All the procession of living and growing things passes. The grass stands
up taller and still taller, the sheaths open, and the stalk arises, the
pollen clings till the breeze sweeps it. The bees rush past, and the
resolute wasps; the humble-bees, whose weight swings them along. About
the oaks and maples the brown chafers swarm; and the fern-owls at dusk,
and the blackbirds and jays by day, cannot reduce their legions while
they last. Yellow butterflies, and white, broad red admirals, and sweet
blues; think of the kingdom of flowers which is theirs! Heavy moths
burring at the edge of the copse; green, and red, and gold flies: gnats,
like smoke, around the tree-tops; midges so thick over the brook, as if
you could haul a netful; tiny leaping creatures in the grass; bronze
beetles across the path; blue dragonflies pondering on cool leaves of
water-plantain. Blue jays flitting, a magpie drooping across from elm to
elm; young rooks that have escaped the hostile shot blundering up into
the branches; missel thrushes leading their fledglings, already strong on
the wing, from field to field. An egg here on the sward dropped by a
starling; a red ladybird creeping, tortoise-like, up a green fern frond.
Finches undulating through the air, shooting themselves with closed
wings, and linnets happy with their young.

Golden dandelion discs--gold and orange--of a hue more beautiful, I
think, than the higher and more visible buttercup. A blackbird, gleaming,
so black is he, splashing in the runlet of water across the gateway. A
ruddy kingfisher swiftly drawing himself as you might draw a stroke with
a pencil, over the surface of the yellow buttercups, and away above the
hedge. Hart's-tongue fern, thick with green, so green as to be thick with
its colour, deep in the ditch under the shady hazel boughs. White
meadow-sweet lifting its tiny florets, and black-flowered sedges. You
must push through the reed grass to find the sword-flags; the stout