FLOWERS OF THE FAR NORTH 143 



I assured her that we had nothing in the south 

 more beautiful than the few-flowered blue lily, 

 except perhaps its sister, the bluebell of the woods. 



" And sisters don't quarrel," I added. 



" No," she said doubtfully ; " at least not in 

 Orkney there are too few of us. And we have 

 the scilla all to ourselves ? " 



" Not quite, but almost. It crosses to Caithness. 

 Caithness, you know, is only a part of Orkney." 



I put it the wrong way about, to smooth her 

 ruffled susceptibilities. 



" Well ! " she said, in a hard, questioning voice. 



"It crawls down the east coast very reluc- 

 tantly, perhaps as far as Banff." 



I have since discovered it on St. Andrews links, 

 and have little doubt that it grows on similar 

 exposed situations elsewhere. My experience 

 teaches me to be exceedingly suspicious of any 

 hard-and-fast limits assigned to species. But of 

 all this she is happily ignorant, and so was I at 

 the time. 



" Is that all ? " 



" And as for the west. Why, of course it crosses 

 into Sutherland. You couldn't help it doing that, 

 seeing that county lies next to Caithness, without 

 any brick wall between." 



