The Strife of March 19 



When the sunlight strikes clearly on the broad top 

 of a black poplar, its boughs are often seen tinged 

 and tasselled with the " curious, caterpillar-like " 

 catkins, so plentifully strewn on garden walks and 

 town pavements after a night of March wind. The 

 crimson flush of the elm's small but abundant 

 blossom is even more conspicuous against a bright 

 blue sky. Beautiful as is a well-grown elm at all 

 times of the year, it is never more full of attraction 

 than when its bare boughs are thickly beaded with 

 blossoms and swelling buds, and full of the sedate 

 activity of nesting rooks. The stages of the rooks' 

 nesting and of the trees' development are closely 

 connected as spring advances. Building begins 

 when the enlarging blossoms are beginning to 

 thicken the twigs against the sky. The eggs are 

 laid and the blossoms open at about the same time 

 earlier or later according to the weather of the 

 season and the sheltered or exposed position of the 

 trees. By the time that the opening leaf is mounting 

 from the low twigs into the windy tops the cries of 

 the young rooks are growing loud ; and where their 

 numbers are kept down by rook-shooting, the fatal 

 day arrives when the elms are in full leaf in May. 

 A more striking sign of the returning strength of 

 the sun than even the increasing number of March 

 flowers is the reappearance of the early butterflies. 

 In a normal season it is in March that the peacock, 

 brimstone, and small and large tortoiseshell butter- 

 flies first begin to fly regularly abroad on warm and 

 sunny days. Male and female brimstone butterflies, 

 with their contrasting tints of yellow, like the 



