ii8 MY DEVON YEAR 



trees, and the latter plasters up a portion of the egress 

 if it be too large for her purposes. 



In April comes bud-break, and the glory of the 

 larches and hazels, alders, elders, maple, and the 

 rest. Blackthorn has been in full flower since March, 

 primroses are at their best, wood-anemones and blue- 

 bells are blooming, and dog-violets make patches of 

 purple in the sunny angles of every lane. The 

 hedge galium, with others of his kind, is turning, 

 creeping, running, rioting everywhere ; the goose- 

 grass is first to flower, followed by the golden cross- 

 wort ; while the greatest of the galiums, frequent 

 here, but rare elsewhere — the wild madder — prepares 

 green flowers and thickens into masses, though it 

 never holds lig-ht and life from other things. Wood- 

 ruff is not common, but haunts the fringes of forests. 

 Now all the wild, tangled lacework of the hedge — briar 

 and bramble, woodbine, woody nightshade, and the 

 vetches- — are beginning to bud for bloom. Busy 

 tendrils are clinging ; ferns are uncurling ; foliage of 

 all imaginable shape, and spring, and curve, and droop 

 obeys the law, and spreads, and falls, and climbs, and 

 creeps, and trembles in translucent green to the kiss 

 of the wind and patter of the rain. It is a time of 

 delicate green sheaths and vernal showers upon them, 

 of things hid in the bud and the egg. Bright-eyed 

 mothers with their bodies pressed upon nests peep 

 forth in patience from a thousand bowers. The 

 hour is awake and waiting. Only the throats of 

 the birds, banishing all silence, sing with exulta- 



