BY BANK AND COPSE. 27 



mind. The elaborately contrived and perfumed flower 

 may fulfil its appointed end by securing an occasional 

 cross, or it may have become a failure from the scarcity of 

 insect life in early March ; but the fact remains that it is 

 the violets, rather than the primroses, " that die unmarried," 

 as Shakespeare puts it. 



I can already see primroses beneath the coppice in the 

 wood across the field, so we will hasten over the ploughed 

 land as best we may to reach them ; but spring flowers are 

 too few for us to pass them by, and here at our feet, in the 

 furrows that have stood fallow during the winter, is a dainty 

 little creeping plant, with pale blue blossoms, that seem to 

 reflect the spring-tide heavens. It is the ivy-leaved speed- 

 well, the first of its race to greet the year, though it will 

 continue to flower till midsummer. Its rather fleshy pale- 

 green leaves have five or seven lobes, and are thus not 

 unlike the ivy. The entirely blue colour of its little flowers 

 they are but the sixth of an inch across distinguishes it 

 from some of its near allies ; and you may already find 

 perhaps one of its distinctly two-lobed capsules. 



We have reached the ditch surrounding the wood, over 

 which hang the hazel-bushes we saw from the other side of 

 the field. It is not so choked with vegetation as it will be 

 a few months hence. Some "leaf-nested primroses" are 

 ensconced under the gnarled roots of the hazels, but they 

 are out of our reach as yet. The carpet of dog's mercury, 

 with its vivid green, is neither so thick nor so deep as it 

 will be ; but many plants from it too have found their way 

 through the hedge, and we can see a variety of budding 

 flowers among it. We must, however, just stop to gather 

 and examine a catkin from these hazel - bushes. It is 

 swaying in the breeze, and sending out clouds of golden 



