DEAD LOW 291 



which have often a desperately long way to come 

 before they can blossom. Where there is some- 

 thing like a cave under the leaves, I find a leaf 

 or two of that most tender plant the oxalis or 

 wood sorrel, with the clover-like lobes unfolded 

 as though the very time of the cuckoo had come. 

 ' Cuckoo's meat ' is here a favourite name of 

 the wood sorrel, which in April gems the banks 

 with a show of bells almost as lavish as the stitch- 

 wort. 



There is no understanding the mind, the feeling, 

 the instinct, the chemical or physical reaction that 

 makes a flower choose this of all the seasons of 

 the year for opening its blossoms. Yet the winter 

 aconite now breaks the crust not merely by 

 accident, but with the full intention of throwing 

 open its insect-wooing blossoms now, and only 

 now in the whole calendar of the year. The snow- 

 drop is less surprising. We ourselves feel like 

 burning the winter garment of repentance when 

 February has come. It takes the average human 

 being twenty good years to learn that March 

 and even April can be and often are as shrewish 

 as November. Still, if the human race were 

 condemned to sleep for eleven months of the 

 year, I wonder how many would choose any 

 month between September and May for the waking 

 one. 



Here is another plant in the wood defying all 

 the rigour of winter, and putting forth inch after 

 inch of the very tenderest green. Setterwort or 



