330 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 



and of the wild hyacinth seen in sheets of colour 

 under the woodland trees. These are the floral blues 

 that bring heaven down to us. 



It is not strange perhaps that this flower should 

 be known by bird names, but it is odd that the 

 names should be of birds so wide apart in our 

 minds as eagle and dove. Aquilegia, because the 

 inverted tubes at the base of the flower are like 

 the curved claws of an eagle ; and columbine from 

 its dove-like appearance, each blossom forming a 

 cluster of fine dark blue fairy fan-tails, with beaks 

 that meet at the stem, wings open, and tails out- 

 spread. 



This great find made me think that I had come 

 into a columbine country, and I set out to look for 

 it, but failed to find or even hear of it anywhere in 

 that district except at one spot on the border of 

 Wilts and Dorset. This was a tiny rustic village 

 hidden among high downs, one of the smallest, 

 loveliest, most out-of-the-world villages in England. 

 In the small ancient church I found a mural tablet 

 to the memory of the poet Browning's grandfather, 

 whose humble life had been spent in that neigh- 

 bourhood. So rare was it for a stranger to appear 

 in this lost village that half of the population, all 

 the forty schoolchildren included, were eager to 

 talk to me all the time I spent in it, and they all 

 knew all about the columbine. It had been 

 abundant half a mile from the village by the hedges 

 and among the furze bushes, and every summer 

 the children were accustomed to go out and gather 



