HORSE-TAILS 211 



SEPTEMBER 

 II 



HOESE-TAILS 



IT is furiously hot on the common where, 

 nevertheless, the perfoliate yellow-wort stands 

 up in its dress of bluey-green the very emblem of 

 coolness. Here, too, the bee orchis and the rarer 

 fly open their rounded blossoms at the top of 

 lush green spikes, as though no drought that ever 

 was could touch them. Thyme and marjoram 

 fill the air with their fragrance, and among them 

 skip blue butterflies with undersides of daintiest 

 lace over blue-grey ; great peacock butterflies 

 come out of the blue sky with a click of the wings 

 in search of musk thistle or hemp agrimony ; 

 dragon-flies dash hither and thither after smaller 

 flies, their prey, and waiting drone bees far up 

 in the air make a hum as though the whole sky 

 was a vibrating gong. 



The sun is undoubtedly the life of the insect 

 world, and of all else, but when it glares so strongly 

 on the common, man flees from it for a while into 

 the cool of the wood. There we are content with 



