ioo THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



themselves and great flakes of snow dropped from 

 their branches. The powdered pines resumed their 

 rich greens, and the snow-line began its retreat to- 

 wards its ten-thousand-foot perpetual level. Spring 

 came into the valley the same day as ourselves, and 

 the flowers that in England sort themselves along a 

 calendar of three months all came at once as soon as 

 the snow-blanket was removed. 



By a bare head the impatient crocus was first. 

 The highest pastures next the snow-banks of more 

 than a foot in depth are spangled as though with 

 daisies by their little white caps. Of yellow crocuses 

 there are none, while purple are rare, though some- 

 times we find a whole colony of the latter in some 

 spot that for some reason especially suits their com- 

 plexion. Alpine wild bees, often of the same species 

 as ours, but more lavishly hairy and with broader and 

 richer bands of yellow, dart with unerring aim from 

 crocus cup to cup. Each bee has a large field to 

 cover, for flowers are largely out of proportion to their 

 numbers, and they work at Alpine pressure. After 

 the crocuses come the gentians, opening their stars 

 of intensest royal blue in little groups that not only 

 attract the eye, but seem to pull the face round with 

 an insistent demand that they shall be seen. After 

 the common gentian, only because its range is a little 

 higher, comes the great-belled Acaulis, with blossoms 

 an inch and a half wide and nearly three inches deep 

 in the tube. They are as bright in hue as their little 

 congeners, but more sky-blue in shade and varying 

 more from one blossom to another. 



Yellow, the universal spring colour in England, is 

 comparatively rare here. Cowslips ramble up to seven 



