380 THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



eat it. The outside is brilliant mauve, and the inner 

 concavity the intense carmine of unwinking fire. It 

 is in the cup that the spores are pitted in clusters, 

 but what adventurous insect goes in there when the 

 frost is on the bog where peziza scutellata delights to 

 blossom ? And what animal even in the rigour of 

 winter would wish to eat so unlikely a morsel ? 

 Surely it is as a pure delight for the eye that this 

 splash of carmine is produced next to the black of 

 rotted oak and the vivid green of mid-winter moss 

 fringed with the feathers of hoar-frost. 



