1078 



THE iNATURE BOOK 



"THE GLEAMING WAVELETS LAP THE STONY 



with buttercup gold and sprinkled with 

 the pink of ragged robin. Tall beyond 

 the knees, bending with height, and so 

 thick together, the green rushes hide the 

 spongy Sphagnum moss about their roots. 

 Coloured like the moss, little frogs hop 

 and leap among it, unnoticed ere they 

 jump. White galium and blue forget- 

 me-nots intermingle with the rushes, and 

 here are orchids light purple lined and 

 blotched, and the yellow racemes of bog 

 as])hodel ; here, too, though sparingly, 

 the Grass of Parnassus. How l)eautiful 

 its floral cup indented, white, and deli- 

 cately veined with green ! But look 

 within the flower, and see the nectaries 

 around the centre, like tiny fans out- 

 spread and fringed with beads of amber 



yellow. Numerous as the 

 rushes, stilt - legged crane- 

 flies rise with an audible 

 whir of wings — a short flight, 

 like the slow brown butter- 

 flies which flutter an instant, 

 then disappear. Now and 

 then a pretty silvered blue 

 flits swiftly by. iVmong the 

 marsh plume thistles there 

 is an endless procession in 

 progress, a pageant of insect 

 life. One moment it is the 

 metallic splendour of a 

 " greenbottle," and the next 

 perhaps a striped hover-fly 

 poised above a bloom, its 

 wings spinning a halo ; or 

 some bee you do not know, 

 or a weevil you have never 

 seen, each with its own 

 strange history, each with 

 something for the loving 

 eye. 



Sweet on the ear falls the 

 murmur of the ripphng 

 stream. There is joy in the 

 sound of the crystal flow as 

 it hurries onward over the 

 stony shallows, bubbling and 

 sparkling in the sunshine. 

 Memory treasures its song ; 

 through the grey hour it 

 sings again in the mind, 

 calling forth so vi\idly all 

 the happy recollections of 

 the summer day. So clear 

 the water you see the trout 

 and parr dart off like shadows. A 

 wagtail flies out from under the bank, 

 an undulating flight across the ripples. 

 You cannot sec the nest hidden under 

 the earthy ledge, but lying down and 

 stretching the arm underneath at length 

 you touch something soft and warm, 

 a little family of four, late-comers. 

 With the big cocksfoot grasses, pink 

 yarrow and purple self-heal colour the 

 bank. Sweet cicely and yellow mimulus 

 flower along the water's edge beside the 

 iris flags and branching burr reeds ; white 

 ranunculus o'erspreads the (piieter reaches. 

 Midstream a heron rises from his fishing, 

 flapping hea\-ily upwards to the tojis of 

 the tall trees opposite. With difficulty 

 he alights, the pliant bough swaying under 



vy R. A. Sta 



STRAND." 



