show wavering 

 ripples of shade. 



In April, plant-life, as a whole, reached its great 

 est height, and the plain, over all its varied surface, 

 was mantled with a close, furred plush of purple 

 and golden corollas. By the end of this month, 

 most of the species had ripened their seeds, but 

 undecayed, still seemed to be in bloom from the 

 numerous corolla-like involucres and whorls of 

 chaffy scales of the composite. In May, the bees 



