58 JUKE IN BROADLAND. 



form a naturalist's outfit. It is well for him that his captures will be light, even 

 if numerous, for the paraphernalia he carries is sufficient weight of itself. 



The lanes are now in the zenith of their beauty the humble-bee and his 

 kindred, and a host of meadow-brown, tortoise-shell, and other butterflies dance and 

 gossip and glean among the bright flowers which dot the hedgebanks and push out 

 their gay petals from between the stouter growth that would obscure them in their 

 quest of sunshine. There is a wealth of colouration on every hand; the yellow 

 hawkweeds have opened their starry flowers, and are smiling in the scraggiest of 

 places, 



' Where sweet air stirs 



The bluebells lightly, and where prickly furze- 

 Buds lavish gold.' 



A hundred others lend their charms to make the countryside beautiful; above them 

 all tower the sweet-scented honeysuckle, and the pale pink flowers of the dog-rose. 

 The meadows beyond are made gay with sorrel, and many another familiar wild 

 plant; while lazy bovines, wading amid luxuriant grasses, are enjoying their brief 

 existence, eyeing yonder farmer, and the butcher's man in blue, without the slight- 

 est suspicion that their happy days are numbered. 



The ditches are brimful of life, from sluggish tadpoles and flashing stickle- 

 backs, down to the tiny Volvox and the unseen Rotifera and other animalculse. 

 Our naturalist has by this time, doubtless, filled some of his bottles with specimens, 

 for we noted him groping and dredging at a ditchside soon after we parted com- 

 pany. This very dyke trends away Broadwards, and possesses in miniature many 

 of the features which characterise those great lagoons. Here are some yellow 

 water-lilies (Nuphar lutea), their small golden cups contrasting prettily with the 

 dark ovate leaves from which they lift their heads; forget-me-nots are sprinkled 

 along the edge of the crowding reeds, and taller irises, with spangles of yellow and 

 blue, look down upon them, whilst above all nod and rustle the green spear-leaves of 

 the reeds, and around them tiny insects sport and play to the profit of many a swal- 

 low and sandmartin that are dashing to and fro. A kingfisher hurries away from a 

 willow-bole at our approach, the ruddy hues of his breast reflecting in the water 

 below him, his emerald wing and tail-coverts appearing like streaks of burnished 

 metal as he flies in a bee-line to some shady nook he knows of. 



Some tiny black animals, too quickly for the eye to follow them, plunge into 

 the still waters like so many stones. They are water-shrews and are, of all our 

 British mammalia, the most secretive in their ways and habits. We have not time 

 to loiter longer or we would certainly try and steal a march upon them. We have 



