The common Eye-bright (Euphrasia officinalis) is one of our moorland gems. Its small, unequal-shaped white corolla, streaked with what Sir John Lubbock calls "honey-guides" (by which is meant the veins, &c., of petals, whose purpose is to direct insects to where the honey is stored away), and orangeyellow throat, all combine to render it one of the most elegant and beautiful of all our smaller flowers.

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THE EYE-BRIGHT (Euphrasia officinalis).

To our thinking the Eye-bright always looks prettier on the hill or moor-side. It has fewer glaring rivals there, and we are forced to observe it closer. True, it does not grow to the same almost shrubby rankness which it attains in the lowland meadows. On the contrary here it is diminutive, but overladen with blossoms. Nestling amid the taller grass which grows under the shelter of some heather or gorse shrub, we

shall be almost sure to find the wiry-stemmed lovely little Milk-wort (Polygala vulgaris), or "Rogation

THE MILL-WORT (Polygala vulgaris).

Flower of our ancestors, because it was used in Procession Week. The flowers (tassel-shaped) are

usually of a sky-blue colour; but we may find white, and even the rarer pink varieties. The structure of this flower is well worth attention, being intended to store up pollen against the visits of insects, so that the hairy bodies of the latter may be dusted with it, and in this manner carried about from flower to flower. Singularly enough, this plant has always been regarded as causing cows to produce a large quantity of milk if they feed in the pastures where it grows. Both its popular English and scientific botanical names have reference to this very ancient opinion. It is surely worth while observing whether it be true or not, for there is frequently a substratum of wisdom in this kind of "folk-lore."

Higher up the hill-sides, where there is least moisture, and upon those parts of the moorlands where the short grass indicates dryness, we shall find growing intertwined among the herbage, the smallest and prettiest of our British leguminous plants, the Bird'sfoot Trefoil (Ornithopus perpusillus), so called from the remarkable appearance which its three ripened seed-pods bear to the claws of a small bird's foot. The tiny blossoms are delicately pink and white, or cream-coloured, and the whole plant is recumbent, and the small pinnated leaves show it is allied to the Vetch family.

A reverent wanderer among these hills, looking out for these dainty little habitants of the springy turf, feels that all these floral subjects are

"Living preachers;

Each cup a pulpit, every leaf a book;
Supplying to his fancy numerous teachers
From loneliest nook."

The heathy places are strewn everywhere with the Sheep's Scabious (Jasione montana), or “Sheep's Bit," as it is also called, said to be a favourite morsel with the woolly tribes whose name it bears. It is of a

THE BIRD'S-FOOT TREFOIL (Ornithopus perpusillus).

pretty light-blue colour, and its abundant flowers frequently make the dry heather glad by their presence. Not far from its neighbourhood (for both love the dry heath soils of our moorlands) we shall come across the cottony Cud-weed (Filago Germanica), a

composite plant allied to the "Everlasting flowers" of our gardens. The quaint old botanists gave the name of "Herba impia" to this plant, on account of the branching flower-stalks, or young shoots, being higher than the parent flowers,

and therefore treating the latter with disrespect by overtopping them!

These dry, short, heathy pastures are in the summertime often perfect sheets of colour. The Wild Thyme, and Yellow and White Stonecrops completely mat the ground in variegated patches; whilst the trailing stems and little white flowers of the Stone Goosegrass (Galium saxatile) and the trailing St. John's Wort (Hypericum humifusum) are interweaved among the contrasted patterns. The Wild Thyme (Thymus serpyllum) is too well known to need description. Its fragrance is always. most powerfully emitted when the summer sun shines

SHEEP'S SCABIOUS (Fasione montana).

fiercest, and as perfumes have the power of barring out heat-rays, there can be no question that this quality prevents the thyme from being completely scorched up on the dry soils where it most loves to

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