200 THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



serve above all others. All are of the purple that 

 bees love best, and all are irregular in blossom two 

 facts that show that it is the bees that have formed 

 them to their liking. The first, perhaps, is the bugle, 

 with purple flowers on purple stalks, and set with 

 purple bracts. It makes spikes of bloom, and apparent 

 bloom that no bee can miss. The next is the prunella, 

 or self-heal, richer in colour, though not more attractive, 

 perhaps the commonest flower the world over, for it is 

 found in almost every country. The third is ground- 

 ivy, whose flowers peep, but peep very effectively, 

 from beneath rings of leaves. They must be named 

 in some order, but, in the estimation of the bee, "none 

 is before or after other." Wherever either is found, 

 there are the humble-bees, especially the great queen 

 carder-bees, nominally half yellow and half brown, 

 but the gold of the thorax has got sprinkled over the 

 brown abdomen till the insect looks like a flying 

 buttercup. 



In the garden, summer has set her foot no less 

 emphatically. There the may is pink or rich crimson, 

 and it flaunts it in the neighbourhood of golden 

 laburnum, the fresh leaves of copper beech and lilac, 

 from purest white to most Tyrian of purples. In a 

 place remote from this gaudy exuberance the long 

 grey bines of the wistaria have burst into yellow- 

 green leaves, and then into shower upon shower of 

 the unique lavender blossoms. Its tonic harmony 

 is the deep scolding of the starlings that come from 

 the fields with beaks full of grubs and perch on the 

 cypresses before going in to their clamorous brood 

 under the eaves. Now is the time of the year to live 

 the life of the farmer. The lean time of winter is 



