i 9 4 THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



a stick was thrust into this cake, it crackled and 

 broke far round, as ice or glass breaks. It not only 

 imprisoned the newly germinated seeds, but also 

 kept the air out from the soil round established roots. 

 Or it rose up in bubbles, lifting the plants from their 

 roots and exposing them to the blast. Warm winds 

 would not have produced this seal of glass, for they 

 would have brought moisture out from the depth of 

 the soil to replace that drawn from the top. But our 

 winds of early May were always cold. They were 

 not all east winds. There were winds from the west 

 and from the south, but even these were cold winds. 

 Many were wet, but as soon as they had loosened the 

 cake they blew it dry again. 



Just as the rainy days were days of drought, 

 so the first day of sunshine, without wind, acted like 

 a shower on ploughed land and garden, wood and 

 meadow. Stomata opened ; transpiration tubes began 

 to act freely ; streams of vapour ascended, swirled 

 round the roots, pierced and vitalised the crust, drove 

 through the grass, hung in the placid air, made the 

 lambs gambol again in a field of flowers. It was like 

 the end of the long wait for the cleansing eruption of 

 a Turkish bath. We had begun to think it would 

 never come, but a turn of the temperature broke an 

 age of stone, and brought us the fulj, luxuriance of 

 May. The fool's-parsley has leapt waist-high, the 

 hawthorn has broken out into scented lather, the 

 dandelions are a cloth of gold, the woods swim in 

 blue leafy June is announced. 



At length the bees are certain of their summer. 

 Three times, at intervals of some ten days, we saw 

 the golden Andrena come forth. One generation 



