18 WILD BIRDS 



wood path and seemed to be feasting with rapture 

 on the clay there. Clay is as constant a course on 

 the fritillary menu as honey. 



In these coppices where the pearl-bordered 

 fritillaries dash to and fro in their brilliant, erratic 

 way, the smaller coppice flowers are at their height 

 of beauty. The germander speedwell is quite 

 wonderful now. The word " carpeted " applied 

 to wild flowers of meadow or wood is worn by fre- 

 quent use, but it really expresses the appearance of 

 these lesser spring flowers, and of bluebell and prim- 

 rose, better than any other word. It is a carpet 

 in this last stage of May, with a pattern of delicacy 

 and minute refinements that we shall find at no other 

 time of year. 



In marshy spots and on high thymy downs May 

 is not perhaps the supreme time for wild flowers ; 

 June or early July may surpass it there in plenty and 

 variety certainly the flower carpet on the chalk 

 downs is not woven to perfection till June is well in. 

 But in woods and coppices May is easily first in 

 flowers ; later the thick leafage is too much for the 

 blossom. The carpet of the coppices is patterned 

 by germander speedwell and creeping cinquefoil. 



These flowers take plots of ground to themselves, 

 joining but rarely mixing their colours. Here and 

 there right in the midst of a yard or two of speedwell, 

 pressed tight together, a single blossom of the 

 crimson vetchling will appear, or among the cinque- 

 foil a white flower or two of the wood-strawberry, 

 but by rule, each kind of flower that flourishes in 



