THE MAKERS OF SUMMER. 221 



creatures about than we are conscious of. How strange 

 it seems, on a bleak spring day, to see the beautiful pink 

 blossom of the apricot or peach covering the grey wall 

 with colour — snowflakes in the air at the time ! Bright 

 petals are so associated with bright sunshine that this 

 seems backward and inexplicable, till it is remembered 

 that the flower probably opens at the time nearest to 

 that which in its own country brings forth the insects 

 that frequent it. Now and again humble-bees go by 

 with a burr ; and it is curious to see the largest of them 

 all, the big bombus, hanging to the little green goose- 

 berry blossom. Hive-bees, too, are abroad with every 

 stray gleam of sun ; and perhaps now and then a drone- 

 fly — last seen on the blossoms of the ivy in November. 

 A yellow butterfly, a white one, afterwards a tortoise- 

 shell — then a sudden pause, and no more butterflies for 

 some time. The rain comes down, and the gay world 

 is blotted out. The wind shifts to the south, and in a 

 few days the first swallows are seen and welcomed, but, 

 as the old proverb says, they do not make a summer. 

 Nor do the long-drawn notes of the nightingale, nor 

 even the jolly cuckoo, nor the tree pipit, no, nor even 

 the soft coo of the turtle-dove and the smell of the 

 May flower. It is too silent even now : there are the 

 leading notes ; but the undertone — the vibration of the 

 organ — is but just beginning. It is the hum of insects 

 and their ceaseless flitting that make the summer more 

 than the birds or the sunshine. The coming of summer 

 is commonly marked in the dates we note by the cuckoo 

 and the swallow and the oak leaves ; but till the butter- 

 fly and the bee — one with its colour, and one with its 

 hum — fill out the fields, the picture is but an outline 

 sketch. The insects are the details that make the 

 groundwork of a summer day. Till the humble-bees 



