A few days of soft skies and it becomes a glorious dome of white flowers, each twinkling with a roseate eye.

The country, which still lacks green, seems dotted everywhere with white-satin pavilions.

'Twould be a callous heart indeed that could resist the magic of this awakening.
The insect nation is represented at these rites by a few of its more zealous members.

There is first of all the Honey-bee, the sworn enemy of strikes, who profits by the least lull of winter to find out if some rosemary or other is not beginning to open somewhere near the hive.

The droning of the busy swarms fills the flowery vault, while a snow of petals falls softly to the foot of the tree.
Together with the population of harvesters there mingles another, less numerous, of mere drinkers, whose nesting-time has not yet begun.