WARRIORS OF SPRING 23 



are still nibbling the bark of standing or thrown 

 trees, and the cow goes questing among verdure for 

 a sweet bit of last year's grass. As we pass an old 

 wall, we find that some disintegrating force has 

 thrown out of their cranny a bundle of snails, still 

 glued to one another in winter sleep. There is as 

 yet nothing for them to eat in the wood where they 

 revelled last summer. The spurge-laurel, not content 

 with rearing its crown of leaves high on a palm-like 

 trunk, has made its leaves and its yellow-green 

 blossoms one of the most poisonous things on the 

 hill. The bright green fountains of the setter-wort 

 are equally unwholesome, and advertise the fact in 

 an odorous manner, that has given it the name of 

 "stinking hellebore." But here and there some 

 curious rabbit has sampled the setter-wort. Why 

 does it shine like green light through the wood if 

 it is not to be eaten ? We find the place where the 

 rabbit sat on the side towards which the blossoms 

 nod, and where he has dropped every particle of the 

 green-and-purple bell that he had thought to eat. 

 But snails and slugs will eat even poisonous things, 

 as witness the white bites seen on the most potent 

 of fungi in the season of fungi. The bluebells and 

 daffodils, now spreading their greenery apace, rely 

 on more than mere poisonousness to save them from 

 snails. Their oxalic acid is distributed among the 

 desirable green tissue in the shape of needle-like 

 crystals, capable, if not of breaking the snail's teeth, 

 of piercing the soft parts of its mouth or digestive 

 apparatus. Microscopic as are these raphides, they 

 are formidable enough to cause serious trouble to 

 those engaged in picking daffodils for the market, 



