Kent
Yellow archangels, the most attractive of the dead nettles, were in bloom on the banks of a road along which we walked yesterday; veronica raised its blue cat’s eyes from among the long grasses at the edge of a wood; the short turf of an open down was dotted with the purple of milkwort; and in a steeply sloping beech hanger a few white helleborines were beginning to open their creamy-white flowers. But those were the only colours that relieved the tired greens of trees and grass, except now and then when a bright butterfly flew past. And for every butterfly with a dash of colour to it there were half a dozen dull ones: for every orange-tip or common blue, for example, there were half a dozen walls or speckled woods. These common blues, like the large skipper we came across on the open down, are the first we have seen this year. Like the blue of veronica, which Richard Jefferies admired so much, theirs is one of the loveliest colours of summer.
Reply to a Correspondent – W Moss, Summerseat, near Bury: It is not particularly unusual for a cuckoo to be calling at night. I have heard them occasionally when listening to nightjars. Gilbert White, in The Natural History of Selborne, records instances of their being heard at and shortly after midnight.