instincts to these localities, while the earth has still but a wintry aspect, so far as vegetation is concerned, buzz around some obscure spathe close to the ground, well knowing what they are about, then alight and enter. As the plants were very numerous for thirty or forty rods, they must have been some hundreds, at least, of bees there at once. I watched many when they entered and came out, and they all had little yellow pellets of pollen at their thighs. As the skunk-cabbage comes out before the willow, it is probable that the former is the first flower they visit. It is the more surprising, as the flower is, for the most part, invisible within the spathe. Some of these spath.es are now quite large and twisted up like cows' horns, not curved over, as usual. Commonly they make a pretty little crypt or shrine for the flower. Lucky that this flower does not flavor their honey.
One cowslip, though it shows the yellow, is not fairly out, but will be by to-morrow. How they improve their time. Not a moment of sunshine is lost. One thing I may depend on, there has been no idling with the flowers. Nature loses not a moment, takes no vacation. They advance as steadily as a clock. These plants, now protected by the water, are just peeping forth. I should not be surprised to find that they drew in their heads in a frosty night.
