lude that at most a parrot knows a word of command as a
horse knows 'Whoa!' or a dog knows the order to hunt for rats in the
wainscot.

HIGH LIFE.

Everybody knows mountain flowers are beautiful. As one rises up any
minor height in the Alps or the Pyrenees below snow-level, one notices
at once the extraordinary brilliancy and richness of the blossoms one
meets there. All nature is dressed in its brightest robes. Great belts
of blue gentian hang like a zone on the mountain slopes; masses of
yellow globe-flower star the upland pastures; nodding heads of
soldanella lurk low among the rugged boulders by the glacier's side. No
lowland blossoms have such vividness of colouring, or grow in such
conspicuous patches. To strike the eye from afar, to attract and allure
at a distance, is the great aim and end in life of the Alpine flora.

Now, why are Alpine plants so anxious to be seen of men and angels? Why
do they flaunt their golden glories so openly before the world, instead
of shrinking in modest reserve beneath their own green leaves, like the
Puritan primrose and the retiring violet? The answer is, Because of the
extreme rarity of the mountain air. It's the barometer that does it. At
first sight, I will readily admit, this explanation seems as fanciful
as the traditional connection between Goodwin Sands and Tenterden
Steeple. But, like the amateur stories in country papers, it is
'founded on fact,' for all that. (Imagine, by the way, a tale founded
entirely on fiction! How charmingly aerial!) By a roundabout road,
through varying chains of cause and effect, the rarity of the air does
really account in the long run for the beauty and conspicuousness of
the mountain flowers.

For bees, the common go-betweens of the loves of the plants, cease to
range about a thousand or fifteen hundred feet below snow-level. And
why? Because it's too cold for them? Oh, dear, no: on sunny days in
early English spring, when the thermometer doesn't rise above freezing
in the shade, you will see both the honey-bees and the great black
bumble as busy as their conventional character demands of them among
the golden cups of the first timid crocuses. Give the bee sunshine,
indeed, with a temperature just about freezing-point, and he'll flit
about joyously on his communistic errand. But bees, one must remember,
have heavy bodies and relatively small wings: in the rarefied air of
mountain heights they can't manage