MOORLAND IDYLLS. 



though quite dead and papery to the touch, 

 are brilliantly coloured to attract the upland 

 bees, and form such wide patches of purple 

 and pink as you can nowhere match among 

 the largely wind-fertilized herbage of the 

 too grass-green water-meadows. Upland 

 conditions, indeed, always produce rich 

 flowers. The most beautiful flora in Europe 

 is that of the Alps, just below the snow-line ; 

 it has been developed by the stray Alpine 

 moths and butterflies. Larger masses of 

 colour are needed to attract these free-flying 

 insects than serve to catch the eyes of the 

 more business-like and regular bees who go 

 their rounds in lowland districts. 



Is not the donkey himself a product of 

 somewhat similar conditions ? Oriental in 

 his origin, he seems to be merely the modern 

 representative of those ancestral horses which 

 did not succeed in the struggle for existence. 

 Every intermediate stage has now been dis- 

 covered between the true horses, with their 

 flowing tails and silky coats, and the true 



