In one corner of the meadow was a small pond, half hidden by rushes, bearing a golden blazon of flower--in autumn the countrypeople would grind the roasted seeds of the iris to make their “poor man’s coffee.” With them grew the bog asphodel, crowned by a tapering spike of starlike flowers, also yellow, the colour of happiness: in old time this plant was supposed to soften the bones of cattle, hence the Latin name, _ossifragum_. Hidden securely among the rushes, the moor-hen had her nest of dried water-weed, a platform on which at night rested her children, little black balls of fluff with a red beak. A faint chirruping came from the flags, a splash, and silence: the mother had heard my slow approach and called to her young to remain still. Something with a thin, stick-like body, enamelled blue and fanned by a whirling crystal of light, alighted on the open white petals of a crowsfoot--the water-buttercup; the dragonfly folded its gauzy wings and contemplated the still deeps from which, a few hours before, it had crept--a summer thing that would fulfil its destiny so quickly, and die. Like the civilised bees that leave the security of skep and stored caves of honey to the new race, so all the wild things live but to secure the future of their species. Everything strives for the beautiful, the ideal, without conscious effort, maybe, but the ideal is there--all for the species. The nightingale that silvers the dusk with song has finer notes than his ancestor of olden time; he has learnt so much during the centuries; through generations of faithful loyalty to an ideal his tiny soul-flame has become brighter, and his voice speaks with sweeter poetry. On the may trees in the hedge, already shaking their blossoms into the wind, the wild roses were open to the sky; it was now their brief hour of sunshine. Simple petals stained with roseal hue, they waited for the wild bee to bring the pollen that would change the beauty into life.