But among the cabbages, which were very small, there grew thousands of poppies, fifty times more poppies than cabbage, so that the pale green of the cabbage-leaves was hidden by the scarlet petals falling wide open to the dry air. There was a broad band of scarlet colour all along the side of the field, and it was this which brought me to the shade of those particular elms. The use of the cabbages was in this way: they fetched for me all the white butterflies of the neighbourhood, and they fluttered, hundreds and hundreds of white butterflies, a constant stream and flow of them over the broad band of scarlet. Humble-bees came too; bur-bur-bur; and the buzz, and the flutter of the white wings over those fixed red butterflies the poppies, the flutter and sound and colour pleased me in the dry heat of the day. Sometimes I set my camp-stool by a humble-bees' nest. I like to see and hear them go in and out, so happy, busy, and wild; the humble-bee is a favourite. That summer their nests were very plentiful; but although the heat might have seemed so favourable to them, the flies were not at all numerous, I mean out-of-doors. Wasps, on the contrary, flourished to an extraordinary degree. One willow tree particularly took their fancy; there was a swarm in the tree for weeks, attracted by some secretion; the boughs and leaves were yellow with wasps. But it seemed curious that flies should not be more numerous than usual; they are dying now fast enough, except a few of the large ones, that still find some sugar in the flowers of the ivy. The finest show of ivy flower is among some yew trees; the dark ivy has filled the dark yew tree, and brought out its pale yellow-green flowers in the sombre boughs. Last night, a great fly, the last in the house, buzzed into my candle. I detest flies, but I was sorry for his scorched wings; the fly itself hateful, its wings so beautifully made. I have sometimes picked a feather from the dirt of the road and placed it on the grass. It is contrary to one's feelings to see so beautiful a thing lying in the mud. Towards my window now, as I write, there comes suddenly a shower of yellow leaves, wrested out by main force from the high elms; the blue sky behind them, they droop slowly, borne onward, twirling, fluttering towards me--a cloud of autumn butterflies.