Bees Are Very Eager For Water In The Early Year; You
May See Them In Crowds On The Wet Mud In Ditches; There Was A Wild Bee
Drowning In A Basin Of Water The Other Day Till I Took Him Out.
Before the end of January the woodbine leaf was out, always the first to
come, and never learning that
It is too soon; whether the woodbine came
over with 'Richard Conqueror' or the Romans, it still imagines itself ten
degrees further south, so that some time seems necessary to teach a plant
the alphabet. Immediately afterwards down came a north wind and put
nature under its thumb for two months; the drone-fly hid himself, the
bees went home, everything became shrivelled, dry, inhuman. The local
direction of the wind might vary, but it was still the same polar
draught, the blood-sucker; for, like a vampire, it sucks the very blood
and moisture out of delicate human life, just as it dries up the sap in
the branch. While this lasted there were no notes to make, the changes
were slower than the hour hand of a clock; still it was interesting to
see the tree-climber come every morning at eleven o'clock to the
cobble-stone wall and ascend it exactly as he ascends trees, peering into
chinks among the moss and the pennywort. He seemed almost as fond of
these walls as of his tree trunks. He came regularly at eleven and again
at three in the afternoon, and a barn owl went by with a screech every
evening a little after eight. The starlings told the time of the year as
accurately as the best chronometer at Whitehall. When I saw the last
chimney swallow, November 30, they went by to their sleeping-trees about
three o'clock in the afternoon - a long night, a short day for them. So
they continued till in January the day had grown thirty minutes longer,
when they went to roost so much the later; in February, four o'clock; in
March, by degrees their time for passing by the window - en route - drew on
to five o'clock. Let the cold be never so great or the sky so clouded,
the mysterious influence of the light, as the sun slowly rises higher on
the meridian, sinks into the earth like a magic rain. It enters the
hardest bark and the rolled-up bud, so firm that its point will prick the
finger like a thorn; it stirs beneath the surface of the ground. A
magnetism that is not heat, and for which there is no exact name, works
out of sight in answer to the sun. Seen or unseen, clouded or not, every
day the sun lifts itself an inch higher, and let the north wind shrivel
as it may, this invisible potency compels the bud to swell and the flower
to be ready in its calyx. Progress goes on in spite of every
discouragement. The birch trees reddened all along their slender boughs,
and when the sunlight struck aslant, the shining bark shone like gossamer
threads wet with dew.
The wood-pigeon in the fir trees could not be silent any longer.
Whoo - too - whoo - ooe! then up he flew with a clatter of his wings and
down again into the trees. 'Take two cows, Taffy,' he could not be silent
any longer - whoo - too - whoo - ooe! The blackthorn bloom began to faintly
show the tiniest white studs, and the boys in great triumph brought in
the first blue thrush's eggs. Nature would go on though under the thumb
of the north wind. Poor folk came out of the towns to gather ivy leaves
for sale in the streets to make button-holes. Many people think the ivy
leaf has a pleasant shape; it was used of old time among the Greeks and
Romans to decorate the person at joyous festivals. The ivy is frequently
mentioned in the classic poets. Not so with the countrywomen in the
villages to-day, ground down in constant dread of that hateful workhouse
system of which I can find no words to express my detestation. They tell
their daughters never to put ivy leaves in their hair or brooch, because
'they puts it on the dead paupers in the unions and the lunatics in the
'sylums.' Such an association took away all the beauty of the ivy leaf.
There is nature in their hearts, you see, although they are under the
polar draught of poverty. At last there came a little warmth and the
Emperor moth appeared, yellow and white butterflies came out, flowers
bloomed, buds opened - ripened by the mystic magnetism of the sun in their
sheaths and cocoons - great humble-bees came with a full-blown buzz, all
before the swallow, the nightingale, and cuckoo. It was but for a day,
and then down fell the bitter polar draught again.
MIXED DAYS OF MAY AND DECEMBER
In a sheltered spot the cuckoo was first heard on April 29, but only for
one day; then, as the wind took up its accustomed northerly drift again,
he was silent. The first chimney swallows (four) appeared on April 25,
and were quickly followed by a number. They might be said to be about
three weeks behind time, and the cuckoo a fortnight. The chiffchaff
uttered his clear yet rather sad notes on April 26. The same morning at
five o'clock there had been a slight snow shower, but it was a sunny day.
On May 1 a stitchwort was in flower, a plant that marks the period
distinctly. A swift appeared on May 2; I should not consider this late. A
whitethroat was catching insects in the garden on May 6. The cuckoo sang
again on May 8; the same day a Red Admiral butterfly was seen, and the
turtle-dove heard cooing. Next day, the 9th, the cave swallow appeared,
and also the bank martin. With the cooing of the turtledove the spring
migrants are generally complete; a warm summer bird, he is usually the
last, and if the others had not been seen they are probably in the
country somewhere.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 67 of 104
Words from 67540 to 68568
of 105669
