MOORLAND IDYLLS. 



to accommodate itself to its environment. 

 It did so, in fact, many thousand years 

 before Mr. Herbert Spencer taught poor 

 recent humanity that latter-day catchword. 

 Growing in thickset places, by running 

 water, where its own large leaves and those 

 of its neighbours would overshadow and 

 hide its dainty blossoms in the height of 

 summer, it has acquired the odd trick of 

 sending them up naked, on the naked clay, 

 in very early spring, when they court and 

 easily attract the attention of the first spring 

 insects to visit and fertilize them. In order 

 to do this it must lay by material the summer 

 before, and that material the prudent plants 

 bury deep out of harm's way, in their creep- 

 ing underground rootstock. Owing to the 

 dampness and chilliness of the clay, which 

 suits its constitution best, coltsfoot hides its 

 rootstock exceptionally deep in the earth, 

 and this precaution affords it, on the whole, 

 a safe protection alike against cold and 

 against burrowing enemies. As long as the 

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