84 THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



in their underground and lately frozen quarters. And 

 they always find that, obeying the more direct, open- 

 air message of the sun, the first flowers of the white 

 arabis, their especial flower, are open. (Mimosa and 

 daffodils from Scilly are a luxury unwarranted by 

 former experience, and the Fates grant that they 

 prove not a delusion and a snare.) These are the 

 males of the handsomest of our solitary bees. Their 

 time is a day or two ahead of the females growing in 

 the same burrow as they, but needing to grow longer 

 before they reach the greater perfection of wifehood. 

 For the males, the flowers provide just snacks of food, 

 sandwiches for mere gadders-about and foragers for 

 self. But we see even now the anthers swelling and 

 ripening, so that a second and greater wheel shall 

 be ready at exactly the right time to fit the pollen- 

 collecting and family-providing female. Then will 

 emerge a third bee, a cuckoo that can only rear 

 progeny in the nest of these other provident mothers, 

 and the wheel that fits this second species is the red 

 dead-nettle, which infallibly blooms in time for its 

 nourishment. 



Everywhere the inquirer will notice an astonish- 

 ingly exact timing of apparently distinct phenomena. 

 Our insectivorous summer birds come sometimes 

 early, sometimes late, but whenever they come they 

 find the leaves just so sprouting that the caterpillars 

 are just so ready to eat them and be eaten by their 

 guardians, They all follow the message of the sun, 

 and the birds somehow make allowance for the fact 

 that in the clear air of the Mediterranean he is usually 

 faster (in addition to the difference of latitude) than in 

 our misty and uncertain climate. But that is by no 



