IN A DEVONSHIRE LANE 
147 
their heads to each other. Some lose courage and turn back, 
others make a dart forward and plunge into the friendly thicket 
on the opposite side of this dangerous road : earwigs, burdened 
with big white eggs, hurry across looking neither to the right 
nor to the left : tlien a ladybird appears, calmly swinging herself 
from one miniature bough to another. These are all wonderful 
little beings, full of life and energy, and each clever in its own 
way. 
It is May, and every plant and tree is bursting forth in green. 
Long wild-rose briars with tender red thorns swing across my 
path, ropes of woodbine holding them in a tight embrace, and 
brambles unfold their rough new leaves beside the scarlet 
hangers-on of last year, whose weather-beaten faces are carven 
with the strange designs of insect sculptors. Stout old ashes, 
their gnarled roots covered with moss, their twisted limbs clothed 
in lichen, thrust long, clean-skinned, snake-like shoots upward to 
the light, their sticky heads fringed with the olive-fibred flower. 
The crooked, knotted trunks of these ashes invite many small 
plants and animals to make their homes in the numerous cosy 
cells and corners they provide. Here in a sunny nook a purple 
orchis stands against the bark, proudly unfolding its handsome 
spotted leaves. Out from between these leaves a bud is pushing 
its way, tight little white balls showing where the fantastic heads 
will nod. The whole is sheathed in a robe of pale green silk, 
folded round it in such a manner that, as the bud grows up, the 
delicate case divides from its spiral point downwards, thus 
gradually letting in light and air to the baby, until the latter is 
fully matured, when it stands up and throws off its covering, and 
the pretty leaves fall back on either side, and wither away, for 
their duty is done. 
Small ferns uncurl all over these friendly ash trees, and here 
and there a primrose or a violet has taken root. These grow, 
too, about the banks, the white star-faced satin flower scram- 
bling past them, and the hairy-leafed, rosy-stalked cranesbill 
towering above them. Under their leaves the field vole sits and 
sings ; his squeaky voice exactly resembles that of the cricket, to 
which insect most people imagine it belongs. This little mouse 
likes to be heard and not seen, but, if I stand quite still with my 
eyes on the spot from whence the music proceeds, I sometimes 
see him glide, a tiny dusky shadow, through the grasses. It is 
useless to part the foliage and look for him — he objects to intru- 
sion, and melts away in a most unaccountable manner. 
On the crest of the bank young straight-backed oaks stand 
up to the sun, and spread their baby leaves all gold against the 
blue. Elms are there, too, their loAver branches fully clad in 
green, their upper ones just bursting bud. At their feet the 
bluebells swing, and the ragged-robin nods, and the bracken 
stiffly unfolds. The red earth, though pierced, drilled, threaded 
through and through with the roots of trees and plants, one half 
of which 1 have not mentioned, still affords kindly shelter to the 
