JUNE 143 



for khaki-tinted tinder; delicate -wild-flowers, such as 

 stitch wort and speedwell, vanish before the great heat; 

 more robust ones, like foxgloves and wild roses, rush at 

 tantalising speed through their period of bloom, hastening 

 to pack their seeds safely into non-conducting capsules or 

 juicy berries before the sap supply shall fail. That repro- 

 duction and perpetuation of the species is the almost 

 whole concern of that nebulous impersonality which we 

 term Nature must be the conviction of every dispassionate 

 observer. Our prerogative as Lords of Creation has 

 never been seriously challenged ; but the cold light of 

 science has dispelled long ago the pleasing illusion that 

 flowers were gifted with beauty and incense for the grati- 

 fication of human senses. Let us give ourselves what airs 

 we will, Nature bestows a blush upon the rose and fragrance 

 upon the meadow-sweet to attract flying and creeping 

 things, that so profitable fertilisation may be ensured. 



In southern England the prime of floral display is past 

 before midsummer-day, but it is diiferent in the ' caller ' 

 west and north. This year(1902) the drought — the shortage 

 of rain, at least — has been greater in Scotland than south 

 of the Trent ; the state of the rivers is a heartache to all 

 honest fishers ; yet it is weU worth filching a holiday from 

 what, in defiance of all Nature's coaxing, we choose to 

 make the busy season, were it only to revel for a couple of 

 summer evenings in the wealth of wild-flowers which the 

 later tourist never sees and may not imagine. As I jot 

 these notes I am resting on a dusty wayside skirting the 

 southern uplands. My bike and I repose on a bank of 

 tall grasses and bright green bracken, splashed with blue 

 and yellow vetches and red sorrel. In another month, 

 when southerners shall come this way in scores, the vetches 



