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PHanuary.

——— A Winter such as when birds die
In the deep forests, and the fishes lie ,
Stiffened in the translucent ice, which makes
Even the mud and slime of the warm lakes
A wrinkled clod, as hard,as brick ; and when
Among their children, comfortable men
Gather about great fires, and yet feel cold ;
Alas! then, for the homeless beggar old !

SHELLEY.

THE

BOOK OF THE SEASONS;

OR THE

' CALENDAR OF NATURE.

BY WILLIAM HOWITT.

Every thing is beautiful in his season. SOLOMON.

If one train of thinking be more desirable than another, it is that
which regards the Phenomena of Nature, with a constant reference
to 2 Supreme Intelligent Author. PALEY.

SECOND EDITION.

LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
(SUCCESSOR TO HENRY COLBURN,)
1833.

London: Printed by Samuel Bentley, Dorset-street, Fleet-street.

TO
MAE Y. (HOW Tr
AT HOME AND ABROAD,

IN THE FIELDS OF NATURE AND OF LITERATURE,
THE ONE TRUE COMPANION AND
FELLOW-LABOURER,

THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED

BY HER AFFECTIONATE HUSBAND,

THE AUTHOR.

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ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE FIRST EDITION.

THE species of work to which this volume
belongs, while it is not confined to the student
of Natural History, but is addressed to all
classes of readers, appears to me to be eminent-
ly useful in promoting that general acquaintance
with Nature, which is so highly to be desired,
and for which a taste has of late been strongly
and growingly evinced. Many works there are,
which lead us incidentally into the country, or
which, treating on the aspects and progress of
the Seasons, mix up with them a variety of
other matters, feasts, fasts, saints, and sundries ;
but a work has long been wanted to realize the
beau ideal of a book of the Seasons, presenting
us with all their poetic and picturesque fea-
tures; which, as a Calendar of Nature, should
be comprehensive and complete in itself; which,
on being taken up by the lover of Nature at
the opening of each month, should lay before

vi ADVERTISEMENT.

him in prospect all the objects and appearances
which the month would present in the garden,
the fields, and the waters; yet confining itself
solely to those objects. Such a work I have
endeavoured to supply.

My plan has been to furnish an_ original
article on the general appearances of Nature in
each month, drawn entirely from my own re-
gular observations through many seasons; and
finally, to superadd a great variety of facts from
the best sources, as well as such as occurred to
myself after the principal article was written.
To these, a complete table of the Migrations of
Birds; a copious list of Garden Plants which
come into flower in the month; a Botanical
Calendar, including a select number of the
most beautiful or interesting British plants,
and an Entomological Catalogue of about three
hundred of the most common or remarkable
insects; a notice of Rural Occupations, and,
finally, one of Angling, are added.

For assistance in drawing up the Botanical
and Entomological Calendars, I am indebted to
my brother Dr. Godfrey Howitt.

Nottingham,
Dec. 14th, 1830.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Inrropuctory CraptTer ° . XML
January. Characteristics of the Season— Prevalence of
darkness —Snows— Intense frost —Snow-storms in the
Mountains— Pleasures of the British fireside — Miseries
of the Poor—Continued frost—Immense destruction of
Vermin, Birds, etc. at this season — Bird-moping —
Walking in frosty weather—Glazed Frost, its dangerous
effects—The Hoar Frost, its beauty—Winter flowers—
Occasional intervals of mild weather, its effect—January,
why so called by the Latins ; its Saxon name—Physical
defence of Plants from frost—The Throstle, the Nut-
hatch—Reappearance of worms and slugs—Hedge-spar-
rows, Thrush, and Blackbird sing—Hens lay— Early
Lambs—Habits of various birds—Rural Occupations—
Angling—Migration of Birds—The Garden—Calendar of
Garden Flowers—Entomological Calendars 4 1
Frsruary. Characteristics—Wet—Great Thaw—Damps
—Winds—Storm on the Coast—Symptoms of Spring—
February, its name—Habits of Birds, ete.—Budding of
Trees—Dissected Leaves—Moles, and Mole-catchers—
Rural Occupations—Angling—Migration of Birds—Ca-
lendar of Garden Flowers—Botanical and Entomological
Calendars 4 F : A < 3311

vill CONTENTS.

Marcu. Lays of the Seasons, No. 1, Spring. Character-
istics —Winds—Progress of Vernal appearances— Vernal
sensations—Mornings in March—Rural objects—Snail-
shells—Young herbs—Rhubarb—March, its name—
Awakening of dormant animals—Various appearances of
animals and vegetables—The Primrose—Starlings—
Rural Occupations—Angling— Migration of Birds—
Calendar of Garden Flowers—Botanical and Entomolo-
gical Calendars < : 5 47

Aprit. Characteristics—Progress of Wexetatn aa ernal
Crocusses—Trees in blossom—Return of migratory
Birds—Birds’ nests and eggs—Their beauty and pictu-
resque situations—April, its name—Description of Spring
by Gawain Douglas—Leafing of Trees a directory for
sowing—Habits of animals this month—Satanic footsteps
—Rural Occupations—Angling—Migration of Birds—
Calendar of Garden Flowers—Botanical and Entomolo-
gical Calendars 5 . : 65

May. Characteristics—Flowers of woods, eral and
heaths—Beautiful appearance of woods—Pleasant pro-
spects at the end of the month—Fullness of foliage—
Depth and richness of grass—Cottage Gardens—Haw-
thorns—The Nightingale—Flowers—The love of them
natural to children—Moral emblems with all nations—
Use of them among the Greeks—The Hebrews—The
beautiful illustration they afforded to Christ—Flowers in
the Desert—The use of them in the East—in Italy—Pre-
sent taste for the cultivation of Flowers—May, its name
—The Wayfaring Tree—Benting time of Pigeons—
Leafing of Trees completed—Bees, their swarms—Po-
pular customs regarding them—Rural Occupations—
Angling— Migration of Birds—Calendar of Garden
Flowers—Botanical and Entomological Calendars 99

June. Lays of the Seasons, No. 2, Summer—Darkening
hues of foliage—Variety and beauty of foliage—The

CONTENTS. 1X

Horse-chesnut— Beauty of June weather— Universal
life, greenness and vigour—Gardens in their prime—
Summer pleasures — Delicious evenings— Mowing —
Green Fruits—Grasses in flower—Hay-harvest commenc-
ing—Summer Floods—Sheep-shearing, its ancient fes-
tivities —Wild Flowers and their old names—Holy Flow-
ers—June, its name—Midsummer Flowers—Fern Owl—
Rural Occupations—Angling—Migration of Birds—Ca-
lendar of Garden Flowers—Botanical and Entomological
Calendars . F . . . 133
Jury. Characteristics —Hay-harvest—Remarks on old
sports—Progress of knowledge—Silence of Birds—Boys
taking Wasps’ nests—Hornets—Twining Plants—Sum- .
mer Flowers—The pleasantness and beauty, and the
curious productions of Heaths—Woods—The Bird-Boy
—Field-paths—Their pleasant associations—Picturesque
characters—Poets and Field-paths—Paths among the
Mountains—Stiles and their varieties—The Domine and
the Turnstile—Gradual disappearance of Field-paths—
Encroachments of the rich upon the poor—July, its name
—Periodical appearances, animal and vegetable—Rural
Occupations—A ngling—Migration of Birds—Calendar of
Garden Flowers—Botanical and Entomological Calen-
dars : - . . ‘ sui 5
Avcusr. Characteristics—Corn-harvest—Pleasant scenes
in the harvest field—Picturesque features of Harvest as
given in the Bible—Harvesters—Harvest-home—Har-
vest-moon—Second budding of Trees—Refreshed ver-
dure and flowers of the Fields—Singular preservation of
Seeds in the earth—Aquatic vegetation—Habits of the
Water-rat—The Land-rail—Combat between a Rabbit
and Weasel—Young Frogs—Mushrooms—Hedge-fruit
—White Fogs—Sea-side Rambles—Field sports—Re-
markable appearance of clouds, August 1827—August,
its name—Periodical appearances in the month—Hop-

x CONTENTS.

gathering—Tusser’s rules for Hop Grounds—Origin of
Fairy Rings—Rural Occupations—Angling—Migration
of Birds—Calendar of Garden Flowers—Botanical and
Entomological Calendars ° = . 211
SepremBer. Lays of the Seasons, No. 3, Autwmn—Sports-
man’s preparations, his pleasures, his unconscious love of
Nature, his picturesque haunts—The Hunter, a poem—
Mountains, their effect on the imagination, on the cha-
racter of their inhabitants—On the liberty of Nations—
Lonely and simple life among Mountains—The magni-
ficence and variety in Mountain scenery — Geometric
Spider—Gossamer—Beauty of Autumnal landscape—
The transparency of the Atmosphere—Swallows preparing
for departure—Singing of young Birds—Nutting—/il-
leggiatura—Description of a Nutting excursion—Fungi,
their beauty and variety—September, its name—Saffron
—Apple-gathering—Sea-side—Beauty of submarine pro-
ductions—Rural Occupations—Angling—Migration of
Birds—Calendar of Garden Flowers—Botanical and En-
tomological Calendars .« : : : 239
Ocroser. Characteristics—Autumna] glooms— Orchards
cleared of fruit—Splendour of wood scenery—Delights of
the Woods—Estimation of woods among the Ancients
—Poetical Associations of Woods—Beauty of Trees,
their effect upon the mind of certain great men—Trees
as mentioned in the Bible—Celebrated Trees of modern
times—Devotional influence of Woods—Gorgeous ap-
pearance of Woods previous to the fall of the leaf—The
Green-wood, a poem—October, its name— Dissemination
of plants, curious contrivances in seeds for that purpose—
Rural Occupations—Angling—Migration of Birds—Ca-
lendar of Garden Flowers—Botanical Calendar . 269
Novemser. Gloom of November—Ossian—Storms and
Mists—Introduction to complete Winter—Desolate as-
pect of Gardens—Influence of the Season on different

CONTENTS. xl

minds—Arrival of Fieldfares, and Redwings—Occa-
sional fine days—First appearance of Winter—Frost and
Snow—Amusements in Snow—Fire-side employments
in farm-houses and cottages—Bird-catching—Singing
Birds in cages, selfishness of the practice—November,
its name—Moles retire to their nests—Salmon ascend
the rivers—Attention requisite for Bees and Pigeons—
Various animals seek their winter retreats—Birds’-nests
occupied by mice—Rural Occupations—Angling—Mi-
gration of Birds—Calendar of Garden Flowers . 283
December. Lays of the Seasons, No. 4, Winter—De-
scription of winter by Gawain Douglas—Desolate aspect
of Nature—Disappearance of many varieties of living
things—Men resort to towns and to their houses—Fa-
milies collected—The Author and his literary labours—
Beauty of Winter— Moonlight and starry skies, they
inspire solemn feelings and ideas—Concluding remarks
—Daily Wayfarers—December, its name— Evergreens
—Winter Fruit— Rural Occupations — Angling — Ca-
lendar of Garden Flowers— Migration of Birds— Ali
Seasons Welcome : : : see 297

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

Ir ought to be the leading resolve, the great
living and actuating desire of every man who
has arrived at the maturity of his powers, of
every man especially, who has received the
blessing of a good education, to do something
which shall tend to the prosperity of his coun-
try and of his species—something beyond the
mere routine of those duties which belong to
the ordinary life of every good citizen, and
which yet may be achieved without the neglect
of those duties, or without forsaking that sphere
in which Nature and Providence have cast his
lot ; something, however small, which shall ad-
vance, or at least aim to advance, the refine-
ment and moral elevation of his race. This is
the only mode by which we can discharge,
greatly and fully, that debt of blessings which
we receive from God, our parents, and the
community in which we live ; for mere thankful-
ness of heart, unseconded by deeds of benifi-
cence and the virtuous exercise of an enlighten-

Xiv INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

ed intellect, pays nothing, but leaves unsatisfied
the highest claims of our nature, and that na-
tural longing after the enjoyment and the diffu-
sion of happiness which fills every healthful
bosom.

Such a desire, I do not hesitate to confess,
has long haunted me; has mingled itself with
my cogitations, and, however trivial may appear
the result, has been a principal cause of my
putting together this work; as it must be the
desire of every enlightened mind to look round
him and consider in what way he can best pro-
mote the national welfare. For my own part,
reflecting how many are effectively making
known the sublime truths of our religion, how
many are gloriously labouring in the fair fields
of literature, I am rather desirous to turn the
eyes of those whose attention I may be so happy
as to gain on the loveliness and influence of
Nature; believing, that in so doing, I am sub-
serving religion and literature also. In truth,
there is no spirit which it is more important to
cherish in a commercial people, as we are, than
a spirit of attachment to Nature. Were it not
that it had been fostered by our inestimable
literature—a literature which has caught its
noble tone from the Christian faith—there can
be no doubt that the calculating spirit of
trade would long ago have quenched in the

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XV

national heart those lofty sentiments which have
borne it proudly in the eyes of an admiring
world above all mean contamination; and that
we should have sunk into that sordid narrow-
ness of soul which has regularly marked com-
mercial states. It is a spirit which, however, as
commerce advances, becomes more and more
endangered by the very circumstance of our
population being engulphed in great towns.
Books can and do penetrate into every nook
of our most extended and crowded cities; but
every day these cities and towns enlarge their
boundaries, and the sweet face of Nature is hid-
den from the inhabitants. We should, therefore,
not only make our books breathe into the depth
of every street, court, and alley, the natural ali-
ment of human hearts—the love of Nature—
but, rouse them, like a trumpet, to get out at
times, and renew that animating fellowship
which God designed to be maintained between
the soul of man and the beauty of the universe.
It is a principle undoubtedly implanted in every
breast ;—it is one which cannot, perhaps, be
utterly extinguished. We see it under the
most unfavourable circumstances, after years
of oppression and alienation, struggling through
its barriers and exhibiting itself in some misera-
ble specimens of plants in pots, in the little
nooks of dreary and smoke-blighted gardens in

XVi INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

the centre of the densest cities, and in the lowest
habitations of poverty and ignorance. But it is
a principle which requires, like all others, culti-
vation. Let it once be lit up, and it will never
die! Let the mind, in which it has once been
excited, become enlightened and expanded with
knowledge, and it “will grow with its growth,
and strengthen with its strength.” Thus it is
that it has ever been found the most intense
in the greatest minds: the poets especially,
(who are, if truly entitled to that glorious name,
particularly accustomed to cherish in their spi-
rits pure and lofty sentiments, liberal opinions,
warm and generous emotions, that their writ-
ings being eminently imbued with those quali-
ties may diffuse them through society in coun-
teraction of the deadening spirit of the world,)
are found invariably ardent lovers of Nature.
To them it is a passion and an appetite — their
voice sounds from antiquity in
Flumina amem sylvasque inglorius.

Need I advert to our older poets, who are full
of it? To Chaucer, to Gawain Douglas, to the
picturesque and Arcadian Spenser, to the uni-
versal Shakspeare, to the solemn majesty of
Milton? What a beauty and a freshness mark
the poetry of the last great man whenever he
touches on Nature! We feel, as expressed in
his own simile :—

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XVli

As one who long in populous city pent,
Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air,
Forth issuing on a summer morn to breathe
Among the pleasant villages and farms.

But the full extent of his love is only to be felt
where he laments the loss of his sight. Speak-
ing of light, he says,
Thee I revisit safe,

And feel thy sovran, vital lamp, but thou

Revisit’st not these eyes, that roll in vain

To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn ;

So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs,

Or dim suffusion veiled : yet not the more

Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt

Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,

Smit with the love of sacred song, but chief

Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,

That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow,

Nightly I visit—

Thus with the year

Seasons return; but not to me returns

Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,

Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer’s rose,

Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine ;

But cloud instead, and ever-during dark

Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men

Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair

Presented with a universal blank

Of Nature’s works, to me expunged and rased,

And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.

ParanisE Losr, b 3.

Thomson and Cowper powerfully promoted
this spirit amongst their contemporaries ; but
ce

XVili INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

our own times furnish, perhaps, a more remark-
able instance in Lord Byron. Unlike theirs,
his soul had not been soothed into wisdom and
nourished into power in the silence of retire-
ment, and by the beam of the academic lamp,
but had been hurried through the agitating
splendours of rank and fashion, the intoxication
of unexampled popularity, the fascinations of
love and beauty; but he had made acquaintance
with Nature in her solitude and sublimity in
his boyhood; and with what ardent sighs did
he long after her !—with what contempt did he
turn from all other allurements, and pour into
her bosom the burning language of his devo-
tion! He may be said to have been her pil-
grim into all lands in which she displays the
sovereignty of her beauty and grandeur.

All heaven and earth are still—though not in sleep,
But breathless as we grow when feeling most ;
And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep :—
All heaven and earth are still: from the high host
Of stars to the lulled lake and mountain coast,
All is concentred in a life intense,
Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,
But hath a part of being, and a sense

Of that which is of all Creator and defence.

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt

In solitude, when we are least alone,

A truth which through our being then doth melt
And purifies from self ; it is a tone,

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XIX

The soul and source of music, which makes known

Eternal harmony and sheds a charm,

Like to the fabled Cytherea’s zone,

Binding all things with beauty ; ’twould disarm
The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm.

Not vainly did the early Persian make

His altar the high places, and the peak

Of earth-o’ergazing mountains, and thus take

A fit and unwalled temple, thete to seek

The spirit, in whose honour shrines are weak,

Upreared of human hands. Come and compare

Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek,

With Nature’s realms of worship, earth and air,

Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy prayer.
Cuitpe Haron, Canto ur.
To particularize amongst our recent or living

poets those who have displayed a deep sense of
the beauty and power of Nature, would be to
enumerate all who are by any means distin-
guished; but Scott, Southey, Coleridge, Camp-
bell, and Rogers, who were amongst the first to
call back our poetry from Art to Nature, must
not be passed in silence ;—Bloomfield must
have his own appropriate niche; the names of
Mrs. Hemans and Miss Mitford, amongst our
female writers, claim in this, as in other re-
spects, the highest honours; and Wordsworth
has so gazed upon Nature, not only with the
eyes of love, but of philosophy, he has so com-
pletely retired to the perpetual contemplation of
her charms, and the communion with her spirit ;

XX INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

and has so fully expressed all that I am anxious
to testify of her moral influence, that I must
make from him one quotation.

Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her! Tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy, for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of common life
Shall e’er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith that all that we behold
Ts full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk ;
And let the misty mountain winds be free
To blow against thee ; and in after-years,
When these wild ecstacies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure ; when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies, oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my benedictions.

Such is the united testimony of our greatest
poetical minds ; and such is my firm faith, that
God has not only implanted in the depths of
our hearts a pure and quick moral sense of his

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. Xxi

goodness, and of the excellency of virtue, but
has so constructed the world, that the same
saving, purifying, and ennobling principles, are
reflected upon us from every natural object.
“ Between the Poet and Nature,” says Schlegel,
“no less than between the poet and man, there
is a sympathy of feeling. Not only in the song
of the Nightingale, or in the melodies to which
all men listen, but even in the roar of the
stream, and the rushing of the forest, the poet
thinks that he hears a kindred voice of sorrow
or of gladness; as if spirits and feelings like
our own were calling to us from afar, or seek-
ing to sympathise and communicate with us
from the utmost nearness to which their Na-
tures will allow them to approach us. It is
for the purpose of listening to these tones, and
of holding mysterious converse with the soul
of Nature, that every great poet is a lover of
solitude!” Therefore

Blessings be with them, and eternal praise,

Who gave us nobler loves, and nobler cares—

The poets !
and not with the poets only, but with the great-
est names in our philosophy; Newton, Bacon,
Locke, and a host of others; nor less with a
multitude of authors throughout every depart-
ment of our literature, who have with one ac-
cord turned us for wisdom to the great book

Xxll INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

of Nature. Nota little has honest Izaak Wal-
ton contributed to spread his own love of quiet
haunts and streams, his own tranquil and bene-
volent piety. And to our Naturalists, what do
we not owe! Every one of them who assists
to turn the attention of our youth to subjects
which must lead them out to the country, be
he but the merest plodder, the merest arranger
of other men’s knowledge, the merest cata-
loguer of names, does a good service: but such
men as Gilbert White, Bewick, Evelyn, etc.
who explore with enthusiastic and indefatigable
delight every natural haunt, and cast round
their labours the beaming halo of genius, at-
tracting thousands to the objects of ‘their ad-
miration, must be classed amongst the greatest
benefactors of the human race.

It is with unspeakable delight that I behold
every branch of Natural History, now prose-
cuted amongst us with the keenest ardour and
success ; and that the many able minds engaged
in it are becoming more and more aware that
their favourite pursuits have a far higher claim
to regard than even the direct knowledge which
they bring, and the personal delight they afford ;
that they invigorate both mind and body, tran-
quillize the passions, and elevate the heart above
all worldliness. The present tone of such works
is admirable and animating.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. Xxlll

And now, as I close these remarks, let me
say, that if I could but arouse in other minds
that ardent and ever-growing love of the beau-
tiful works of God in the creation which I feel
in myself,—if I could but make it in others
what it has been to me,

The nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being ;
if I could open to any, the mental eye which
can never be again closed, but which finds,
more and more clearly revealed before it,
beauty, wisdom, and peace, in the splendours
of the heavens, in the majesty of seas and
mountains, in the freshness of winds, the ever-
changing lights and shadows of fair landscapes,
the solitude of heaths, the radiant face of bright
lakes, and the solemn depths of woods, then
indeed should I rejoice. Oh! that I could but
touch a thousand bosoms with that melancholy
which often visits mine, when I behold little
children endeavouring to extract amusement
from the very dust, and straws, and pebbles
of squalid alleys, shut out from the free and
glorious countenance of Nature, and think how
differently the children of the peasantry are
passing the golden hours of childhood ; wander-
‘ing with bare heads and unshod feet perhaps,
but singing a “childish wordless melody,”

XXiV INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

through vernal lanes, or prying into a thousand
sylvan, leafy nooks, by the liquid music of
running waters, amidst the fragrant heath, or
on the flowery lap of the meadow, occupied
with winged wonders without end. Oh! that
I could but baptize every heart with the sym-
pathetic feeling of what the city-pent child is
condemned to lose; how blank, and poor, and
joyless must be the images which fill its infant
bosom to that of the country one, whose mind

Will be a mansion for all lovely forms,

His memory be a dwelling-place

For all sweet sounds and harmonies!
I feel however, an animating assurance that
Nature will exert a perpetually increasing in-
fluence, not only as a most fertile source of pure
and substantial pleasures ; pleasures which, un-
like many others, produce instead of satiety de-
sire; but also as a great moral agent : and what
effects I anticipate from this growing taste may
be readily inferred, when I avow it as one of
the most fearless articles of my creed, that it
is scarcely possible for a man, in whom its
power is once firmly established, to become
utterly debased in sentiment or abandoned in
principle. His soul may be said to be brought
into habitual union with the Author of Na-
ture ;

Haunted for ever by the Eternal Mind.

JANUARY.

By his commandment he maketh the snow to fall apace, and
sendeth swiftly the lightnings of his judgement.

Through this the treasures are opened and clouds fly forth as fowls.

By his great power he maketh the clouds firm and the hailstones
are broken small.

At his sight the mountains are shaken, and at his will the north
wind bloweth.

The noise of the thunder maketh the earth to tremble, so doth
the northern storm and the whirlwind ; as birds flying he scattereth
the snow, and the falling down thereof is as the lighting of grass-
hoppers.

The eye marvelleth at the beauty of the whiteness thereof, and the
heart is astonished at the raining of it.

The hoar-frost also as salt he poureth on the earth, and being con-
gealed it lieth on the top of sharp stakes.

When the cold north wind bioweth, and the water is congealed
into ice, it abideth upon every gathering together of water, and
clotheth the water as with a breastplate.

It devonreth the mountains, and burneth the wilderness, and con-
sumeth the grass as fire.

EccLEsiasticus xliii. 13—21.

Tue solar year commences in the very depth
of winter; and I open my record of its various
aspects under that of its unmitigated austerity.
I speak now as I intend to speak, generally. I
describe the season not as it may be in this,
or another year, but as it is in the average.
December may be, I think, very justly styled the
gloomiest, January the severest, and February

B

2 JANUARY.

the most cheerless month of the year. In De-
cember the days become shorter and shorter ;
a dense mass of vapour floats above us, wrap-
ping the world in a constant and depressing
gloom ; and

Murky night soon follows hazy noon.

BLoomrieLp.

In January this mantle of brumal sadness some-
what dissipates, as if a new year had infused
new hope and vigour into the earth; light is
not only more plentifully diffused, but we soon
perceive its longer daily abode with us; yet, in
the words of the common adage,

As the day lengthens,
The cold strengthens.

This is the month of abundant snows and all
the intensity of frost. Yet winter, even in its
severest forms, brings so many scenes and cir-
cumstances with it to interest the heart of the
lover of Nature and of his fellow-creatures, that
it mever ceases to be a subject of delightful
observation ; and monotonous as it is frequently
called, the very variety of the weather itself
presents an almost endless source of novelty
and beauty. There is first what is called

A GREAT Storm. Frost,—keen, biting frost,
is in the ground; and in the air, a bitter,
scythe-edged, perforating wind from the north ;

JANUARY. 3

or what is worse, the north-east, sweeps the
descending snow along, whirling it from the
open fields, and driving it against whatever
opposes its course. People who are obliged to
be passing to and fro muffle up their faces,
and bow their heads to the blast. There is no
loitering, no street-gossiping, no stopping to
make recognition of each other; they shufHle
along the most winterly objects of the scene,
bearing on their fronts the tokens of the storm.
Against every house, rock, or bank, the snow-
drift accumulates. It curls over the tops of
walls and hedges in fantastic wildness, forming
often the most perfect curves, resembling the
scrolls of Ionic capitals, and showing beneath
romantic caves and canopies. Hollow lanes,
pits, and bogs now become traps for unwary
travellers ; the snow filling them up, and level-
ling all to one deceitful plain. It is a dismal
time for the traversers of wide and open heaths;
and one of toil and danger to the shepherd in
mountainous tracts. There the snows fall in
amazing quantities in the course of a few hours,
and, driven by the powerful winds of those
lofty regions, soon fill up the dells and glens
to a vast depth, burying the flocks, and houses
too, in a brief space. In some winters the
sheep of extensive ranges of country, much cat-
tle, and many of the inhabitants have perished

4 JANUARY.

beneath the snow-drifts. At the moment in
which I am writing, accounts from Scotland ap-
pear in the newspapers of a most tremendous
snow-storm, which, leaving the country south-
ward of Alnwick and.Gretna-Green nearly free,
has buried all northward of that line, in a vast
fall of snow, sweeping across the country even
to the shores of the Irish Channel. The mails
are stopped, the snow-drifts in many places are
stated to be twenty-five feet deep, and great
numbers of sheep have perished beneath them,
—one farmer having dug out one hundred and
fifty in one place, all dead. Hogg, the highly-
gifted Ettrick Shepherd, one of the most splen-
did specimens of the peasant-poet, has given
in his “ Shepherd’s Calendar” some exceed-
ingly interesting details of such events.

The delights of the social hearth on such
evenings as these, when the wild winds are
howling around our dwellings, dashing the snow,
or hail, or splashing rain against our windows,
are a favourite theme with poets, essayists, and
writers on the Seasons. And truly it is an
inspiring topic. All our ideas of comfort, of
domestic affection, of social and literary enjoy-
ment, are combined in the picture they draw
of the winter fire-side. How often have those
lines of Cowper been quoted, commencing,

(oa)

JANUARY.

Now stir the fire and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtain, wheel the sofa round,
And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
Which cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.

Such is the BRITISH FIRE-SIDE! and we love
to hear our writers speaking of its pleasures in
strains of enthusiasm. But we may expand
the picture. We may add to the zest of its
personal, and almost too selfish enjoyments,
touches of generous and philanthropic sentiment
which will signally heighten its pleasures, and
enlarge its power of improving the heart. How
delightful, while sitting in the midst of our
family, or friendly group, in actual possession
of the pleasures just enumerated, not only to
contemplate our own happiness, but to send
our thoughts abroad over the whole land! To
think what thousands of families in this noble
country, are at the same moment thus blessedly
collected round the social flame. What hearths
are lit up with all the charms of kindred affec-
tion; of mature wisdom and parental pride; of
youthful gladness, gaiety and beauty! How
many rural halls and city homes are shining,
like stars in their own places, in unabated
warmth and splendour, though hid beneath the

6 JANUARY.

broad veil of wintry darkness,—the lover's even-
ing visit,—song, wine, the wild tale told to the
listening circle, or the unfolded stores of polite
literature, making each a little paradise! Then
to turn from the bright side of the picture to
the dark one. To

The huts where poor men lie,

where the elegancies and amenities of life cast
not their glow,

But frosty winds blaw in the drift
Ben to the chimla lug,

upon shivering groups who have but little de-
fence of fire or clothing from its bitterness.
Where no light laugh rings through the room ;
no song is heard ; no romantic tale, or mirthful
conversation circles amongst smiling faces and
happy hearts, but the father,

Tll satisfied keen nature’s clamorous call,
Stretched on his straw himself lays down to sleep,
While through the rugged roof, and chinky wall,
Chill on his slumbers piles the drifty heap.

Burns.

When the mother sees not her rosy and laugh-
ing children snugly consigned to their warm,
soft beds, but contemplates with a heart dead-
ened with the miseries of to-day, and the fears
of to-morrow, a sad little squalid crew around

JANUARY. 7

her, who, instead of pleasures and _ pastimes,
know only wants and evils which dwarf both
body and soul. Where, perhaps, illness has
superadded its aggravations, its pains and lan-
guors, to a poverty which renders the comforts
and indulgences of a sick room the most hope-
less of all things. These are the speculations
to enhance our fireside pleasures, and to make
those pleasures fruitful ; linking our sympathies
to the joys and sorrows of our kind, and arous-
ing us to a course of active benevolence.

To proceed, however, to the varieties of win-
try weather, this month more than all others
shows us

THe Conrinuep Frost—A frost that, day
after day, and week after week, makes a steady
abode with us, till the beaten roads become
dusty as in sunimer. It every day penetrates
deeper into the earth, and farther into our
houses; almost verifying the common saying,
* January will freeze the pot upon the fire.”
Our windows in the morning are covered with
a fine opaque frost-work, resembling the leaves
and branches of forest-trees, and the water is
frozen in the ewer. The small birds are hop-
ping, with half-erected feathers, upon our door-
sills, driven to seek relief from creation’s tyrants
by the still more pressing tyranny of cold and
famine. The destruction of birds, and of all

8 JANUARY.

the smaller animals, in a continued frost, is
immense, particularly if it be accompanied by
snow. Snow is a general informer, betraying
the footsteps of every creature, great and small.
The poacher and the gamekeeper are equally
on the alert, while it lies freshly upon the
ground; the one to track game, the other ver-
min; and thousands of polecats, weasels, stoats,
rats, otters, badgers, and similar little nightly
depredators, are traced to their hiding-places
in old buildings, banks, and hollow trees, and
marked for certain destruction. The poacher,
particularly on moonlight nights, makes havoc
with game. Partridges, nestled down in a heap
on the stubble, are conspicuous objects; and
hares, driven for food to gardens and turnip-
fields, are destroyed by hundreds. Wood-pi-
geons are killed in great numbers on cabbage
and turnip-fields by day, and by moonlight are
shot in the trees where they roost. Larks fre-
quent stubbles in vast flocks, and are destroyed
by gun or net. There is an account, illustrated
by an engraving in the second volume of Hone’s
“« Every-Day Book,” of a singular mode of
killing larks at this season, in some parts of
France and England.

As if the feathered race did not ies enough
from famine and the severity of the weather,
everybody seems now up in arms against them.

JANUARY. 9

The law, with a spirit of humanity honourable
to the nation, is opposed to tracking game in a
snow, yet this is a time of peculiar enjoyment
to the sportsman. Water-fowl are driven from
their secluded haunts in meres and marshes to
open streams; snipes and woodcocks to springs
and small runnels; where they become acces-
sible, and easily found. In towns and villages,
every mechanic and raw lad is seen marching
forth with his gun to slay his quota of red-
wings, field-fares, etc., which now become pas-
sive from cold and hunger. Let all good peo-
ple, who value their persons, keep at a distance
from suburban hedges ; for such sportsman is
sure to pop at every bird which comes before
him, be it sparrow, tomtit, or robin red-breast ;
nothing comes amiss to him, and nothing does
he think of but his mark. Many an eye has
been lost; many a cow, horse, and _ sheep,
has felt the sharp salutation of his desperate
shot, and shall do again; for if the public does
not take warning, fe will not. In farm-yards,
trains of corn are laid, and scores of sparrows,
finches, etc. are slaughtered at a shot. Even
the school-bey is bent upon their destruction.
His trap, made of four bricks and a few pegs,
is to be seen in every garden, and under every
rick, and with a sieve, a stick, and a string,
drawn through a window or a keyhole, he is

10 JANUARY.

standing ready to pounce upon them. Not
even night, with its deepest shades, can protect
them at this cruel time. They are roused from
their slumbers in the sides of warm stacks by a
sieve or a net, fixed upon a pole, being clapped
before them. Those which roost in hedges
and copses are aroused by beating the trees and
bushes, at the same time that they are dazzled
with the glare of a torch, and, flying instinc-
tively towards the light, are knocked down and
secured. This is called in some counties bird-
moping; and in this manner are destroyed
great numbers of pheasants, thrushes, black-
birds, besides innumerable small birds. With
all these enemies, and these various modes of
destruction, it is only surprising that the race
is not extirpated.

One of the pleasures of frosty weather will
be found in walking. The clear and bracing
air invigorates the frame; exercise gives a de-
lightful glow to the blood, and the mind is held
in pleasing attention to the phenomena and fea-
tures of the season. Every sound comes to
the ear with a novel and surprising distinct-
ness. The low of cattle; the rattle of far-off
wheels; the hollow tread of approaching feet ;
and the merry voices of stiders and skaiters,
who are pursuing their healthful amusement
upon every sheet of unruffled ice. In towns,

JANUARY. 1]

however, walking is none of the safest. From
time immemorial boys have used it as an es-
pecial privilege of theirs to make slides upon
every causeway, maugre the curses and me-
nacing canes of old gentlemen, and the certain
production of falls, bruises, and broken bones.
Sometimes, too, rain freezing as it falls, or a
sudden thaw, and as sudden a re-freezing,
covers the whole ground with a sheet of the
most glassy ice. Such a frost occurred in 1811,
when great numbers of birds were caught, and
amongst them several bustards, their wings
being glazed to their sides, and their feet to
the ground. But of all the phenomena of win-
ter, none equals in beauty

Tue Hoar Frost. A dense haze most com-
monly sets in over night, which has vanished
the next morning, and left a clear atmosphere,
and a lofty arch of sky of the deepest and most
diaphanous blue, beaming above a scene of en-
chanting beauty. Every tree, bush, twig, and
blade of grass, from the utmost nakedness has
put on a pure and feathery garniture, which
appears the work of enchantment, and has all
the air and romantic novelty of a fairy-land.
Silence and purity are thrown over the earth
as a mantle. The hedges are clothed in a
snowy foliage, thick as their summer array.
The woods are filled with a silent splendour ;

12 JANUARY.

the dark boles here and there contrasting
strongly with the white and sparkling drapery
of the boughs above, amongst which the wan-
dering birds fly, scattering the rime around
them in snowy showers. There is not a thicket
but has assumed a momentary aspect of strange
loveliness ; and the mind is more affected by
it from its suddenness of creation, and the con-
sciousness of its speedy departure :—for hoar-
frosts and gipsies are said never to remain nine
days in a place,—the former, indeed, seldom
continue three days.

In this most fierce and inhospitable of all
months, besides the beautiful features we have
already noted, we are ever and anon pre-
sented with momentary smiles and isolated in-
stances of vegetable life, which come, as it
were, to keep the heart from withering amidst
the despondency of this season of deadness.
The Helleborus niger, or Christmas Rose, ex-
pands its handsome white chalices, undaunted
by the sharpest frosts, and blooms amidst over-
whelming wreaths of snow long before that
poetical and popular favourite, the Snowdrop,
dares to emerge from its shrouding earth.

Mild and even sunny days sometimes break
the sullen monotony of January, which the
country people look upon less with a pleased
than a foreboding eye, denominating them wea-

JANUARY. is

ther-breeders. Whilst they are present, how-
ever, whatever consequences they may be
chargeable with, they are extremely grateful.
Gnats will even be seen to issue from their se-
cret dormitories, to dance in the long withheld
rays of the sun. I have seen the leaves of the
primrose shooting up vigorously beneath the
warm hedges at such times; and moles, feeling
the ground released from its frosty bondage,
begin to burrow and throw up their heaps of
fresh and crumbly mould.

Our Saxon ancestors termed this month
Aefter-yula, or After-Christmas. The Greeks
called it Anthesterion, or, the Flowery, from
the quantity of flowers used at the feast of
Bacchus; but our present name is derived
from the Latin, Janus, door-keeper of heaven,
and God of peace,—the name, therefore, in-
dicates that it is the gate of the year, and pro-
bably has reference to the earth in this month
being in a state of quiet and inactivity.

One of the things which is most deserving of
our observation at this season is, the wisdom of
Providence displayed in the provision made fcr
the preservation of all vegetable productions.
Seeds are secure in the earth, or in the care
of man; herbaceous plants have died down to

14 JANUARY.

the root, which, secure in their underground
retreat, are preparing their fresh shoots, leaves,
and flowers, in secret, to burst forth at spring
with renewed splendour; but herbs and trees
which are exposed to all the severity of the
open air are not the less safe. Their buds com-
pactly defended by a strong coat of resinous
matter, which may be abundantly seen in the
horse-chestnut at the time of its unfolding, and
moreover by that vis vite which vegetables as
well as animals possess. This last wonderful
power imparted to plants by our beneficent
Creator, has been most clearly shown by an
experiment of the simplest kind; one which
any person may repeat. A bud cut off in a
sharp frost and suspended from its parent tree
during the night will be found to be com-
pletely frozen through, while its fellows, still
upon the tree, will not be in the least injured.
This will be the case even if the severed bud
be enclosed in a glass, and perfectly defended
from the external atmosphere. This property,
by which buds, consisting of leaves firmly
wrapped together, and within them the flowers,
in fact, all the richness and glory of the coming
year, are preserved, cannot be sufficiently ad-
mired.

Towards the end of the month, the throstle
is seen under sunny hedges and southern walls

JANUARY. 15

in pursuit of snails, which he destroys in abun-
dance, particularly in hard winters; he delights
also in chrysalids and worms. Other birds now
quit their retreats in search of food. The nut-
hatch is heard, and larks congregate and fly to
the warm stubble for shelter. Sparrows, yellow-
hammers, and chaffinches crowd into farm-
yards, and attend the barn-door to pick their
scanty fare from the chaff and straw. The red-
breast ventures into the house.

During the mild weather of winter, slugs are
in constant motion, preying on plants and green
wheat. Their coverings of slime prevent the
escape of animal heat, and hence they are ena-
bled to ravage when their brethren of the shell
are compelled to lie dormant. Earth-worms
likewise appear about this time; but let not the
man of nice order be too precipitate in destroy-
ing them—they are the under-gardeners that
loosen the sub-soil, and have their uses in con-
veying away superfluous moisture, and admit-
ting a supply of air to the roots of plants.

The hedge-sparrow and the thrush now begin
to sing. The wren also pipes her perennial lay,
even among the flakes of snow. The golden-
crested wren, from its diminutive size and so-
litary habits, is not often noticed; and may be
easily overlooked; but it is very abundant where
there are plantations of spruce-trees, to which

16 JANUARY.

they are extremely partial, hanging their nests
to the under-surface of the lower branches.
Though apparently of so delicate a nature, they
remain with us all the winter, and appear to
suffer less from cold than even many of our
hard-billed species.

The blackbird whistles; the titmouse pulls
straws out of the thatch, in search of insects;
and linnets congregate. Pullets begin to lay;
young lambs are dropped now in southern
counties, but the more common time of lamb-
ing is in March. The fieldfares, redwings, sky-
larks, and titlarks, resort to watered meadows
for food, and are, in part, supported by the
gnats which are on the snow near the water.
The house-sparrow chirps, and the bat is now
seen. As the cold grows more intense, various
kinds of sea-fowl quit the bleak open shores,
and come up the rivers, where they offer an
unusual prey to the fowler.

RURAL OCCUPATIONS.

The most important business of the farmer
this month, is to feed and comfort his depen-
dent animals: his cattle in their stalls and
straw-yards; his sheep in warm and sheltered
enclosures, giving them hay, straw, turnips, etc.:
looking well after his flocks that they be not
lost in snows; and in forward districts, as in the

JANUARY. 17

neighbourhood of London, housing and carefully
feeding young lambs and calves for the market.
Bee-hives require to be examined, and, if neces-
sary, food supplied. In- frosts, fish-ponds must
have holes broken in the ice, to allow the fish
the necessary air. Deer in parks also require
the fostering care of man to supply them with
hay, branches of trees, etc.; and game in the
woods demand frequently the same attention.
Buck-wheat is sown in the corners and open
spaces in woods, as it bears very well the shade
of trees, and is stacked in the ridings for the
game. In other places, corn and hempseed
are given them in seasons of great severity.
Thrashing is now a regular employment in
some parts of the country, going on even by
candle-light. Farming implements are repair-
ed; drains, ditches, etc. kept open; manure is
led out; and in particular situations, in favour-
able weather, a little ploughing is done, and
common spring-wheat sown. Fruit-trees are
pruned and dug round; hop-grounds trenched,
and orchards planted. Timber is felled, and
stumps and roots cut up to burn. Timber-trees
are planted, and tree-seeds sown.

ANGLING.
Most fresh-water fish are now in season,
excepting trout; but being withdrawn to the
Cc

18 JANUARY.

deepest places, and the weather being generally
intensely cold, the water, for the most part,
frozen over, the angler in general lies by for
better days. Keen sportsmen, however, will be
on the watch at all times, and grayling, now
reckoned excellent, are sometimes taken in the
middle of a bright day, with a grub, or even
with a small fly, two descriptions of which,
Cotton says, may be taken, or imitated, the red-
brown and bright-dun.

MIGRATION OF BIRDS.

The Stork in the heavens knoweth her appointed times; and the
Crane, aud the Turtle, and the Swallow, observe the time of their
COBB: JEREMIAH Viii. 7.

No living creatures which enliven our land-
scape by their presence, excite a stronger sym-
pathy in the lovers of nature, than migratory
birds. The full charm of change and variety
is theirs. They make themselves felt by their
occasional absence; and beside this, they in-
terest the imagination by that peculiar instinct
which is to them chart and compass, directing
their flight over continents and oceans to that
one small spot in the great world where Nature
has prepared for their reception ; which is pilot
and captain, warning them away, calling them
back, and conducting them in safety on their
passage; that degree of mystery, which yet
hangs over their motions, notwithstanding the

JANUARY. 19

anxious perseverance with which naturalists
have investigated the subject ; and all the lively
and beautiful associations of their cries, and
forms, and habits, and resorts. When we think,
for a moment, that the swallows, martins and
swifts, which sport in our summer skies, and
become cohabitants of our houses, will presently
be dwelling in the heart of regions which we
long, in vain, to know, and whither our travel-
lers toil, in vain, to penetrate,—that they will
anon affix their nests to the Chinese pagoda, the
Indian temple, or, beneath the equator, to the
palm-thatched eaves of the African hut; that
the small birds which populate our summer
hedges and fields will quickly spread themselves
with the cuckoo, and its avant courier, the wry-
neck, over the warm regions beyond the pillars
of Hercules, and the wilds of the Levant, of
Greece and Syria; the nightingale will be se-
renading in the chestnut groves of Italy, and the
rose-gardens of Persia; that the thrush and the
fieldfare, which share our winter, will pour out
triumphant music in their native wastes, in the
sudden summers of Scandinavia; that even some
of the wild fowls which frequent our winter
streams will return with the spring, to the far
tracts of North America; and when we call to
our imagination the desolate rocks in the lonely
ocean, the craggy and misty isles of the Orkneys

20 JANUARY.

and Shetlands, where others congregate in my-
riads; or the wild-swan, which sometimes pays
a visit to our largest and most secluded waters,
rewinging its way through the lofty regions of
the air to Iceland, and other arctic lands, we
cannot avoid feeling how much poetry is con-
nected with these wanderers of the earth
and air.

I have endeavoured to mark the arrivals and
departures of this class of birds, in their re-
spective months, in a more clear and complete
manner than has hitherto been done.

No migratory birds arrive this month, if we
except grosbeaks and silktails, which in this, as
in the last, occasionally appear, in very severe
weather, as well as flocks of Norway spinks.
According to Gilbert White, large flocks of hen
chaffinches likewise appear in winter, which are
supposed to come from the Continent. This
singular circumstance seems difficult of solu-
tion.

DEPARTURES.

Clangula glacialis, Long-tailed Pocher, goes Jan. 14, comes
Dec. 20. Haunts, lakes and shores.

Nyroca fuligula, Tufted Pocher, goes Jan 19, comes Dec. 15.
Shores and fresh meres.

Meregns Serrator, Grey Goosander, goes Jan. 20, comes Dec. 28.
Pools and fens.

Coccithraustes vulgaris, Grosbeak, goes Jan. 20, comes Dec, 28.
Hilly fields—rare.

Emberiza nivalis, Snowflake, goes Jan. 20, comes Dec. 28.
Mountains and downs.

JANUARY. 2]

THE GARDEN.

Gardens are amongst the most delightful
things which human art has prepared for our
recreation and refreshment. To say nothing of
the common-places, that a garden was first con-
structed by God himself,—that in the shades of
a glorious garden our first parents were placed
by him,—that our Saviour delighted to walk in a
garden,—that in a garden he suffered his agony,
and that in a garden he was buried; there are a
thousand reasons why gardens should be highly
valued, especially by those who are fond of the
country. Lovers of nature cannot always stroll
abroad to those beauties and delights which lie
scattered far and wide; the physical impedi-
ments of time and space —the severities of
winter, the dews, the hasty storms, and the
strong heats of summer lie between them and
their enjoyment, especially if they be of the
delicate sex. But into a garden—a spot into
which, by the magical power of science, taste.
and adventurous enterprize, the sweetest and
most beautiful vegetable productions, not only
of our own country, but of the whole globe are
collected, they may step at all hours, and at all
seasons; yes, even through the hours of night,
when many glories of Nature are to be witness-
ed; her sweetest odours are poured out; her

22 JANUARY.

most impressive and balmy quiet is sent upon
earth. There, fearless of any “pestilence that
walks in darkness,” the gentlest and most timid
creature may tread the smooth path of the gar-
den, and behold all the calm pageantry of the
glittering host of stars, cf moonlight and of
clouds. The bowers of a good modern garden
invite us from the fierce heat of noon to the
most delicious of oratories,—in dry summer
eves, to the most charming place of social en-
joyment. A garden, with all its accompani-
ments of bowers, secluded seats, shrubberies,
and hidden walks, is a concentration of a thou-
sand pleasant objects, and the field of a multi-
tude of animating pursuits. The rarest beauties
of the vegetable world are not only there con-
gregated, heightened in the richness and splen-
dour of their charms, but there many of them
are actually created.

The feeble invalid and feebler age, they who
cannot lay hold on Nature in her amplitude,
though they may anxiously and intensely thirst
to renew, on heath and mountain, the enchant-
ments of past days, can there grasp a multitude
of her delights at once. The sedentary man,

Secluded but not buried, and with song

Cheering his days,
there finds the most congenial relaxation, the
most restorative exercise ever at hand. The

JANUARY. 23

lover of all bright hues and graceful forms, of
all delicate and spicy aromas, of curious pro-
cesses and wonderful phenomena, of all that is
soothing to the mind, and pleasant to the vision
and the taste, there walks in a fairy-land of his
own creation. There the sun shines tempered
by the coolness of whispering branches; the
breeze blows softly, charged with fragrance,
the dews fall to refresh and awaken sleeping
odours, and birds bring from their wilder haunts
their melodies. To the fair creature, who, like
Eve, is a lover of flowers, what a perpetual
source of affectionate interest, of hopes, and
fears, and speculations, of delightful labours,
cares, and watchings, is found in a garden!
Poets have always delighted to describe their
favourite heroines amid the amenities of gar-
dens, as places peculiarly accordant with the
grace and gentle nature of woman. How beau-
tiful is that passing view which Chaucer gives
us of Emilia, in Palemon and Arcite!

Emily ere day

Arose and dress’d herself in rich array ;
Fresh as the month, and as the morning fair,
Adown her shoulders fell her length of hair ;
A riband did the braided tresses bind,

The rest was loose and wantoned in the wind.
Aurora had but newly chased the night,

And purpled o’er the sky with blushing light,

JANUARY.

When to the garden walk she took her way,
To sport and trip along in cool of day,

And offer maiden vows in honour of the May.
At every turn she made a little stand,

And thrust among the thorns her lily hand
To draw the rose ; and every rose she drew
She shook its stalk, and brush’d away the dew ;
Then party-colour flowers of white and red
She wove, to make a garland for her head ;
This done, she sung and caroll’d out so clear,
Then men and angels might rejoice to hear.

But how much more beautiful is Milton’s pic-
ture of our first mother, pursuing her pleasant
labours in the first garden, issuing from her
bower at Adam’s call,—

Awake ! the morning shines, and the fresh field
Calls us ; we lose the prime to mark how spring
Our tender plants, how blows the citron grove,
What drops the myrrh, and what the balmy reed,
How nature paints her colours, how the bee

Sits on the bloom, extracting liquid sweet :

or, to her sylvan home, as we see her

Just then returned at shut of evening flowers :

or, in the midst of that anguish, when hearing
pronounced her banishment from Eden, she
exclaimed “ with audible lament,”

Oh, unexpected stroke worse than of death !
Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? thus leave
Thee, native soil! these happy walks and shades,
Fit haunt of Gods? where I had hoped to spend,

JANUARY. 25

Quiet, though sad, the respite of that day

That must be mortal to us both. O, flowers,
That never will in other climate grow,

My early visitation and my Jast

At even, which I bred up with tender hand

From the first opening bud, and gave ye names !
Who now shall rear ye to the sun, or rank

Your tribes, and water from the ambrosial fount ?

But Milton, as in other respects, so he is un-
rivalled in his painting of garden scenery. One
cannot but remark, how in that, as in every
thing else, he outwent his own times. In those
days of tortured trees, and stiff, formal fences
and garden-plots, what a magnificent but free,
and naturally beautiful wilderness he has
sketched in the 4th book of Paradise Lost!
From him, and Lord Bacon, whose taste how-
ever was far inferior, we may date the regene-
ration of English pleasure-gardens ; and now
such delightful spots have we scattered through
the country, that the East from which we
borrowed them can scarcely rival them. The
imaginative mind cannot contemplate the as-
semblage, which, from all far-off lands, is there
brought together, without being carried by
them into their own fair regions, nor the reflec-
tive one, without being struck with the innu-
merable benefits we have derived from art and
commerce.

26 JANUARY.

But what crowns all these advantages is, that,
though our towns shut us out from the country,
by our gardens we can bring the country, in
some degree, after us into the town. We have
them at our doors; we contemplate them from
our quietest windows; in some happier in-
stances, they surround, on all sides, our habita-
tions, and make us almost forget that we live

In the dim and treeless town.

With the theory or economy of gardening my
work has nothing to do. Its business is only
with those amenities of Nature which the Sea-
sons present, ready arrayed to our view. For
this purpose I have given, each month, under
the head of “ The Calendar of the Flower Gar-
den,” a list of plants which come into bloom in
that month; and as many plants bloom more
than one month, (some, many months, ) a figure
at the end of the English name will denote the
latest month in which each particular plant is
in flower. This last will be found so copious,
that there are few gardens which contain the

whole; but one will possess some, another,

others, and the Linnean class and order being
given, many persons will be able to form a more
intimate acquaintance with the ornaments of
their gardens than they before had done.

JANUARY. 27

CALENDAR OF THE FLOWER-GARDEN.

Cyclamen Cowm, Class V. Order 1. Round headed Cyclamen. 3.
Galanthus nivalis, VI. 1. Snowdrop. 3.

Hydrangea hortensis, X. 2, Changeable-flowered Hydrangea. 9.
Helleborus niger, XIII. 7. Christmas Rose. 3.

Eranthus hyemalis. Winter Aconite. 4.

Tussilago Alba, XIX. 2. White-leaved Coltsfoot. 3.

ENTOMOLOGY.

The time is past when the study of the names
and natures of insects required an apology.
To assert that they are things too insignificant
for the notice of human beings, is to confess an
ignorance of himself, of the world in which he
lives, and of the God who made both him and
it, that no one now will suffer himself, for a
moment, to be suspected of. What the great
God has condescended to make, can it be a
degradation for “man, who is but a worm,” to
know and consider? Arguments drawn from
the mere bulk of objects, go only to prove that
giants, mammoths, and elephants are the most
estimable and important things in the world,
and that man himself is comparatively of little
moment. These reasonings, therefore, which
at one time furnished the witling with much
merriment at the expense of the naturalist, have
vanished, as they were sure to do: but much
as Entomology is now esteemed, it requires no

28 JANUARY.

prophet to see that it must become more and
more so. To say nothing of the benefits or in-
conveniences we experience from insects ; there
are in their minute shapes such wonderful in-
stincts, powers, and I may add, passions, com-
prised; their habits are so curious, extraordi-
nary, and varied—their forms so splendid and
beautiful — some in their silken robes, some in
their blue and burnished armour, some with
their glowing and gorgeous wings, transparent
as crystal, or feathered like the peacock; they
effect such vast designs with such small means,
and they so haunt all corners of the habitable
globe, that I can conceive no portion of all
God's wonderful creatures, more capable of, at
once, fascinating the attention, charming the
fancy, or exciting the highest admiration in the
most intelligent minds.

I regret that out of upwards of ten thousand
indigenous insects, my catalogue must be con-
fined to a very few—the most splendid, the
most conspicuous, the most curious, and the
most popular—such, in fact, as the general
lover of nature will be most likely to meet with
in his walks, without much seeking after.

JANUARY. 29

SELECT CALENDAR OF BRITISH INSECTS.

Norz.— The Insects of this and all the following lists are named from
the Systematic Catalogue of Stephens.

Cychrus rostratus. Localities, under dead leaves and in rotten
trees during the winter ; pathways in summer.

Carabus catenulatus. Under gorse on heaths.

Carabus cancellatus. Rotten willows in the winter; under stones
and in pathways in summer.

Helobia brevicollis. Very common.

Sphodrus leucophthalmus. Cellars, ete.

Calathus Cisteloides. Common in damp situations,

Colymbetes bipunctatus. i

Colymbetes bipustulatus.

Acilius sulcatus.

Dyticus marginalis. Ponds and ditches.

Dyticus circumfiexus,

Dyticus punctulatus.

Hydrous piceus.

Ptinus Fur. In museums, etc.

Coccinella 7-punctata, Seven-spotted Thadarebaric
Lady-bird.

Coccinella 2-punctata, Two-spotted j
Lady bird.

Acheta domestica, House Cricket.

Notonecta furcata, Furcate-marked Boat-fly.

Notonecta glauca, Common Boat-fiy.

Cheimatobia vulgaris, The Winter Moth. Hedges.

Cheimatobia rupicapraria, Early Moth. Pales and houses.

Peronea spadiceana, The Bay-shouldered Button. Woods.

in winter;
-on plants in summer, de-
vouring Aphides,

. Ponds and ditches.

Most of the insects included in the list for
this month, may be found the greater part of
the year. They hybernate copiously beneath
moss and the bark of trees. Aquatic beetles,
being less subject to atmospheric changes, may
be observed and caught at all seasons, but are
more active during the summer months, when
their, food (the small aquatic larvae) is more

30 JANUARY.

abundant. Being amphibious, and well pro-
vided with wings, they can, when their store of
food is exhausted, fly from one pool to another,
thus avoiding death, either from starvation,
or the drying up of the water in summer.
Equipped with wings, and having a voracious
appetite, they tend materially to keep in check
a myriad of noxious insects, and to purify our
ditches and stagnant pools, which would other-
wise become unfit for cattle.

February.

S
ASS

Xs

Though night approaching bids for rest prepare,

Still the flail echoes through the frosty air,

Nor stops till deepest shades of darkness come,

Sending at length the weary labourer home.
BLOOMFIELD.

FEBRUARY

He giveth snow like wool; he scattereth the hoar-frost like ashes.
He casteth forth his ice like morsels ; who can stand before his cold ?

He sendeth out his word and melteth them; he causeth his winds
to blow, and the waters flow.
Psaum exlvii. 16—18.

As I have already observed, I regard this as
the most cheerless month in the year. There
may be pleasant varieties of it; the latter end
may, and frequently is, much more agreeable
than the commencement ; but, as a whole, it is
as I have characterised it. It is at once damp
and foggy. Besides the earth being saturated
with a whole winter’s moisture, there is gene-
rally abundance of rain during this month, so
much so as to have acquired for it the cogno-
men of ‘‘ February fill-dike.” The frosts and
snows which have been locking up and burying
the earth for weeks and months, are now giving
way, and what is so cheerless and chilly as

AGreEAtT THaw? There is a lack of comfort
felt everywhere. In real winter weather the

32 FEBRUARY.

clear frosty air sharply saluted the face by day,
and revealed to the eye at night a scene of pure
and sublime splendour in the lofty and intensely
blue sky glittering with congregated stars, or
irradiated with the placid moon. There was a
sense of vigour, of elasticity, of freshness about
you, which made it welcome: but now, most
commonly, by day or by night, the sky is hid-
den in impenetrable vapour; the earth is sodden
and splashy with wet; and even the very fire-
side does not escape the comfortless sense of
humidity. Every thing presents to the eye,
accustomed so long to the brightness of clear
frosts, and the pure whiteness of snow, a dingy
and soiled aspect. All things are dripping with
wet: it hangs upon the walls like a heavy dew;
it penetrates into the drawers and wardrobes
of your warmest chambers; and you are sur-
prised at the unusual dampness of your clothes,
linen, books, and papers; and, in short, almost
every thing you have occasion to examine.
Brick and stone floors are now dangerous things
for delicate and thinly-shod people to stand upon.
To this source, and in fact, to the damps of this
month operating in various ways, may be attri-
buted not a few of the colds, coughs, and con-
sumptions so prevalent in England. Pavements
are frequently so much elevated by the expan-
sion of the moisture beneath, as to obstruct the

FEBRUARY. ao

opening and shutting of doors and gates, and
your gravel-walks resemble saturated sponges.
Abroad the streets are flooded with muddy
water, and slippery with patches of half-thawed
ice and snow, which strike through your shoes
inamoment. ‘The houses, and all objects what-
ever, have a dirty and disconsolate aspect; and
clouds of dim and smoky haze hover over the
whole dispiriting scene. In the country the
prospect is not much better: the roads are full
of mire. Instead of the enchantments of hoar-
frost, you have naked hedges, sallow and decay-
ing weeds beneath them, brown and wet pas-
tures, and sheets of ice, but recently affording
so much fine exercise to skaiters and sliders,
half submersed in water, full of great cracks,
scattered with straws and dirty patches, and
stones half liberated by the thaw:—such are
the miserable features of the time.

Let us felicitate ourselves that such joyless
period is seldom of long duration. The winds of
March speedily come piping their jovial strains,
clearing the face of the blessed heavens from
their sullen veil of clouds, and sweeping away
the superabundant moisture from earth and air.
Oh! blithe and animating is the breath of March!
It is like a cool but spirit-stirring draught of
some ancient vintage; elating but not enervating
the heart; deadening the memory of past evil,

D

Oe FEBRUARY.

and expanding it to the delicious hope of future
delights. So precious a boon, however, is not
exclusively permitted to March: February is
often allowed to be a liberal partaker ere its
close, and we have known the winds lift up
their voices this month with all their triumph-
ant and sonorous energy. Nothing can perhaps
illustrate so livingly our idea of a spirit, as a
mighty wind—present in its amazing power and
sublimity, yet seen only in its effects. We are
whirled along with its careering torrent with
irresistible power; we are driven before it, as
Miss Mitford says, as by a steam-engine. How
it comes rushing and roaring over the house,
like the billows of a mighty ocean! Then for
the banging of doors, the screaming and creak-
ing of signs, the clatter of falling shutters in the
street! Then for the crash of chimneys, the
down-toppling of crazy gables, the showering of
tiles upon the pavement, as if the bomb-shells
of a besieging army were demolishing the roofs,
and rendering it even death to walk the streets!
Then for a scene of awful grandeur upon the
glorious ocean! That which, but an hour be-
fore, was calm and sun-bright, a variety of ves-
sels lying at anchor, or sailing to and fro in
serene beauty, then is a scene of sublime and
chaotic uproar !—the waves rolling and foaming,
and dashing their spray over rocks, pier-heads,

FEBRUARY. of5)

houses, and even over the loftiest towers and
churches too, as I have seen it, to an amazing
extent, till the water ran down the walls like
rain, and the windows, at a great distance from
the beach, were covered with a salt incrustation
—the vessels meanwhile labouring amidst the
riotous billows as for life, and tugging at their
cables, as if mad for their escape. Many a
beautiful, many a wild, many an animating
spectacle is to be witnessed on the shores of
our happy isle in such moments. What anxious
groups are collected on the quays of populous
ports! What lonely peril is encountered on
distant strands, where the solitary fisherman
picks up a troubled and precarious livelihood!
Then too for the most animated scene which
the inland country can exhibit in all the twelve
months, a scene mixed with no slight touches of
the grotesque. Wherever you go, the people,
perhaps suddenly aroused from the tranquil fire-
side of a Sunday afternoon, are swarming upon
the roofs of their houses like bees startled from
their cells, by the unexpected appearance of
some formidable intruder, toiling to resist the
outrageous attack of the storm upon the thatch ;
which is, here and there, torn clean from the
rafters, and in other places heaves and pants
as if impatient to try a flight into the next fields,
or garden. There is an universal erection of

36 FEBRUARY.

ladders, a bustling, anxious laying-on of logs,
rails, harrows, or whatever may come to hand
to keep down the mutinous roof. Old wives,
with spectacled noses, and kerchiefs inconti-
nently tied over their mob-caps, are seen re-
connoitring pig-sties, hen-roosts, etc. lest they
be blown down, or something be blown down
upon them. What a solemn and sublime roar
too there is in the woods—a sound as of tem-
pestuous seas! Whatever poetical spirit can
hear it without being influenced by incommu-
nicable ideas of power, majesty, and the stupen-
dous energies of the elements !

Oh storm and darkness, ye are wondrous strong !
What picturesque ruin is there scattered around
you! Trees overwhelmed, immense branches
torn down, small boughs broken, and dry leaves
whirled along, or quivering in the air like birds.
What a harvest of decayed sticks for the Goody
Blakes, who, with their checked-aprons held up,
will not fail to discover it! What a harvest too
for the newspapers, which will be filled for a
season with calamitous accounts of accidents
and deaths by falling of chimneys, shipwrecks,
and so forth!

Towards the end of the month, we are glad-
dened with symptoms of approaching spring.
On warm banks the commencement of vegeta-
tion is perceptible; the sap is stirring in the

FEBRUARY. 37

trees, swelling and feeding the buds: in gardens
a variety of green things are peeping from the
earth, and snow-drops, hepaticas, etc. are ac-
tually in bloom.

In towns it is a cheering sight, even while all
without is frosty and wintry, to see, as we pass,
in cottage windows, tufts of crocuses and snow-
drops flowering in pots; and in those of wealthier
dwellings hyacinths, narcissi, etc. in glasses, dis-
playing their bulbs and long fibrous roots in the
clear water below, and the verdure and flowery
freshness of summer above. It is a sight truly
English. It is in accordance with our ideas of
home-comfort and elegance. If we are to be-
lieve travellers, in no country is the domestic
culture of flowers so much attended to as in this.
I trust this will always be a prevailing taste
with us. There is something pure and refresh-
ing in the appearance of plants in a room; and
watched and waited on, as they are, generally, by
the gentler sex, they are links in many pleasant
associations. They are the cherished favourites
of our mothers, wives, sisters, and friends not
less dear, and connect themselves in our mind
with their feminine delicacy, loveliness, and
affectionate habits and sentiments.

38 FEBRUARY.

February is so called from the Roman custom
of burning expiatory sacrifices, Februalia; the
Saxons called it Sprout-kele, because the kale,
or cabbage began to sprout; and also Sol-mo-
nath, or pancake-month, because cakes were
offered to the sun.

Various signs of returning spring occur at
different times in February. The wood-lark,
one of our earliest and sweetest songsters, often
begins his note at the very entrance of the
month. The thrush now commences his song,
and tomtits are seen hanging on the eaves of
barns and thatched out-houses, particularly if
the weather be snowy and severe. Rooks now
revisit their breeding-trees, and arrange the
stations of their future nests. The harsh, loud
voice of the missel-thrush is now heard towards
the end of the month, and, if the weather be
mild, the hedge-sparrow renews its chirping
note. Turkey-cocks now strut and _ gobble;
partridges begin to pair; the house-pigeon has
young; field-crickets open their holes; and
wood-owls hoot; gnats play about, and insects
swarm under sunny hedges; the stone-curlew
clamours ; and frogs croak. By the end of Fe-
bruary, the raven has generally laid its eggs,
and begun to sit. About this time the green-
woodpecker is heard in the woods making a
loud noise. The elder-tree discloses its flower-

FEBRUARY. 39

buds. The catkins of the hazel become very
conspicuous in the hedges. Young leaves are
budding on the gooseberries and currants about
the end of the month.

What are called Dissected Leaves, i.e. leaves
of which the cuticle and cellular membranes
have been decomposed by the active influence
of wintry rains, winds and frosts, leaving only a
curious network of the veiny fibres, are, about
this season, found blowing about in our path,
particularly in woods, and strongly attract the
‘ attention of young people, who frequently at-
tempt imitations of them by the application of
vinegar or other acids to leaves yet undecom-
posed.

Moles go to work in throwing up their hil-
locks as soon as the earth is softened. Under
some of the largest, a little below the surface
of the earth, they make their nests of moss, in
which four or five young are found at a time.
These animals live on worms, insects, and the
roots of plants. They do much mischief in gar-
dens, by loosening and devouring flower-roots :
but in the fields they seem to do no other harm
than rendering the surface of the ground un-
equal by their hillocks, which obstruct the scythe
in mowing. They are said also to pierce the
sides of dams and canals, and let out the water.
Of this latter charge we should be doubtful.

40 FEBRUARY.

Their instinct, it is very probable, will preserve
them from letting off water which would drown
them, and the approach to which they must
perceive by the moisture of the soil.

A Mole-catcher, Miss Mitford has said, “is of
the earth earthy ;” but he is of the green fields,
of the solitary woodlands. We observe him,
especially in the spring and the autumn, a
silent and picturesque object, poring under
hedges and along the skirts of the forest, or
the margin of a stream, for traces of

The little black-a-moor pioneer

Grubbing his way in. darkness drear.
We have met him in copses and hazel-shaded
lanes, cutting springs for his traps, and we not
only love him, and look upon him as one of the
legitimate objects of rural scenery, but have
often found him a quiet but shrewd observer of
nature, and capable of enriching us with many
fragments of knowledge. In the winter by his
fire he makes his traps. These are very simple
machines, which almost any one may construct.
We have made and set many a one ourselves,
and have been up by the earliest dawn of day
to discover their success. Many moles may be
caught in one place, if the trap be judiciously
set in a main burrow. It is better near a hedge,
or in a plantation, than in the middle of a field,
where it is liable to be disturbed by cattle.

FEBRUARY. 4]

A strong hazel stick for the spring, two pieces
of brass wire, a little string, a few hooked pegs,
and a top made of the half of a piece of willow
pole, about six inches long and three in dia-
meter, hollowed out, are all the requisites for
a mole-trap.

RURAL OCCUPATIONS.

Thrashing, tending cattle, early lambs, calves,
etc. continue, as in last month, to occupy the
thoughts and the hands of the husbandman. Ma-
nures too are carried to grass lands. Plough-
ing is on the increase, and spring wheat, beans,
peas, oats, and tares are sown. In mild weather,
hedges are planted ; overgrown fences are cut,
or plashed. Ponds and drains are made. Tim-
ber is felled, and tree-seeds are sown. Copse-
wood is cut, and plantations are thinned. In the
garden various operations of pruning, digging,
sowing, etc. are going on.

ANGLING.

Almost every fresh water fish is in season
excepting chub, during the latter half of the
month, and trout, which continues so till April.
Roach and dace are deemed to be this month
in prime. They frequent rivers, and must be
sought for at this season in deep, shaded holes,
in clear waters with gravelly bottoms; dace,

42 FEBRUARY.

particularly amongst weeds, and under the foam
caused by eddies. The best baits for them now
are paste, gentles, or larve of beetles, got by
digging up the roots of plants. The flies of this

month are plain hackle, great dun, great blue
dun, and dark dun.

MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS.
ARRIVALS—NONE.

DEPARTURES.

Anas strepera, Gadwell, goes Feb. comes Dec. Haunts, Coasts
in severe winters.

Anas acuta, Pintailed Duck, comes Dec. Lakes and shores.

Anser Brenta, Wild-goose, Brent, goes Feb. 3, comes Dec. 18.
Lakes and marshes.

Anser palustris, Wild-goose, grey Lagg, goes Feb. 10, comes
Oct. 6. Fens.

Auser Erythropus, Laughing Goose, comes Dec. Northern and
Western Coasts.

Anser Bernicla, Bernacle Goose, comes Dec. Northern and Wes-
tern Coasts,

Bombycilla Garrula, Silk-tail, Waxen-chatterer, comes Nov. Near
ivy and hawthorns.

Calidris arenaria, Sanderling, comes Aug. 28. English beach.

Charadrius pluvialis, Golden Plover, goes Feb. 6, comes Nov. 5.
Heathy mountains,

Clangula vulgaris, Golden-eyed Pocher, comes Nov. 29. Shores
and fresh meres.

Columba CEénas, Stock Dove, comes Noy. Woods.

Colymbus arcticus, Black-throated Diver, comes Dec. Sea-shore.

Colymbus septentrionalis, Red-throated Diver, comes Dec. Sea-
shore.

Curruca provincialis, Dartford Warbler, comes Oct. About Lon-
don.

Cygnus ferus, Wild Swan, goes Feb. comes Sept. 4. Northern
Lakes—The Trent.

Fringilla Montifringilla, Mountain Finch, comes Aug. Mountains.

Fringilla Spinus, Siskin, comes Aug. South. About London,

Limosa egocephala, Godwit, comes Aug. Marshes.

Limosa rufa, Bar-tailed Godwit, comes Aug. Sea-shore.

FEBRUARY. 43

Mergus Merganser, Goosander, goes Feb. 4, comes Dec. IS.
Pools and fens.

Mergus Albellus, White-headed Smew, comes Dec. 18. Sea-
shore.

Numenius arquata, Sea Curlew, goes Feb. 6, comes Sept. 4.
Moors in summer.

Nyroca Marila, Scaup Duck, comes Dec. Coasts in severe
winters.

Oidemia fusca, Velvet Duck, comes Dec. Sea-shore.

Oicemia nigra, Black Duck or Diver, comes Dec. Coasts in
severe winters.

Podiceps minor, Lesser Guillimot, comes Oct. Sea-shore.

Somateria mollissima, Eider Duck, comes Dec, Tarn Island,
Northumberland,

Totanus Glottis, Green-shanked Godwit, comes Aug. Sea-shore.

Tringa Canuius, Knot, goes Feb. 3, comes Aug. 28. Sea-shore.

Tringa Alpina, Purre, comes Aug. 28. Sea-shore.

These, it will be seen at a glance, are birds
of more northern climates, which have merely
sought to escape the wintry rigours of their
native regions, and are now returning to pre-
pare for the cares and enjoyments of the sum-
mer in the Orkneys, Shetlands, Iceland, Green-
land, and about Hudson’s Bay, etc. Several of
them, however, only partially migrate, as the
godwit, purre, sanderling, sea curlew, etc. re-
sorting to the fens and moors in the interior in
summer, and returning to the coast in winter.

CALENDAR OF THE FLOWER GARDEN.

Crocus vernus, Class III. Order 1. Spring Crocus. 3.

Cornus mascula, LV. 1. Cornelian Cherry. 3.

Bulbocodium yernus. Spring Bulbocodium. 3.

Andromeda angustifolia, X.1. Narrow-leaved Andromeda. 4.
Helleborus lividus, XIII. 7. Spot-leaved Hellebore.
Tussilago fragrans, XIX. 2. Fragrant Coltsfoot. 3.

44. FEBRUARY.

SELECT CALENDAR OF BRITISH BOTANY.

Galanthus nivalis, Class VI. Order 1. Snowdrop. Locality,
about ruins. Duration 3.

Helleborus fctidus, XIII. 3. Stinking Bearsfoot. Waste
Grounds. 3.

Lamium amplexicaule, XIV. 1. Great Henbit. 8.

Draba verna, XV. 1. Common Whitlow grass. Old walls and
sandy places. 4.

Ulex Europeus, XVII. 3. Gorse or Whin. Heaths, etc. 12.

Senecio vulgaris, XIX. 2. Groundsell. Gardens. 12.

Taxus baceata, XXII.8. Common Yew. Mountainous woods. 3.

SELECT CALENDAR OF BRITISH INSECTS.

Pristonychus Terricola. Haunts, Cellars and caverns. To 9.

Hydrophilus caraboides. Ditches near London. To 10.

Berosus luridus. Ponds. To 9.

Silpha opaca. Sandy places. To 7.

Dermestes lardarius. Houses, etc. To 10.

Coccinella 7-punctata, 7-spotted Lady bird. Various plants. To 10.

Tenebrio Molitor, Meal-worm Beetle. Houses, flour-mills.
To 10.

Eriogaster lanestris, Small Egger. Hedges and thickets. To 6.

Zanthia croceago, Orange Upper-wing. Amongst dry leaves.
To 6,

Aplocera cesiata, The February Carpet. Skirts of woods.

Pristonychus Terricola. I have in this in-
stance deviated from the plan of naming the
insects in the above lists from Mr. Stephens’s
Catalogue, where its generic name is Sphodrus,
and adopted that given in his “ Nomenclature
of British Insects,” as established by De Jean.
It is distinguished from Sphodrus leucophthal-
mus by its smaller size and the absence of
wings.

FEBRUARY. 45

Hydrophilus caraboides. This species, which
is so common in the south of England, (par-
ticularly near London, ) is rarely met with in
the north. In Nottinghamshire I have never
heard of its being taken; the Nottingham dis-
trict, including Sherwood Forest, is however
very productive, although some species are ex-
tremely local. The first British specimens of
Saperda ferrea were taken by myself in the
county.

Berosus luridus. The insects of this beauti-
ful genus are frequently confounded. I would,
therefore, advise the young entomologist to ex-
amine them with care: they delight in pools
having a clayey bottom, and haunt the roots
and stems of aquatic plants near the margin.

Silpha opaca. This rare species is some-
times taken in the vicinity of Nottingham, in
this and the two following months.

Coccinella septem-punctata, or Lady-bird, is
associated with the remembrance of almost
every country ramble, and is welcomed with
rapture by every child who has heard the
nursery air of

Lady-bird! lady-bird! fly away home :

Thy house is on fire, thy children will burn ! ete.
It is an insect that deserves the protection of
every gardener and lover of plants, its food
being the various species of aphides, those de-

46 FEBRUARY.

stroyers and disfigurers of our hot-houses and
gardens. The whole genus is subject to great
variation; so much so, that it is impossible to
determine the species without carefully collect-
ing couples.

Tenebrio Molitor, The larve (commonly
called meal-worms) of this domestic beetle form
the favourite food of the nightingale when in
confinement.

LAYS OF THE SEASONS.

BY MARY HOWITT.

I.
SPRING.

‘he Spring—she is a blessed thing !
She is the mother of the flowers ;
She is the mate of birds and bees,
The partner of their revelries,
Our star of hope through wintry hours.

The merry children when they see
Her coming, by the budding thorn,
They leap upon the cottage floor,
They shout beside the cottage door,
And run to meet her night and morn.

They are soonest with her in the woods,
Peeping, the withered leaves among,

To find the earliest, fragrant thing

That dares from the cold earth to spring,
Or catch the earliest wild-bird’s song.

MARCH.

The little brooks run on in light,

As if they had a chase of mirth ;
The skies are blue, the air is warm,
Our very hearts have caught the charm

That sheds a beauty over earth.

The aged man is in the field ;

The maiden ’mong her garden flowers ;
The sons of sorrow and distress
Are wandering in forgetfulness,

Of wants that fret and care that lowers.

She comes with more than present good—
With joys to store for future years,

From which in striving crowds apart,

The bowed in spirit, bruised in heart,
May glean up hope with grateful tears.

Up—let us to the fields away,
And breathe the fresh and balmy air :
The bird is building in the tree,
The flower has opened to the bee,
And health, and love, and peace are there !

How pleasant ’tis to mark the labouring plough
Traverse the field, and leave a sable track,
While merrily behind the driver stalks,
Whistling in thoughtless vacancy of mind.

D. M. MOIR.

MARCH.

And now men see not the bright light which is in the clouds, but
the wind passeth by and cleanseth them.
Fair weather cometh out of the north.
JoB xxxvii. 21, 22.

Every month, like a good servant, brings
its own character with it. This is a circum-
stance which, the more I have studied the
Seasons, the more I have been led to admire.
Artificial as the division of the months may
be deemed by some, it is so much founded in
nature, that no sooner comes in a new one
than we generally have a new species of wea-
ther, and that instantaneously. This curious
fact is more particularly conspicuous in the
earlier months, there being greater contrast in
them. In comes January,—and let the wea-
ther be what it might before, immediately sets
in severe cold and frost: in February, wet—
wet—wet, which, the moment March enters,
ceases—and lo! instead—even on the very first
of the month, there is a dry, chill air, with

E

50 MARCH.

breaks of sunshine stealing here and there over
the landscape. The clouds above fly about
with a brisker motion, and the paths under our
feet, which yesterday were intolerably miry,
become at once solid and dry. The change is
surprising. Twelve hours of March air will dry
the surface of the earth almost to dustiness,
even though no sunshine should be seen; and
“a peck of March dust is worth a king’s ran-
som,” says the old proverb, which we may
suppose means, that the drying property of
March is invaluable, removing the superabun-
dant humidity, and enabling the husbandman
to get in his seeds—the hope of summer pro-
duce. So speedily does the mire of winter
vanish in this month, that country people, who
connect their adages, which though significant
are not literally true, with something which
makes them partially so, say, “the rooks have
picked up all the dirt,” because the rooks are
now busily employed in building their nests,
and use mire to line them, as do magpies too
at this period; who place their thorny halls on
the tops of the yet leafless trees, objects con-
spicuous but secure.

March is a rude, and sometimes boisterous
month, possessing many of the characteristics
of winter, yet awakening sensations perhaps
more delicious than the two following spring

MARCH. 5

months, for it gives us the first announcement
and taste of spring. What can equal the de-
light of our hearts at the very first glimpse of
spring —the first springing of buds and green
herbs. It is like a new life infused into our
bosoms. <A_ spirit of tenderness, a burst of
freshness and luxury of feeling possesses us:
and let fifty springs have broken upon us, this
joy, unlike many joys of time, is not an atom
impaired. Are we not young? Are we not
boys? Do we not break, by the power of
awakened thoughts, into all the rapturous
scenes of all our happier years? There is
something in the freshness of the soil—in the
mossy bank—the balmy air—the voices of
birds—the early and delicious flowers, that we
have seen and felt only in childhood and spring.
There are frequently mornings in March,
when a lover of Nature may enjoy, in a stroll,
sensations not to be exceeded, or perhaps
equalled by any thing which the full glory of
summer can awaken:—mornings which tempt
us to cast the memory of winter, or the fear
of its return out of our thoughts. The air is
mild and balmy, with, now and then, a cool
gush by no means unpleasant, but, on the
contrary, contributing towards that cheering
and peculiar feeling which we experience only
in spring. The sky is clear; the sun flings

52 MARCH.

abroad not only a gladdening splendour, but
an almost summer glow. ‘The world seems
suddenly aroused to hope and_ enjoyment.
The fields are assuming a vernal greenness—
the buds are swelling in the hedges—the banks
are displaying amidst the brown remains of
last year’s vegetation, the luxuriant weeds of
this. There are arums, ground-ivy, chervil, the
glaucus leaves, and burnished flowers of the
pilewort,
The first gilt thing
That wears the trembling pearls of spring ;

and many other fresh and early bursts of green-
ery. All unexpectedly, too, in some embowered
lane, you are arrested by the delicious odour
of violets, those sweetest of Flora’s children,
which have furnished so many pretty allusions
to the poets, and which are not: yet exhausted :
they are like true friends, we do not know half
their sweetness till they have felt the sunshine |
of our kindness: and again, they are like the
pleasures of our childhood, the earliest and the
most beautiful. Now, however, they are to
be seen in all their glory—blue and white —
modestly peering through their thick, cluster-
ing leaves. The lark is carolling in the blue
fields of air; the blackbird and thrush are again
shouting and replying to each other, from the
tops of the highest trees. As you pass cot-

MARCH. 53

tages, they have caught the happy infection:
there are windows thrown open, and doors
standing ajar. The inhabitants are in their
gardens, some clearing away rubbish, some
turning up the light and fresh-smelling soil
amongst the tufts of snow-drops and rows of
bright yellow crocuses, which every where
abound; and the children, ten to one, are peep-
ing into the first birds’-nest of the season—the
hedge-sparrow’s, with its four sea-green eg
snugly but unwisely built in the pile of old
pea-rods.

In the fields labourers are plashing and
trimming the hedges, and in all directions are
teams at plough. You smell the wholesome,
and, I may truly say, aromatic soil, as it is

rs
Foad

turned up to the sun, brown and rich, the
whole country over. It is delightful, as you
pass along deep hollow lanes, or are hidden in
copses, to hear the tinkling gears of the horses,
and the clear voices of the lads calling to them.
It is not less pleasant to catch the busy caw
of the rookery, and the first meek cry of the
young lambs. The hares are hopping about
the fields, the excitement of the season over-
coming their habitual timidity. The bees are
revelling in the yellow catkins of the sallow.
The harmless English snake is seen again curl-
ed up, like a little coil of rope, with its head

54 MARCH.

in the centre, on sunny, green banks. The
woods, though yet unadorned with their leafy
garniture, are beautiful to look on;—they seem
flushed with life. Their boughs are of a clear
and glossy lead colour, and the tree-tops are
rich with the vigorous hues of brown, red,
and purple; and, if you plunge into their soli-
tudes, there are symptoms of revivification
under your feet—the springing mercury and
green blades of the blue-bells—and perhaps
above you, the early nest of the missel-thrush,
perched between the boughs of a young oak,
to tinge your thoughts with the anticipation of
summer. These are mornings not to be neg-
lected by the lover of Nature, and if not neg-
lected, then not forgotten; for they will stir
the springs of memory, and make us live over
again, times and seasons that we cannot, for the
pleasure and purity of our spirits, live over too
much.

In March the shells of snails, which have
perished during the winter, will be seen in
great numbers, thrown out upon the banks by
the crumbling down of the mould, rendered
light by winter-frosts, and now loosened by the
dry, penetrating air. Where the larger species
of snails abound, their broken shells will also
be found in heaps under the hedges, where-
ever there is a stone, the throstles digging

MARCH. 55

them out and laying them on the stone, the
more readily to fracture them;—a fact but
recently noticed by naturalists, but familiar to
the peasantry. Cottagers now gather the ten-
der-springing tops of nettles to make pottage,
considered by them a great purifier of the
blood. They also boil them instead of spinach,
as they do the tops of the wild hop, as a sub-
stitute for asparagus. But of all vegetables that
are cultivated, next to the potato, rhubarb has
become, perhaps, the most valuable to the poor,
and pleasant to all. Of late its growth has
rapidly increased, and people who, some years
ago, never saw such an article exposed in our
markets, are now astonished at the quantities
brought there, and disposed of with the greatest
readiness. As a most wholesome and agreeable
vegetable, coming in early and supplying a de-
lightful acidulous material for pies and pud-
dings, till gooseberries are ready, it is inva-
luable, and seems destined to acquire universal
estimation.

March, which was the first month in anti-
quity, was named so after Mars, the god of
war, because he was the father of their first
Prince. This, at least, is the reason given by
Ovid. The Saxons called it Lenet-monath,

56 MARCH.

because the days now began in length to exceed
the nights. enct also means spring ; therefore
it was their spring month. It was called, too,
by them Fhed-monath, from Rheda, one of their
deities, to whom sacrifices were offered in
March, and from raed, council, March being
the month wherein wars or expeditions were
undertaken by the Gothic tribes. They also
called it Hlyd-monath, or the Stormy-month.

Bats and reptiles break up their winter sleep;
the little smelts or sparlings run up the softened
rivers to spawn; the fieldfare and woodcock
return to their northern quarters ; the rooks are
all in motion with building, and it is said by
gentlemen who have observed them for many
successive years, that the commencement of
their building is so exactly timed, that it is
often on the same day of each returning spring ;
hens sit; geese and ducks lay; pheasants crow;
the ring-dove coos; young lambs appear; the
throstle sings; and lastly the bee issues forth
with his vernal trumpet to tell us news of sun-
shine and flowers.

In nature there is nothing melancholy.

Frogs which during winter lay in a torpid state
at the bottom of ponds and ditches, early in
this month rise to the surface of the water in
vast swarms. The linnet, the gold-finch, the
golden-crested wren, and the green-finch are in

MARCH. bh

song; the blackbird and the turkey lay; house-
pigeons sit; and the viper uncoils itself from its
winter sleep. The wheatear, or English Or-
tolan (saxicola cenanthe) again pays its annual
visit, leaving England in September. The gan-
nets or Soland geese, resort in March to the
Hebrides, and other rocky islands of North
Britain, to make their nests and lay their eggs.
In March and April before pairing-time, star-
lings may be seen in the fields, in large dense
flocks, circling about in their remarkable wheel-
ing kind of flight; and, ever and anon, settling
upon some tree, which they cover to blackness,
and making a cheerful warbling chorus, much
in the same manner as the red-wing thrushes
before they take their departure for the north.
In this month, black ants are observed; trouts
begin to rise; and blood-worms appear in the
water. The clay hair-worm is found at the
bottom of drains and ditches, and the water-
flea may be seen gliding about on the surface
of sheltered pools. Black beetles may now be
observed flying about in the evening. Roach
and dace float near the surface of the water,
and sport about in pursuit of insects. Peas
appear above ground; the sea-kale (crambe
maritima) now begins to sprout. The male
blossoms of the yew tree expand and discharge
their farina. Besides the catkins of the hazel

58 MARCH.

and the sallow, the alder-trees are now covered
with a kind of black bunches, which are male
and female flowers. The leaves of honey-
suckles are nearly expanded, violets white and
blue appear, and daffodils,

Which come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty.

RURAL OCCUPATIONS.

Cattle still require feeding in the yard.
Ploughing and sowing are now going on vigo-
rously, while the dry March air favours the
operation ; and spring-wheat, rye, barley, beans,
peas, etc. are got in. The principal fall of
lambs takes place now, and the shepherds are
full of cares. Night and day they must be on
the watch to assist the ewes, to cherish weakly
lambs with warm milk, to restore others that
appear dead by administering a little spirit; to
counteract the unnatural disposition of some
mothers that refuse their offspring; or to find
foster-mothers for poor orphans, which is often
done by clothing them in the skins of the dead
lambs of those ewes to which they are con-
signed. Others for which no foster-mothers
can be found, or which cannot suck on account
of their being wry-necked, are reared generally
by the assistance of a tea-pot with cow’s milk,
and are called cades or pets. In hilly or more

MARCH. 59

northern counties, where the cold is greater,
and the grass not so early, lambs are later also,
even till far in May.

Planting and plashing of hedges should now
be finished, if not done before; so also the
pruning and grafting of fruit-trees, and the
planting of deciduous trees. Timber is felled,
coppice-wood cut, and plantations thinned, if
not done in February. Hop-plantations are
formed, and the old hills are cut and dressed.
Osiers are now cut, preparatory to peeling:
when cut, they are set on end in sheaves, in
standing water, a few inches deep, till, by the
ascension of the sap in May, they will readily
peel. Birch trees are tapped in this month, and
Birch wine made: some trees will run twenty-
four gallons in as many hours. There are many
operations in the garden this month; digging,
planting, and sowing. Water meadows are
closed for the first crop.

ANGLING.

The fresh-water fish which are about spawn-
ing, or are more or less out of season, are trout,
salmon, chub, pike, and perch; roach is now
excellent, and may be found and baited for as
in last month.

As fine days come out, the angler becomes
anxious to renew his acquaintance with his old

60 MARCH.

haunts; and therefore, having his tackle all in
good order for the campaign, he issues from his
winter quarters. His sport is, however, a good
deal confined to bottom-fishing, principally with
the worm, the warmth not having yet sufficient-
ly rendered the fish alert.

Fly baits. This month the same flies and
tackle as in the last, but made less: also the
wheeling dun, or bright brown, a whitish dun,
the thorn-tree fly, the blue dun, the black gnat.

MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS.

ARRIVALS.

Emberiza Miliaria, Bunting, comes March 3, goes Aug. Haunts,
Grassy fields.

Emberiza Scheeniclus, Reed Sparrow, goes Sept. Marshes, reedy
streams.

Larus ridibundus, Red-legged Sea-mew, comes March 4, goes
Aug. 12. The beach.

Oidicnemus Bellonii, Stone Curlew, goes Sept. Upland fields,
sheepwalks.

Regulus Hippolais, Least Willow Wren, Chiff-chaff, comes March
23, goes Sept. Woods.

Saxicola (Enanthe, Wheatear, goes Sept. Plonghed fields, heaths.

DEPARTURES.

Anas Crecca, Teal, goes March 6, comes Oct, 20, Haunts, Lakes
and streams.

Anas Penelope, Widgeon, comes Noy. Lakes and streams,

Corvus Cornix, Roystan, or Hooded Crow, goes March 22, comes
Oct. 3. Downs.

Falco Ausalon, Merlin, comes Oct. 3. Woods.

Nyroca ferina, Red-headed Pocher, goes March 3, comes Nov. 19.
Fens.

Scolopax Gallinago, Common Snipe, goes March 6, comes Sept. 1.
English marshes.

Scolopax Gallinula, Jack Snipe, comes Sept. 10. English marshes,

MARCH. 61

Scolopax Rusticola, Woodcock, comes Oct. Dec. North of En-
rope, copses,

Strepsilas interpres, Common Turnstone, comes Aug. Sea-shore.
Builds in Zetland.

Sula Bassana, Ganet, or Solon Goose, comes Sept. Nov. Scotch
isles, innumerable.

Turdus Iliacus, Redwing Thrush, c. Sept. Nov. Fields generally.

Turdus pilaris, Fieldfare, comes Sept. Nov. Fields generally.

The greater part of our winter birds have
now left us, and the earliest of the summer ones
have arrived. Some of the snipes remain all
the year. The bunting and reed-sparrow are
said to remain in the southern counties through
the winter. Of this class of partially migratory
birds, we have a considerable number.

CALENDAR OF THE FLOWER GARDEN,

Class III. Order 1. Ivis Susiana, Chalcidonian Iris. 4.
Iris tuberosa, Snake’s-head Iris. 4.

Iris Persica, Persian Iris.

V. 1. Lonicera nigra, Black-leaved Honeysuckle. 4.
Pulmonaria Virginica, Virginian Lungwort. 4.
Borago orientalis, Perennial Borage, 5.

Allinm inodorum, Scentless Garlic.

Viola calcarata, Alpine Violet. 6.

Vi. 1. Narcissus major, Large Daffodil.

Narcissus Pseudo-narcissus, Common Daffodil. 4,
Fritillaria Imperialis, Crown Imperial. 4.
Erythronium Dens-canis, Dog tooth Violet.

Scilla bifolia, Two-leaved Squill.

Scilla ameena, Early flowering Squill. 4.

Hyacinthus orientalis, Garden Hyacinth.

Leucojum vernum, Snow. flake.

VIII. 1. Erica Mediterranea, Mediterranean Heath. 5.
Erica Australis, Spanish Heath. 7.

Daphne Mezereum, Mezereon.

X. 1. Ledum buxifolium, Box-leaved Ledum. 4.
Rhododendron Dauricum, Dauric Rhododendron.
Andromeda caliculata, Globe-flowered Andromeda. 4.

62 MARCH.

Arbutus Andrachne, Eastern Arbutus. 4.

X.2. Saxifraga crassifolia, Thick-leaved Saxifrage. 5.
Saxifraga cordifolia, Heart-leaved Saxifrage. 5.
Saxifraga ovata, Great Saxifrage. 4.

XII. 1. Amygdalus nana, Ronugh-leaved Almond. 4.
Amygdalus communis, Common Almond. 4.
Amygdalus Siberica, Siberian Almond. 4,

Prunus Armeniaca, Apricot tree.

XIi. 5. Rosa semperflorens, Red China Rose. 10.
XIII. 1. Sanguinaria Canadensis, Canada Puccoon, 4.
XIII. 7. Anemone Hepatica, Common Hepatica.
Adonis vernalis, Spring Adonis-flower. 4.

Clematis cirrhosa, Evergreen Virgin’s Bower. 4.

XIV. 2. Erinus alpinus, Alpine Erinus. 4.

XV.1. Draba azoides, Hairy-leaved Whitlow Grass.
XV. 2. Cardamine trifolia, Three-leaved Cardamine. 4.
Arabis alpina, Alpine Wallcress. 5.

XVII. 2. Fumaria cava, Hollow Fumitory.

XIX. 2. Tussilago paradoxa, Downy-leaved Coltsfoot. 4.
XXI. 3. Comptonia asplenifolia, Fern-leaved Gale. 4.
XXII. 7. Populus balsamifera, Tacamahac Poplar,

SELECT CALENDAR OF BRITISH BOTANY.

Class III. Order 1. Crocus vernus, Purple Spring Crocus. Lo-
cality, Meadows. Duration, 4.

Crocus reticulatus, Net-rooted Crocus. Pastures—Suffolk. 4.

Triconema Bulbocodium, Channel-leaved Triconema. Guern-
sey. 4.

Eriophorum vaginatum, Horse-tailed Cotton Grass. Bogs. 4.

V.1. Viola odorata, Sweet-scented Violet. Banks and Woods. 5.

V. 2. Ulmus campestris, cum aliis. Small-leaved Elm, with
others. Hedges. 4.

VI. 1. Narcissus pseudo-narcissus, Common Daffodil. Woods
and pastures. 4.

Ornithogalum luteum, Yellow Star of Bethlehem. Woods. 4.

Scilla bifolia, Two-leaved Squill. Woods, rare. 4.

VIII. 1. Daphne Mezereum, Mezereon. Woods, rare. 4,

Daphne Lauriola, Spurge Laurel. Woods and hedges. 4.

XII. 1. Prunus spinosa, Sloe, or Blackthorn, Hedges. 4.

XII.3. Potentilla Fragariastram, Barren Strawberry. Banks. 6.

XIII. 3. Anemone Pulsatilla, Pasque Flower. Chalky pas-
tures. 5.

Ranunculus Ficaria, Lesser Celandine. Banks. 5.

Caltha palustris, Marsh Marygold. Wet places. 5.

XIV. 1. Glechoma hederacea, Ground Ivy. Banks. 6.

MARCH. 63

XV. 2. Cardamine hirsuta, Hairy Cardamine. Moist shady
places. 6.

XIX. 2. Tussilago Farfara, Coltsfoot. Moist shady places. 4.

Bellis perennis, Daisy. Pastures. 10.

XXI. 1. Euphorbia amygdaloides, Wood Spurge. Woods. 4.

XXI. 3. Alnus glutinosa, Common Alder. River sides. 4.

XXI. 5. Corylus Avellana, Hazel Nut. Woods. 4.

XXII. 1. Salix purpurea, cum aliis. Bitter purple Willow, with
others. Meadows. 4.

XXII. 2. Ruscus aculeatus, Butcher’s Broom. Heaths and
Woods. 4,

XXII. 6. Populus Alba, cum aliis. White Poplar, with others.
Moist Woods. 4.

SELECT CALENDAR OF BRITISH INSECTS.

Cicindela campestris. Haunts, sandy fields. To 7.

Leistus spinibarbis. Sandy situations. To 5.

Leistus fulvibarbis, Under stones; damp places. To9.

Peecilus dimidiatus. Dry banks, basking in the sun-shine. To 5.

Pecilus cupreus. Pathways. To 7.

Pecilus rufifemoratus. Pathways in the north. To 7.

Stomis pumicatus. Moist places. To 7.

Gyrinus natator. Surface of the water. To 10.

Gyrinus eneus. Surface of the water. To 9.

Necrophorus Mortuorum. Dead animals in woods. To 10.

Necrophorus Vespillo, Sexton Beetle. Dead animals in woods.
To 10.

Byrrbus pilula. Path-ways in sandy places. To 8.

Dorcus parallelipipedus, Lesser Stag Beetle. Rotten Ash-trees.
Tos.

Opilus mollis. Rotten trees; in woods. To 7.

Pogonocerus hispidus. Decayed trees. To 7.

Chrysomela Litura. Broom. To 6.

Timarcha coriaria. Heaths. To 8.

Coccinella 22-punctata, 22-Spotted Lady-bird. Weedy banks.
To 9.

Pedinus femoralis. Sandy sea-coast. To 4.

Proscarabeeus vulgaris. Sunny banks. To 5.

Corixa Geoffroyi. Ponds and ditches. To 10.

Macroglossa Stellataruam, Humming Bird. Gardens. To 3, 6,
and 9.

Brepha Parthenias, Orange Underwing. Willow blossoms. To
3, 6, and 9.

Brepha notha, Light Orange Underwing. Willow blossoms.
York. To 3, 6, and 9.

Anisopteryx Alscularia, March Moth. Willow blossoms. York.
To 3,6, and 9

64 MARCH.

Mr. Stephens has mentioned, on the autho-
rity of several continental entomologists, some
of the peculiarities of the larve of the genus
Cicindela. The depth of their cylindric retreat
(eighteen or nineteen inches) appears to be
much greater on the Continent than with us.
I have examined in all the stages of the larve
more than thirty holes, inhabited by the Cicin-
dela campestris, and have never found one ex-
ceeding six inches, the majority not more than
four or five. It is worth inquiry whether this
difference depends on climate, or whether each
species is peculiar in this respect.

Peecilus rufifemoratus. This insect, which
appears to be not uncommon in the north, is
sparingly taken in the sand district of Notting-
hamshire. With the exception of the Pedinus
femoralis, the whole of the coleoptera of the
above list are more or less common in this
neighbourhood. Mr. Bunting, of Mansfield, in-
forms me that Necrophorus Mortuorum is fre-
quently found on the Phallus impudicus.

Necrophorus Vespillo. Most writers on en-
tomology have noticed the fact that this species
is in the habit of burying moles or birds a consi-
derable depth in the ground, in order to deposit
its eggs in them. In this neighbourhood both
the Vespillo and Sepultor, and also the Necrodes
littoralis pursue the same plan; and J should ima-
gine most of our large Necrophaga do the same.

Thou that hast loved so long and well
The vale’s deep quiet streams,

Where the pure water-lilies dwell,
Shedding forth tender gleams ;

And o’er the pool the May-fly’s wing

Glances in golden eves of spring ;—
Oh! loved and lovely haunts are thine!

MKS.

HEMANS.

APRILI.

Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it ; thou greatly enrichest it
with the river of God, which is full of water; thou preparest them
corn, when thou bast so provided for it.

Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly ; thou settlest the
furrows thereof ; thou makest it soft with showers; thou blessest the
springing thereof,

Thou crownest the year with thy goodness, and thy paths drop
fatness.

They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness, and the little hills
rejoice on every side.

The pastures are clothed with flocks, and the valleys also are
covered over with corn; they shout for joy; they also sing.

Psaums Ixv, 9—13.

Tue month of April is proverbial for its
fickleness ; for its intermingling showers, and
flitting gleams of sunshine; for all species of
weather in one day; for a wild mixture of clear
and cloudy skies, greenness and nakedness, fly-
ing hail and abounding blossoms. But to the
lover of Nature, it is not the less characterized by
the spirit of expectation with which it imbues
the mind. We are irresistibly led to look for-
ward, to anticipate, with a delightful enthusiasm,
the progress of the season. It is one of the ex-

F

66 APRIL.

cellent laws of Providence, that our minds shall
be insensibly moulded to a sympathy with that
season which is passing, and become deprived,
in a certain degree, of the power of recalling
the images of those which are gone by; whence
we reap the double advantage of not being dis-
gusted with the deadness of the wintry land-
scape, from a comparison with the hilarity of
spring: and when spring itself appears, it comes
with a freshness of beauty which charms us
at once with novelty, and a recognition of old
delights. Symptoms of spring now crowd thick-
ly upon us: however regular may be our walks,
we are daily surprised at the rapid march of ve-
getation, at the sudden increase of freshness,
greenness, and beauty; one old friend after ano-
ther starts up before us in the shape of a flower.
The violets which came out in March in little
delicate groups, now spead in myriads along
the hedge-rows, and fill secluded lanes with their
fragrance. In some springs, however, though
most abundant, yet, perhaps, owing to the dry-
ness of the weather, they are almost scentless.
The pilewort, or lesser celandine, too, is now
truly beautiful, opening thousands and tens of
thousands of its splendidly gilt and starry flowers
along banks, and at the feet of sheltered thick-
ets; so that, whoever sees them in their perfec-
tion, will cease to wonder at the admiration

APRIL. 67

which Wordsworth has poured out upon them
in two or three separate pieces of poetry. Ane-
monies blush and tremble in copses and _pas-
tures; the wild cherry enlivens the woods; and
in the neighbourhood of Nottingham the vernal
crocus presents a unique and most beautiful ap-
pearance, covering many acres of meadow with
its bloom; rivalling whatever has been sung of
the fields of Enna; gleaming at a distance like
a perfect flood of lilac, and tempting very many
little hearts, and many graver ones too, to go
out and gather.

The blossom of fruit-trees presents a splendid
scene in the early part of the month, gardens
and orchards being covered with a snowy pro-
fusion of plum-bloom; and the black-thorn and
wild plum wreathe their sprays with such pure
and clustering flowers, that they gleam in the
shadowy depths of woods as if their boughs
radiated with sunshine. In the latter part of
the month, the sweet and blushing blossoms of
apples and the wilding, fill up the succession,
harmonizing delightfully with the tender green
of the expanding leaves, and continuing through
part of May.

The catkins, or pendulous flowers of many of
the trees are now peculiarly beautiful ; those of
the birch hang like golden tassels, and especially
where these elegant trees abound, as they do in

68 APRIL.

the romantic defiles of the Trosachs; ranging
themselves stem above silvery stem up the rocky
heights, they present a lovely aspect. Those of
the Tacamahac hang large and abundant, and
with the young, unfolding leaves diffuse a fine
aromatic odour. The ash-trees are quite black
with their large conglomerated buds, which gra-
dually unfold themselves into tufts of fibres,
whence the keys afterwards depend. The al-
der too is covered, as in the end of last month,
with its dark bunches; and the elm is perfectly
shrouded in its hop-like blossoms till the end of
May. ‘The flowering of this tree, so striking
and beautiful, yet so little noticed by poets, has
been introduced into some beautiful lines refer-
ring to this season—

When daisies blush, and windflowers wet with dew ;

When shady lanes with hyacinths are blue ;

When the elm blossoms o’er the brooding bird,

And wild and wide the plover’s wail is heard ;

When melts the mist on mountains far away,

Till morn is kindled into brightest day.

Author of ‘ Corn-Law Rhymes.”

But perhaps the most delightful of all the
features of this month are the return of mi-
gratory birds, and the commencement of build-
ing their nests. Not only the swallow tribe,
the cuckoo, and the nightingale, whose arrival
is noticed by almost everybody, but scores of
other old acquaintances suddenly salute you in

APRIL. 69

your walks, with their well-remembered aspects
and notes. White-throats, whinchats, reed-
sparrows, etc. perched on their old haunts, and
following their diversified habits, seem as little
fatigued, or strange, as if they had worn invi-
sible jackets all winter, and had never left the
spot. There is something truly delightful to
the naturalist in the beauty of birds’ nests, and
the endless varieties of colours, spots and hie-
roglyphic scrolls, on their eggs; the picturesque
places in which they are fixed, from the lap-
wing’s on the naked fallow, to that of the eagle
in its lofty and inaccessible eyrie; in the different
degrees of art displayed, from the rude raft of a
few sticks, made by the wood-pigeon, to the ex-
quisite little dome of the golden-crested wren,
or the long-tailed titmouse (parus caudatus), 2
perfect oval stuck between the branches of a
tree, having a small hole on one side for en-
trance ; the interior lined with the most downy
feathers, enriched with sixteen or seventeen
eggs, like small oval pearls; and the exterior
most tastefully decorated with a profusion of
spangles of silvery lichen on dark-green moss.
Boys are completely absorbed by their admi-
ration of birds’ nests. In vain do parents scold
about torn clothes, scratched hands, shoes spoil-
ed with dew; every field and wood is traversed,
every bush explored; no tree is too high, no

70 APRIL.

rock too dangerous to climb; sticks split at the
end, are thrust into every hollow in wall, eaves,
or tree-trunk, to twist out the hidden nest; and
I myself recollect being held by the heels over
an old coal-pit sixty yards deep to reach a
blackbird’s nest built in a hole two or three feet
below the surface of the ground.

But it is not boys merely who are struck with
the beauty of birds’ nests and eggs, and with
the picturesque situations in which they are
placed; there are few people of taste residing
in the country who do not see them with a live-
ly pleasure. Let us take a survey of these in-
teresting objects. Let us suppose that we are
in an old farm-house. The chimney is inha-
bited by the swallow, and the eaves by the mar-
tin, who have there fixed their mud nests, lined
them with feathers, and laid in them their five
or six white eggs spotted with red. The spar-
rows have found a crevice in the eaves, or the
roof, or if it be of thatch, have scooped them-
selves a large hole, and therein made their nests
of hay, lined them with feathers, and laid, each
pair, five black-spotted eggs. In defect of a
good situation in the house, they disdain not
to fix their nest, like a wisp of hay, in a tree
near it. They delight, too, to build amongst the
sticks of rook-nests, particularly under the mud
bottom, which forms a brave roof and defence

APRIL. vA

against rain for them, In windy weather, how-
ever, the rook-nests are frequently blown down,
and. the sparrows, in great numbers, share their
fate. The spotted fly-catcher has found a
square hole in the wall, or a branch of a tree
trained against it, where its nest and red-spot-
ted eggs are deposited. If it be a half-timbered
house, it is ten to one but that the red-start has
found a hole too, in one of the upright tim-
bers, in which its nest and sea-green eggs are
deposited; or the little tomtit has occupied that
post. This active little bird, which we see in
the shrubbery swinging about at the ends of
slender boughs in pursuit of caterpillars, ete.
will sometimes become so tenacious of its dwell-
ing, that I have known one build within the
window-frame of a sitting-room, which, when
any of the family knocked on the wood close
to its nest, would immediately reply by several
smart raps with its bill. This answer was never
omitted during the period of incubation by the
bird, which built there for several successive
years. This, and most other birds which build
about the habitations of men, very commonly
depart from that regularity of instinct which
prompts them to employ only material of a
certain kind in their nests, and gather up pieces
of cotton, shreds of cloth, and even needles and
thread, which have been found worked up into

72 APRIL.

these curious, motley fabrics. The same de-
parture from the uniformity of material may be
observed in situations where the article com-
monly used is not to be found; otherwise, in
selection of materials, in the degree of inge-
nuity displayed in putting them together, in
choice of situation, every bird adheres exactly
to the practice of its species and ancestry, and
that without instruction. This is one of the
marvels of instinct.

In the barn there is the owl; and amongst
the old crooked trees of the orchard a great
variety of bird-habitations. In one hollow tree
the wry-neck has built: in another the ox-eye ;
in a third the starling. The missel-thrush has

constructed a nest large as a man’s head, of

hay and wool, which often hang in large wav-
ing locks, in the pear-tree. Its eggs, like those
of the water-hen, and the crake, are marked
with large pink spots. The wren has inserted
its oval nest of green moss, leaving only a small
side-entrance, into the roof of a shed, or into
the stump of an old ivied thorn; and so sen-
sitive is this little creature, that if her nest
be only touched with a finger, she will very sel-
dom enter it again. The chaffinch delights to
build its beautiful nest, spangled with silvery
lichens, and lined with soft cow-hair, in the
apple-tree; the goldfinch on the very topmost

APRIL. 73

bough of the pear, and the small brown linnet
(fringilla linaria) often builds too in the latter
situation. Its nest is of the most beautiful de-
scription, fabricated of a mixture of moss and
wool, and lined with the pure white down of the
willow catkin; the whole interior not much ex-
ceeding in size the hollow half of a hen’s egg.
Its eggs, five in number, are of a delicate bluish-
grey, brown-spotted.

If we step into the field, we find in the grass
at our feet the nests of various species of lark,
with their dark brown speckled eggs; the whin-
chats with its eggs of sea-green, and the par-
tridge’s with perhaps fifteen eggs of a deep
cream colour. So closely does the partridge sit
during incubation, that the mower often un-
awares cuts off its head with his scythe. In the
banks, now luxuriant with green herbs, the yel-
low-hammer builds a nest of grass, and lines
it with fine fibrous roots and horse-hair; and
lays five eggs of a palish purple, ornamented
with deep purple flourishes of a hieroglyphic-
like appearance. The robin too builds in the
bank, and his nest may be immediately known
by the brown withered leaves collected at its
door, so to speak, as if he always bore them
in his escutcheon, in memory of his meritorious
behaviour to “the Babes in the Wood.” The
fame of that good deed is his perpetual de-

74 APRIL.

fence. None but the most hardened and grace-
Jess lads will rob a wren or a robin, for, says
their legend—
Robinets and Jenny Wrens
Are God Almighty’s Cocks and Hens ;

And it is likewise a tradition amongst them
that if you rob either of these the cows will
give bloody milk. On the banks too, or in the
outskirts of a thicket, or where some thorns
have been laid and the tall grass has grown up
amongst them, the little willow-wren builds an
oval nest after the fashion of the common wren
and the feather-poke, and lays a great number
of eggs in a mass of warm feathers. The eggs
of all these birds are much alike in colour; of
a pale delicate bloom with red spots. The
white-throat builds in almost every wild rose-
bush a thin gauzy nest of the dry stalks of the
ladies’-bed-straw, or suspends it among the
fresh-growing nettles, and lays five eggs of a
tawny colour, brown-spotted. Under hollow
banks, amongst the “old fantastic roots” of
trees, especially overhanging a brook, the black-
bird delights to build its nest of dry bents,
daubed internally with mud, and lined with soft
dry grass. Its eggs, in common with those of
the rook, crow, and magpie, are pale sea-green,
and brown-spotted. In such situations the wren
too loves to build, and the thrush. But the

APRIL. 75

thrush, above all things, likes to place its nest
by the side of a young fir-tree in a plantation.
In young larch and spruce woods they may be
found by hundreds; the nest uncommonly deep,
lined only with mud, or mud and cow-dung.
Its eggs are of a bright sea-green, with large
circular black spots. They are very beau-
tiful.

In the woods the nest of the jay may be
found, in the lower trees, particularly the wild-
ing, a large nest of moss, with eggs coloured
like those of the missel-thrush. The wood-
pigeon builds on lofty fir-trees, or trees covered
with ivy. The nest is a mere layer of sticks,
through which the two white eggs may be often
seen from the ground. The hawk chooses the
tops of the loftiest trees; and the magpie’s nest
may be seen in early spring in the tops of the
leafless trees, a large cone of thorns, which is
daubed internally with mud and lined with fine
fibrous roots. It sometimes also builds in tall
hawthorn hedges. Wherever it be, wild or
tame, it is the monkey of birds, full of mischief
and mimickry. A gentleman told me, that one
he kept having stolen various articles was
watched by him narrowly; and at length was
seen by him busy in the garden gathering peb-
bles, and with much solemnity and a studied air
dropping them into a hole about eighteen inches

76 APRIL.

deep, made to receive a line-post. After drop-
ping each stone, it cried “ carack !” triumphant-
ly, and set off for another. Making himself sure
that he had found the objects of his search, the
gentelman went to the place, and found in the
hole a poor toad which the magpie was stoning
for his amusement.

One of the most interesting birds is the lap-
wing. Its plaintive cry belongs to solitary
places. On the barren pasture, or bare fallow,
it lays its eggs in a little hollow in the naked
earth. They are of a pale, dull ochre colour,
darkly spotted, large, very broad at one end,
and very narrow at the other. The curious
appearance of these birds, the anxiety of their
cries as they wheel about you, their stratagems
to decoy you from their nests, or young ones,
neither of which are readily found, interest you
strongly in their favour.

Here I must stop: were I to proceed to the
lake and the reedy marsh, to the large flaggy
nests of the water-hen, the coot, the wild-duck,
and goose, the snipe, the plover, etc. I might
write a volume, yet all and each, in material, in
curious construction, in colour of the eggs, in
picturesqueness of situation, have distinguishing
characteristics, strongly marked by that hand of
varied and exhaustless beauty which has con-
structed so wonderfully the whole world, and to

APRIL. a7

all the myriads of living creatures has given
so peculiar a difference of figure, habits, and
disposition.

April is so called from the Latin Aprilis,
which is derived from Aperire, to open. The
allusion is obvious. The Saxons called it Oster
or Laster-monath, from the feast of the goddess
Eastre.

The following description of this season of the
year is by Gawain Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld,
as modernized by Dr. Warton.

Fresh Aurora, the wife of Tithonus, issued
from her saffron bed and ivory house. She was
clothed in a robe of crimson and violet colour ;
the cape vermilion, and the border purple. She
opened the windows of her handsome hall,
overshadowed with roses and filled with balm
or nard. At the same time the crystal gates of
heaven were thrown open to illumine the world.
It was glorious to see the winds appeased, the
sea becalmed, the soft season, the serene firma-
ment, the still air and the beauty of the watery
scene. The silver-scaled fishes, on the gravel
gliding hastily, as it were from the heat, or seen
through clear streams, with fins shining brown
as cinnabar, and chisel-tails, darted here and
there. ‘The new lustre enlightening all the land,

78 APRIL.

beamed on the small pebbles on the sides of
rivers, and on the strands, which looked like
beryl, while the reflection of the rays played on
the banks in variegated gleams. The bladed
soil was embroidered with various hues. Both
wood and forest were darkened with boughs,
which reflected from the ground gave a sha-
dowy lustre to the red rocks. Towns, turrets,
battlements, and high pinnacles of churches,
castles and of every fair city, seemed to be
painted; and, together with every bastion and
story, expressed their own shapes on _ the
plains. The glebe, fearless of the northern
blasts, spread her broad bosom. The corn
crops and the new-sprung barley reclothed
the earth with a gladsome garment. The va-
riegated vesture of the valley clothed the
cloven furrow, and the barley-lands were di-
versified with flowery weeds. The meadow
was besprinkled with rivulets, and the fresh
moisture of the dewy night restored the her-
bage which the cattle had cropped in the day.
The blossoms in the blowing garden trusted
their heads to the protection of the young sun.
Rank ivy leaves overspread the walls of the
rampart. The blooming hawthorn clothed all
the thorns in flowers. The budding clusters of
the tender grapes hung end-long by their ten-
drils from the trellices, The germs of the trees

APRIL. 79

unlocking, expanded themselves into the foliage
of Nature’s tapestry. There was a soft verdure
after balmy showers. The flowers smiled in
various colours on the bending stalks. Some
red, others watchet like the blue and wavy
sea, speckled with red and white, or bright as
gold. The daisy embraided her little coronet.
The grass stood embattled with banewort; the
seeded down flew from the dandelion. Young
weeds appeared among the leaves of the straw-
berries and gay gilliflowers. The rose-buds,
putting forth, offered their red vernal lips to
be kissed; and diffused fragrance from the crisp
scarlet that surrounded their golden seeds.
Lilies, with white curling tops, showed their
crests open. The odorous vapour moistened
the silver webs that hung from the leaves.
The plain was powdered with round dewy
pearls. From every bud, scion, herb, and
flower bathed in liquid fragrance, the bee
sucked sweet honey. The swans clamoured
amid the rustling reeds, and searched all the
lakes and grey rivers where to build their nests.
The red bird of the sun lifted his coral crest,
crowing clear among the plants and_ bushes,
picking his food from every path, and attended
by his wives Toppa and Partlet. The painted
pea-cock with gaudy plumes unfolded his tail
like a bright wheel, enshrouded in his silver

80 APRIL.

feathers, resembling the marks of the hundred
eyes of Argus. Among the boughs of the
twisted olive, the small birds framed the artful
nest, or along the thick hedges, or rejoiced
with their merry mates in the tall oaks. In the
secret nook, or in the clear windows of glass, the
spider full busily wove her sly net to ensnare
the gnat or fly. Under the boughs that screen
the valley, or within the pale-enclosed park, the
nimble deer trooped in ranks, the harts wan-
dered through the thick wood shaws, and the
young fawns followed the dappled does. Kids
slipped through the briars after the roes, and in
the pastures and leas the lambs bleated to their
dams. The ringdove coos in the tall copse, the
starling whistles her varied descant ; the spar-
row chirps in the clefted wall; the goldfinch
and linnet fill the skies; the cuckoo cries, the
quail twitters ; while rivers, shaws, and every
dale resound; and the tender branches tremble
on the trees, at the song of the birds and the
buzzing of the bees.”

Learinc or Trees. In Sweden the budding
and leafing of the birch tree is considered as
a directory for sowing barley; and as there is
something extremely sublime and harmonious in
that idea, I flatter myself an account of it will
be acceptable.

Mr. Harold Barck, in his ingenious disserta-

APRIL. 81

tion upon the foliation of trees, published in the
Ameen. Acad. vol. iii. informs us, that the illus-
trious Linneus had, in the most earnest man-
ner, exhorted his countrymen to observe, with
all care and diligence, at what time each tree
unfolds its buds and expands its leaves; ima-
gining, and not without reason, that his country
would at some time or other reap some new
and perhaps unexpected benefit from observa-
tions of this kind made in different places.

As one of the apparent advantages, he ad-
vises the prudent husbandman to watch, with
the greatest care, the proper time for sowing ;
because this, with the Divine assistance, pro-
duces plenty of provision, and lays the founda-
tion of the public welfare of the state, and of
the private happiness of the people. The igno-
rant farmer, tenacious of the ways and customs
of his ancestors, fixes his sowing-season gene-
rally to a month, and sometimes to a particular
week, without considering whether the earth be in
a proper state to receive the seed, from whence
it generally happens that what the sower sowed
with sweat, the reaper reaps with sorrow. The
wise economist should, therefore, endeavour to
fix upon certain signs whereby to judge of the
proper time for sowing. We see trees open
their buds and expand their leaves, from whence
we conclude that spring approaches; and ex-

G

82 APRIL.

perience supports us in the conclusion, but no-
body has, as yet, been able to show us what
trees Providence has intended should be our
calendar, so that we might know on what day
the countryman ought to sow his grain. No
one can deny but that the same power which
brings forth the leaves of trees, will also make
the grain vegetate ; nor can any one assert that
a premature sowing will always, and in every
place, accelerate a ripe harvest. Perhaps, there-
fore, we cannot promise ourselves a happy suc-
cess by any means so likely, as by taking our
rule for sowing from the leafing of trees. We
must, for that end, observe in what order every
tree puts forth its leaves. To these most in-
genious remarks Mr. Barck has added the order
of the leafing of trees in Sweden. Mr. Stilling-
fleet is the only person that has made correct
observations upon the foliation of the trees and
shrubs of this kingdom. The following is his
calendar, made in Norfolk, 1765.

1. Honeysuckle . . Jan. 15) 13. Filbert . . . . April7
2. Gooseberry . . . Mar. 11] 14.Sallow . . . . —— 7
3. Currant Ti 05. Alder’. 3. bs ie
4. Elder . —— 11] 16.Sycamore . . . —— 9
AMBirchy vip) coh «ej Appeal yh) Meit Elimigs " fierg ee oe eel kD
6. Weeping Willow . 1] 18. Quince . . . . ——10
7. Raspberry — 3] 19. Marsh Elder . . —— Il
S$. Bramble . . - —— 3) 20: Wych Kim . .« . —— 12
9. Briar . —— 4] 21. Quicken Tree . . ——I13
10. Plum . —— 6/| 22. Hornbeam .. . ——13
11. Apricot - —— 6) 23. Appledrce . 5 . ———J4
1g. Peach. . . . » —— 612%. Abele. . . . - — 16

APRIL. 83

25. Chestnut . . . . April16) 31. Plane . . . . . April 21
26. Willow . . . . ——17| 32. Black Poplar . . 21
27.Oak . . . . . ——18] 33. Beech . . . —~—2)
2s.Lime . . . . . ——19| 34. Acacia Robinia. . —— 21
29. Maple ... . ——21| 35. Ash. . . « «. «. ——22
30. Walnut . . . . —— 21 | 36. Carolina Poplar . —— 22

In different years, and in different soils and
expositions, these trees and shrubs vary as to
their leafing, but they are invariable as to their
succession, being bound down to it by Nature
herself: a farmer, therefore, who would use this
sublime idea of Linnzus, should diligently mark
the time of budding, leafing, and flowering of
different plants. He should also put down the
days on which his respective grains were sown ;
and, by comparing these two tables for a num-
ber of years, he will be enabled to form an
exact calendar for his spring corn. An atten-
tion to the discolouring and falling of the leaves
of plants will assist him in sowing his winter
corn, and teach him to guess at the approach of
winter. Towards the end of September, which
is the best season for sowing wheat, he will find
the leaves of the

Plane Tree, tawny. Ash, fine lemon.

Oak, yellowish green. Elm, orange.

Hazel, yellow. Hawthorn, tawny yellow.
Sycamore, dirty brown. Cherry, red.

Maple, pale yellow. Hornbeam, bright yellow.

Appearances of this sublime nature may be
compared to the writing on the wall, which was

84 APRIL.

seen by many, but understood by few. They
seem to constitute a kind of harmonious in-
tercourse between God and man. They are
the silent language of the Deity.

Mr. Young has endeavoured to ascertain the
time of sowing by another method; but the
temperature of the season, with respect to heat
and cold, drought and rain, differs in every
year. Experiments made this year cannot de-
termine for the next. The hints of Linnzus
constitute an universal rule for the whole
world; because trees, shrubs, and herbs, bud,
leaf, and flower, and shed their leaves in every
country according to the different seasons.—
Hunter's edition of Evelyn’s Sylva.

The kite now approaches farm-houses and
villages in search of food and materials to con-
struct his nest; at all other times he carefully
avoids the haunts of man. In April, or early in
the next month, the lapwing, or peewit, (vanel-
lus cristatus) lays her eggs and sits, for she
makes no nest. The beech, the larch, and the
elm are now in full leaf. The larch also ex-
hibits its red tufts of flowers, which soon expand
into cones, and the fir tribe show their cones
also. The yellow Star of Bethlehem blooms in
woods and by small streams. Also the vernal
squill among maritime rocks, and the wood-
sorrel on banks and in shady places.

APRIL. 85

There is a singular appearance often observed
in spring, which has excited many a supersti-
tious terror in the minds of the simple country-
people, and in reality is very striking. It is the
print of footsteps across the grass of the fields,
as though they had been footsteps of fire. The
grass is burnt black in the foot-prints, present-
ing a startling contrast with the vivid green
of that around. The common people have con-
sequently concluded these to be the traces of
the nocturnal perambulations of Satan, whereas
they are those of some one of themselves who
has crossed the fields while the night-frost was
on the grass, which at this season is very ten-
der, and is as effectually destroyed by the pres-
sure of a foot, in its frosty brittleness, as by fire,
and with much the same appearance.

RURAL OCCUPATIONS.

Feeding cattle in the yard still continues,
from deficiency of grass. Fields intended for
mowing are cleared of stones, bush-harrowed.
and shut up; all ditching, hedging, and drain-
ing, better done last month, but if unfinished,
to be concluded. Water-meadows, which have
been eaten, closed at the end of the month.
Sowing still continues of spring corn, peas,
tares, sainfoin, lucerne, and grasses; also the
sowing and planting of woad, madder, fax,

86 APRIL.

hemp, mustard, rape, poppy, rhubarb, and other
medicinal plants; at the end of the month
planting mangel-wurzel, carrots, and Swedish
turnips. Early potatoes are planted. Hopsyare
poled, and the ground between the rows dress-
ed. Evergreens are planted, as holly, yew, and
the fir-tribes. Poultry-broods are now nume-
rously hatched, and demand much of the good
housewife’s care. The anxieties attending the
raising of young poultry are far from inconsider-
able. Watching for, and discovering the nests,
particularly of ducks, turkeys, and guinea-fowls,
which are fond of laying away in hedge-bottoms
and beds of nettles; securing and preserving
eggs, setting them, and observing, from time to
time, that they are not broken, or addle; sprink-
ling them with water as they approach the time
of hatching; supplying the sitting fowls daily
with food and water; assisting the chicks occa-
sionally to escape from the shell, and removing
them, as they appear, to the house, till the
whole brood is hatched. In farm-kitchens, in
spring, we perpetually hear a chirping of chick-
ens, ducklings, goslings, etc. and see a basket
set near the fire, covered with a flannel; or a
worsted stocking rolling about the hearth, like a
great snake, with here and there the head of
a chicken peeping through a hole. They have
next to be placed under a coop, which confines

APRIL. 87

the hen till they are strong enough to follow
her, and are fed with those various compounds
which good housewives prepare. It is a com-
mon practice to give each young turkey a pep-
percorn the first thing, but good judges dis-
approve of it, and prefer to feed them with
chopped docks and oatmeal. Many broods of
young poultry, and especially turkeys, which,
as they are the hardiest of birds when grown,
are certainly the most tender at first, must have
a careful lad to tend them, and to see that the
hen does not weary them by her wanderings ;
that they are not overtaken by rain, or get into
other dangers :—such are the cares of hatching-
time.

ANGLING.

Grayling, perch, dace, are not in best season,
nor chub till the middle of the month: nor
barbel during the latter half of it. Salmon is
improving ; and trout comes in and may be
sought in his beautiful clear streams with a
minnow, or palmer-worm, or with the fly. The
chub takes the worm, and the pike the lob-
worm, minnow, or other small fish. The tench
is a lively prey, this month, baiting with a good
worm. Cotton says the grayling is never out of
season, and reckons him yet a winter-fish. Wal-
ton declares him to be “a pleasant fish and a

88 APRIL.

jolly in mid April and May, and in the hot
months.” Flies;—all those of March; also
small bright brown; dark brown; from the 6th
to the 10th the violet fly; about the 12th the
little wheeling dun; yellow dun; little brown;
about the 20th, the horse fly to the end of
the month.

MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS.

ARRIVALS.

Charadrius Hiaticula, Ring Dottrel, comes April, goes August.
Haunts, Sea-shore.

Columba Turtur, Turtle Dove, goes Sept. Woods in Kent.

Coturnix vulgaris, Quail, goes Aug. Sept. Grassy fields.

Cuculus canorus, Cuckoo, comes early in Apri!, goes July, Aug.
Fields, generally.

Curruca luscinia, Nightingale, comes April 15, goes August.
Woods and copses.

Curruca sylvia, Whitethroat, goes Sept. Hedges and bushes.

Curruca sylviella, Lesser Whitethroat, goes Sept. Hedges and

bushes.

Curruca atricapilla, Black-cap, comes April 13, goes Sept.
Gardens.

Curruca locustella, Grasshopper Lark, goes Sept. Brakes and
bushes.

Curruca hortensis, Pettychaps, goes Sept. Shrubberies in South-
ern counties.

Curruca sibillatrix, Wood Wren, goes Sept. Beech and oak
woods.

Cypselus Apus, Swift, comes April 24, goes Aug. 15. Eaves
and towers.

Fratercula arctica, Puffin, goes Aug. North coasts.

Hirundo rustica, Swallow, comes April 13, goes Sept. Nov.
Chimneys.

Hirundo riparia, Sand Martin, goes Oct, Sand cliffs near water.

Hirundo urbica, Martin, goes Oct. Eaves.

Motacilla flava, Yellow Wagtail, goes Sept. Green corn.

Muscicapa atricapilla, Pied Flycatcher, goes Sept. Woods.

Rallus aquaticus, Water Rail, goes Oct. Sedgy waters.

APRIL. 89

Saxicola rubetra, Whinchat, comes April 13, goes Sept. Grassy
meadows.

Sterna Hirundo, Common Tern, goes Sept. Sea-shores.

Sterna minuta, Lesser Tern, goes Sept. Sea-shores.

Sterna Boysii, Sandwich Tern, goes Sept. Sea-shores of Suffolk
and Kent.

Sterna Dugalli, Roseate Tern, goes Sept. Scottish sea-shores.

Sterna nigra, Black Tern, goes Sept. Fens, lakes, and rivers.

Sylvia Phcenicurus, Redstart, goes Oct. Orchards and old
walls.

Totanus calidris, Redshank, comes April 10, goes Oct. 29. Salt
marshes.

Totanus Hypoleucos, Common Sandpiper, goes Oct. Pebbly mar-
gins of streams.

Tringa pugnax, Ruff, goes Sept. Fens.

Turdus torquatus, Ring Ousel, goes Sept. Mountainous parts.

Vanellus cristatus, Lapwing, goes Aug. Barren fields and heaths.

Yunx Torquilla, Wryneck, comes early in April, goes June, Aug.
Orchards and hollow trees.

DEPARTURES.

Larus naevius, Grey Gull, goes April 10, comes Aug. 4. Haunts,

Beach.

Larus argentatus, Blue, or Herring Gull, goes April 10, comes
August. Beach.

Loxia curvirostra, Crossbill, comes Aug. Orchards.

Otus brachyotus, Short-eared Owl, comes Oct. Woods and hilly

tracts.
Spathulea clypeata, Common Shoveler, comes Oct. Fresh-water
lakes.
Totanus fuscus, Cambridge Godwit, comes Aug. Sea-shore.
Totanus ochropus, Green Sandpiper, comes Sept. Sea-shore.
Totanus striata, Purple Sandpiper, comes Aug. Sea-shore.

Mteration or Swatiows. The subject of
the migration of the swallow tribe has been
agitated by naturalists from remote antiquity.
Many foolish notions upon it have been ad-
vanced, which are now very properly abandon-
ed; and the inquiry may be said to be set at
rest. One would wonder, indeed, when we

90 APRIL.

consider that, by the lightness of their bodies,
and their length and speed of wing, they are,
of all birds, the best calculated for migration,
how a doubt could have arisen on the subject.
But they come, it is said, with great secrecy,
and go with great secrecy! So does the heavy
woodcock ;—and yet no one ever doubted of the
migration of that plethoric bird, whose usual
flight is not many hundred yards. A few are
sometimes seen after the rest have departed,
on the breaking out of a few fine days; and a
few which, in spring appear first, as suddenly
disappear on the return of cold. Can this be
any wonder in birds of such velocity? Some
however have been found in a dormant state
here. This is a fact :—but a fact only of a few,
and of rare occurrence; and proves no more
than that, when accident prevents their de-
parture, nature has given them the power of
so existing. But of all the absurd hypotheses
broached on this head, that of their remaining
at the bottom of pools and marshes under
water, during winter, is the most preposterous.
Dissection has proved that they have no organic
provision for such a state, and could not live
half an hour in submersion; so that we are
obliged to sacrifice our love of the marvellous
and mysterious, and to let the poor birds go, as
Nature has given them power, to the southern
lands of summer.

APRIL. 9]

The whinchat and yellow wagtail are said to
remain in the southern counties through the
winter, but they disappear from the northern
and midland ones. The ring-ousel merely
passes through this country on its Spring and
Autumnal journeys, staying a few days in some
particular spots. In the north of England and
Scotland, they too remain all the year.

CALENDAR OF THE FLOWER GARDEN.

Class II. Order 1. Syringa vulgaris, Blue Lilac. 5.

Hil. i. Iris pumila, Dwarf Iris.

IV.1. Cornus florida, Great-flowering Dogwood. 5.

VY. 4. Lonicera Tartarica, Tartarian Honeysuckle. 5.

Rhamnus Alaternus, cum var. Common Alaturnus, with va-
rieties. 6.

Pulmonaria angustifolia, Narrow-leaved Lungwort.

Polemonium reptans, Creeping Greek Valerian. 5.

Primula villosa, Hairy Primula. 5.

Primula nivea, Snowy Primula. 5.

Primula marginata, Margined Primula. 5.

Primula Auricula, cum aliis. Common Yellow Auricula, with
others. 5.

Dodecatheon media, American Cowslip. 6.

Soldanella alpina, Soldanella alpine.

Cyclamen Europeum, European Cyclamen.

Phlox subulata, Awl-leaved Lychnidea. 5.

Phlox setacea, Bristly Lychnidea. 5.

Viole, mult. Violets, various, 5.

V.2. Gentiana acaulis, Gentianella. 5.

Gentiana verna, Spring Gentian.

V.3. Staphylea pinnata, Fine-leaved Bladdernut. 6.

VI. 1. Fritillaria Meleagris, Chequered Fritillary.

Fritillaria latirolia, Broad-leafed Fritillary.

Fritillaria Persica, Persian Fritillary,

Berberis mult. Barberries, various.

Narcissus majalis, Large-flowered Narcissus. 5.

Narcissus incomparabilis, Peerless Daffwdil. 5.

Narcissus Jonquilla, Jonquil. 5.

Narcissus Hispanicus, cum aliis. Spanish white Narcissus, with
others. 5.

92 APRIL.

VI. 1. Tulipa sylvestris, Italian yellow Tulip. 5.

Tulipa Gesneriana, Common Garden Tulip.

Ornithogalum nutans, Nodding Star of Bethlehem. 5.
Ornithogalum umbellatum, Umbellate Star of Bethlehem. 5.
Scilla Italica, Italian Squill. 7.

Hyacinthus museari, Musk Hyacinth. 5.

Hyacinthus comosus, Purple Grape Hyacinth.

Hyacinthus racemosus, Starch Hyacinth.

Amaryllis lutea, Yellow Amaryllis.

VIII. 1. Erica arborea, Tree Heath. 6.

IX. 1. Laurus nobilis, Sweet Bay. 5.

X.1. Kalmia glauca, Glaucous Kalmia.

Ledum palustre, Marsh Rosemary. 5.

Ledum v. decumbens, Dwarf Marsh Rosemary. 5.

X, 2. Saxifraga granoides, Crane’s-bill leaved Saxifrage. 5.
Saxifraga hypnoides, Mossy Saxifrage. 5.

X. 4. Lychnis quadridentata, Small-flowering Lychnis.

XII. 1. Amygdalus Persica, Peach Tree. 5.

Amygdalus v. nectaria, Nectarine. 5.

Prunus Lauro-ceratus, Common Laurel. 5.

Prunus Lauro-ceratus, v. flore pleno, Double-flowered Laurel.
Prunus Cerasus, v. fore pleno, Double-flowered Cherry.
XII. 2. Crategus coccinea, American Hawthorn. 5.

XII. 4. Spirezea Hypericifolia, Hypericum-leaved Spiraea. 5.
Spirza crenata, Crenated Spirea. 5.

Spirza sorbifolia, Mountain-ash-leaved Spiraea.

XII. 5. Rosa cinnamon, fore pleno, Double Cinnamon Rose. 5.
XIII. 5. Aquilegia Canadensis, Canadian Columbine. 5.
XIII. 7. Magnolia obovata, Purple Chinese Magnolia. 5.
Clematis florida, Large-flowered Virgin’s Bower. 9.
Clematis v. flore pleno, Double Virgin’s Bower.

Ranunculus amplexicaulis, Plantain-leaved Ranunculus.
Anemone coronaria, Common garden Anemone. 5.

XIII. 7. Anemone nemoralis, fore pleno, Double Anemone. 5.
Anemone Pulsatilla, Pasque flower. 5.

Anemone vernalis, Spring Anemone.

XIV. 1. Iberis sempervirens, Evergreen Candy-tuft. 6.
Alyssum saxatile, Shrubby Madwort. 5.

XIV. 2. Hesperis tristis, Night-smelling Rocket. 6.

XVI. 5. Geranium reflexum, Reflex-flowered Crane’s-bill. 6.
Coronilla Emeris, Scorpion Senna. 6.

XIX. 2. Bellis perennis, Common Daisy. 8.

XXI. 7. Arum tennifoliam, Slender-leaved Arum. 6.

Arum Arisarum, Friar’s Cowl Arum. 6.

XXI. 8. Cupressus Thyoides, Arbor-vite-leaved Cypress. 5.
XXII. 2. Salices mult. Willows, various,

APRIL. 93

SELECT CALENDAR OF BRITISH BOTANY.

Class 1. Order 1. Chara flexilis, Smooth Chara. Locality, Ditches
and ponds. Duration, 8.

Il. 1. Fraxinus excelsior, Common Ash-tree. Woods and hedges. 5.

Veronica verna, cum aliis. Vernal Speedwell, with others. Barren
sand.

UI.1. Fedia olitoria, Lamb’s Lettuce. Corn-fields. 6.

Eriophorum angustifolium, Common Cotton-grass. In bogs.

VY. 1. Myosotis versicolor, Yellow and Blue Scorpion Grass. Dry
shady places. 6.

Primula vulgaris, Primrose. Woods and banks. 5.

Primula elatior, Oxlip. Banks and pastures. 5.

Primula veris, Cowslip. Pastures. 5.

Cyclamen hederifolium, Common Cyclamen. Woods, rare. 5.

Viola hirta, Hairy Violet. Banks. 6.

Viola palustris, Marsh Violet. Bogs. 6.

Viola canina, Dog’s Violet. Woods. 8.

Ribes Grossularia, Wild Gooseberry. Woods and hedges.

V.2. Gentiana verna, Spring Gentian. Mountains,

VI. 1. Narcissus biflorus, Pale Narcissus. Sandy fields. 5.

Fritillaria Meleagris, Fritillary. Meadows. 5.

Tulipa sylvestris, Wild Tulip. Chalk hills and meadows. 5.

Ornithogalum umbellatum, Common Star of Bethlehem. Mea-
dows. 6.

Ornithogalum nutans, Drooping Star of Bethlehem. Meadows. 5.

Scilla verna, Vernal Squill, Rocks by the sea.

VIII. 3. Adoxa moschatellina, Tuberous Moschatel. Damp
hedges. 5.

X. 2. Chrysosplenium alternifolium, Alternate-leaved Golden Saxi-
frage. Wet places, 5.

Chrysosplenium oppositifolium, Opposite-leaved Golden Saxifrage.
Wet places. 5.

Saxifraga oppositifolia, Purple Saxifrage. Alpine rocks. 6.

Saxifraga granulata, White Meadow Saxifrage. Meadows. 6.

Saxifraga tridactylites, Rue-leaved Saxifrage. Walls and ruins.

X. 4. Owalis Acetosella, Wood Sorrel. Damp woods. 5.

XII. 3. Potentilla verna, Spring Cinguefoil. Mountainous rocks. 6.

XIII. 3. Anemone nemorosa, Wood Anemone. Woods. 5.

Anemone Apennina, Blue Mountain Anemone. Groves, rare. 5.

Anemone ranunculoides, Yellow Wood Anemone. Groves, rare.

Ranunculus auricomus, Goldilocks. Woods. 6.

XIV.1. Lamium album, White Dead Nettle. Road-sides. 10.

XIV. 2. Lathraea squamaria, Great Toothwort. A Parasite on the
roots of the Nut and Elm. 5.

XV.2. Cardamine pratensis, Cuckoo Flower. Meadows. 6.

Cardamine amara, Bitter Cardamine. Moist places, 5.

94 APRIL.

XY.2. Barbarea vulgaris, Common Cress Rocket. Banks and
streams. 8.

Cheiranthus fruticulosus, Wild Wall Flower. Ruins. 5.

XVI. 2. Geranium molle, Dove’s-foot Crane’s-bill. Way-sides. 8.

XVII. 1. Fumaria solida, Bulbous Fumitory. Thickets. 5.

XIX. 1. Leontodon Taraxacum, Dandelion. Road-sides. 6.

XIX. 2. Tussilago Petasites, Butter-bur. Wet meadows. 5.

XX. 1. Orchis mascula, Early Purple Orchis. Pastures and
woods. 5.

Ophrys aranifera. Early Spider Orchis. Chalk pastures.

XXI. 2. Carex riparia, cum aliis. Great River Carex, with others.
Banks of rivers. 5.

XXI. 5. Quercus Robur, Common Oak. Woods and hedges.

Quercus sessiflora, Sessile-fruited Oak. Woods and hedges. 5.

Fagus sylvatica, Common Beech. Woods, 5.

Betula alba, Common Birch. Mountainous woods. 5.

XXII. 1. Salix Russelliana, cum mult. aliis. Bedford Willow, with
many others. Hedges. 5.

XXII. 7. Mercurialis perennis, Perennial Mercury. Banks. 5.

XXIV. 1. Equisetum sylvaticum, Branched Wood Horse-tail.
Moist woods. 5.

Equisetum fluviatile. Great Water Horsetail. Moist Woods. 6.

SELECT CALENDAR OF BRITISH INSECTS.

Cicindela riparia. Localities, Coast of Lancashire, etc. Months, to 5.

Cicindela aprica. Coast of Lancashire, etc. To 5.

Clivina Fossor. Moist places. To 10.

Carabus hortensis. Gardens and sandy pathways. To 8.

Carabus clathratus. Coast of Ireland, and in Scotland on the moun-
tains. To 6.

Leistus rufescens. Woods amongst moss. To 6.

Chlenius nigricornis. Moist banks. And 9.

Platynus angusticollis. Under bark, and at the roots of trees.
And 6.

Broschus cephalotes. On the coast, under rejectamenta. And 5.

Abax striola. Under stones in woods. And 8.

Elaphrus riparius. Banks of rivers and ponds. And 8.

Blethisa multipunctata. Moist banks in the south. And 5.

Helophorus aquaticus, Weeds in ponds, And 10.

Hydrobius picipes.

Wydrobius faxcl pes. Lin stagnant pools. And 9,

Silpha obscura. Pathways. And 8.

Phosphuga atrata. Pathways and woods. And 7.

Attagenus Pellio. Houses and sandy places. And 10.

Hister unicolor. Horse and cow-dung, and dead animals. And 9.

Sinodendron cylindricum. Rotten trees. And 6.

APRIL. 95

Copris lunaris. And 5.
Onthophagus Taurus. And 6.
Onthophagus Ccenobita. t : And 6.
Onthophagus nuchicornis. Under‘dung in ‘sandy ‘places. And 5.
Onthophagus nutans. And 5.
Onthophagus ovatus. And 5,

Typheus vulgaris, The Bullcomber. Under dung onheaths. And 5a,

Geotrupes vernalis, Vernal Dor-beetle. Under dung on heatbs.
And 9.

Anobium tessellatum, Death-watch. Old houses and rotten trees.
And 5,

Rynchites Bacchus. On the Sloe and Whitethorn, And 5.

Chrysomela sanguinolenta. Weedy banks. To 5.

Timarcha tenebricosa. Bloody-nosed Beetle. Heaths, ete. To 8.

Opatrum sabulosum. Sandy places. To 8,

Melandrya caraboides. Decayed trees. To 6.

Proscarabeus violaceus. Sunny banks. To 6.

Stapbylinus eneocephalus. Pathways. To 6.

Gryllotalpa vulgaris, Mole-cricket. Moist ground. To 5,

Pontia Chariclea, The early White Butterfly. Gardens, etc. And 6.

Pontia Rape, Small White Butterfly. Gardens, etc. And7 to 8.

Pontia Metra, Mr. Howard’s White Butterfly. Hertford and
Ripley. And 6 to 7.

Pontia Daplidice, Green-chequered White Butterfly. South of
England. And 5 to 8.

Hipparchia Ageria, Speckled Wood White Butterfly. Woods.
And to 9.

Hipparchia Megera, The Wall Butterfly. Woods and lanes.
And 6 to 7.

Lycena Phleas, Common Copper Butterfly. Heaths and marshes.
And to 9.

Saturnia Pavonia, Emperor Moth. Woods and heaths. And 5.

Semiophora gothica, Hebrew Character. Trees and hedges, And 5.

Miselia Aprilina, Marvel du Jour. Woods. And 10,

Phlogophora meticulosa, Angleshades. Heaths and woods. And 8.

Plusia Gamma, Silver Y. Moth. Gardens and fields) And6&9.

Alucita hexadactyla, Six-cleft Plume Moth. Houses, ete. And
5&9.

Clivina fossor is, in the early spring and sum-
mer months, extremely abundant in the vale of
Trent, and subject to great variation in colour
from the common piceus, to brunneous and
light testaceous. I mention this because the

96 APRIL.

light varieties are generally considered scarce,
or might be confounded with collaris; but on
examination, they are readily distinguished by
the colour of the thorax being as light as the
elytra, and also by the size.

Sinodendron cylindricum, with us not only
inhabits the ash, but also the maple (Acer cam-
pestre,) and several species of willow, in a state
of decay. It would be well if entomologists
generally paid more attention to the plants on
which insects are usually found, as it would
very much facilitate their collection, and like-
wise throw much light on their habits and pe-
culiarities.

Geotrupes vernalis, (vernal Dor-beetle.) The
species of this beautiful genus appear to be so
closely allied as to render it a work of difficulty
to separate them accurately from each other,
if we may judge from the dissimilar opinions
of Mr. Curtis and Mr. Stephens: the former
makes five, the latter ten British species. There
are four species in this county, the stercorarius,
the levis, the vernalis, and one which I suspect
to be the sylvaticus. The levis and vernalis
are very nearly allied; they agree in the colour
of the antennz, in the minutely and entirely
punctured thorax, and the smoothness of the
elytra, but differ in size and colour. The levis
is inferior in size, generally of a deep black on

APRIL. 97

the upper surface, but sometimes tinged with
green, or olivacecus; the under side mostly
inclines to green, of various shades. The elytra
and thorax of the vernalis are almost always
blue or violet, and underneath the breast, ab-
domen and legs are splendidly tinged with vio-
let, peuce, and blue. Mr. Curtis, in his de-
scription of the levis, in a recent number of his
excellent work on “ British Entomology,” men-
tions, I suppose as a specific character, the
denticulated margin of the posterior femora :
this, in all probability, will only prove a sexual
distinction, as I have this spring captured about
seventy specimens, and found it to exist in only
thirty. It is also not confined to this species,
for in thirty-four specimens of the vernalis,
taken but a few days ago on Sherwood Forest.
it exists in fourteen.

Anobium tessellatum, (Death-watch.) The
peculiar noise which this little beetle makes by
beating its head in rapid succession against the
wood it inhabits, has been regarded amongst
the superstitious as an omen of death. It is
generally in April and May when its knockings
are most frequent; and it is now generally un-
derstood to be a signal by which they are en-
abled to find each other in their dark labyrinths.
If two of them are placed in separate pill-boxes
at a short distance, they will frequently answer

H

98 APRIL.

each other for a considerable time. They infest
houses where there is much old timber, and
trees in a state of decay, and are exceedingly
destructive.

Gryllotalpa vulgaris. The mole-cricket, an
insect of very peculiar construction, is an in-
habitant of moist gardens and the banks of small
streams, where it throws up small ridges in its
subterranean progress. When it is abundant
it does incredible mischief to the horticulturist
by destroying the roots of vegetables. It sel-
dom comes abroad, except in evenings during
the spring, when, as Gilbert White, in his “ Na-
tural History of Selborne,” says, “They begin
to solace themselves with a low, dull, jarring
note, continued for a long time without inter-
ruption.” It appears to be confined to the
southern portion of Britain. Report, however,
says they are to be found on Oxton bogs, in this
county; but I have not yet acquired a spe-
cimen.

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MAY.

Lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds
is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.
Sone oF SoLomon ii. 11, 12.

However the festivities with which our an-
cestors hailed the opening of this month may
have sunk into neglect, Nature has not forsaken
her festivities. She still scatters flowers, and
revels in dews; she still loves her leafy garni-
ture, and the bursts of unoppressive sunshine ;
for, though we moderns may abandon the cus-
toms of our forefathers, and may even deny to
May those joyous attributes with which they
delighted to invest her; though we complain of
cold winds, dull days, and frosty nights, cutting
down flower and leaf, and have them too, yet is
May a gladsome month withal. Vegetation has
made a proud progress; it has become deep,
lavish, and luxuriant; and nothing can be more
delightful than the tender green of the young

100 MAY.

hawthorn leaves. Primroses still scatter their
million of pale stars over shady banks, and
among the mossy roots of hazels; and once
more, amid the thickly-springing verdure of
the meadow we hail the golden and spotted
cowslip. In woods there is a bright azure
gleam of Myosotis sylvatica, a species of forget-
me-not, and of those truly vernal flowers called
by botanists Scilla nutans, by poets blue bells ;
and by country folk Cuckoo's stockings. The
ferns are pushing forth their russet scrolls
amongst the forest moss and dead leaves. In
pools—and none of our indigenous plants can
rival our aquatic ones in elegance and delicate
beauty—are this month found the lovely water-
violet (Hottonia palustris) and the buck-bean,
originally bog-bane or bog-plant, from its place
of growth (Menyanthes trifoliata), like a fringed
hyacinth. The gorse and broom are glorious
on heaths and in lanes.

In the early part of this month if we walk
into woods we shall be much struck with their

peculiar beauty. Woods are never more agree-
able objects than when they have only half
assumed their green array. Beautiful and re-
freshing is the sight of the young leaves burst-
ing forth from the grey boughs, some trees at
one degree of advance, some at another. The
assemblage of the giants of the wood is seen,

MAY. 101

each in its own character and figure; neither
disguised nor hidden in the dense mass of fo-
liage which obscures them in summer ;—you
behold the scattered and majestic trunks; the
branches stretching high and wide; the dark
drapery of ivy which envelopes some of them,
and the crimson flush that glows in the world
of living twigs above. If the contrast of grey
and mossy branches, and of the delicate rich-
ness of young leaves gushing out of them in a
thousand places be inexpressibly delightful to
behold, that of one tree with another is not
the less so. One is nearly full clothed,—an-
other is mottled with grey and green, strug-
gling as it were which should have the pre-
dominance, and another is still perfectly naked.
The wild cherry stands like an apparition in
the woods, white with its profusion of blossom,
and the wilding begins to exhibit its rich and
blushing countenance. The pines look dim and
dusky amid the lively hues of spring. The
abeles are covered with their clusters of al-
bescent and powdery leaves and_ withering
catkins; and beneath them the pale spathes of
the arum, fully expanded and displaying their
crimson clubs, presenting a sylvan and unique
air. And who does not love “ the wood-notes
wild?” We again recognize the speech of
many a little creature who, since we last heard

102 MAY.

it, has traversed seas and sojourned in places
we wot not of. The landscape derives a great
portion of its vernal cheerfulness not merely
from the songs of birds but from their cries.
Each has a variety of cries indicative of its
different moods of mind, so to speak, which
are heard only in spring and summer, and are
both familiar and dear to a lover of Nature.
Who ever heard the weet-weet and pink-pink of
the chaflinch, or the winkle-winkle of the black-
bird as it flies out of the hedge and skims along
before you to a short distance, repeatedly on
a summer evening about sunset,—at any other
time? In spring mornings by three or four
o'clock the fields are filled with a perfect cla-
mour of bird-voices, but at noon the wood is
their oratory. There the wood-pecker’s laugh
still rings from a distance—the solemn coo of
the wood-pigeon is still deep and rich as ever
—the little chill-chall sounds his two notes
blithely on the top of the tallest trees; and the
voice of the long-tailed titmouse, ever and
anon, sounds like a sweet and clear-toned little
bell. Nests are now woven to every bough
and into every hollow stump.

As the month advances, our walks begin to
be haunted with the richness of beauty. There
are splendid evenings, clear, serene, and balmy,
tempting us to continue our stroll till after sun-

MAY. 103

set. We see around us fields golden with crow-
foot, and cattle basking in plenty. We hear the
sonorous streams chiming into the milk-pail in
the nooks of crofts, and on the other side of
hedges.

Towards the close of the month, the mind,
which has been continually led onward by the
expansion of days, leaves, and flowers, seems to
repose on the fulness of nature. Every thing
is clothed. The spring actually seems past.
We are surrounded by all that beauty, sun-
shine and melody which mingle in our ideas of
summer. The hawthorn is in full flower; the
leafy hedges appear half-buried in the lofty
grass. Butterflies take their wavering flight
from flower to flower; and dragonflies on the
banks of rivers. Sheep-washing is begun in
many places. The mowing-grass presents a
mosaic of the most gorgeous and inimitable
hues, or is white with waving umbels. A
passing gale awakens a scene of lively anima-
tion. The massy foliage of trees swings hea-
vily, the boughs of the hawthorn wave with all
their loads of fragrant bloom, and snowy um-
belliferous plants toss on the lea like foam on
the stormy ocean. Now sweet poesy,

Let thy happy votary roam,

For the green earth is his home,
When the tree-tops are besnowed
With the blossoms’ gorgeous load,

104 MAY.

And the forest’s verdant pall

Shrouds the missel in her hall ;

In the hawthorn’s pleasant boughs,

Where a thousand blithe birds house.

When the meadows are brimful

Of all flowers that children pull,—

Saxifrages, cardamines,

Kingeup which in deep gold shines ;

Dandelion with globe of down,

The school-boy’s clock in every town,

Which the truant puffs amain

To conjure lost hours back again.

Then, ’tis then I love to meet

Thy true son’s way-faring feet,

As | have, ere now, descried

By the thunderous falls of Clyde ;

Or where bright Loch Katrine fills

Such a space, between such hills,

As no lake beside it may,

Since Eden’s waters passed away.

W..H-
Cottage gardens are now perfect paradises ;

and, after gazing on their sunny quietude, their
lilachs, peonies, wall-flowers, tulips, anemonies
and corcoruses with their yellow tufts of flow-
ers, now becoming as common at the doors of
cottages as the rosemary and rue once were—
one cannot help regretting that more of our
labouring classes do not enjoy the freshness of
earth, and the pure breeze of heaven, in these
little rural retreats, instead of being buried in
close and sombre alleys. A man who can, in

MAY. 105

addition to a tolerable remuneration for the
labour of his hands, enjoy a clean cottage and
a garden amidst the common but precious offer-
ings of nature; the grateful shade of trees and
the flow of waters, a pure atmosphere and a
riant sky, can scarcely be called poor.

If Burns had been asked what was_ the
greatest luxury of May, I suppose he would
have quoted from his “ Cotter’s Saturday
Night.”

If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare,
One cordial in this melancholy vale,
Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair

In other’s arms breathe out the tender tale
Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale.

At which Gilpin would quote, from his “ Fo-
rest Scenery,” a passage proving the poets to
be very foolish for their admiration of so insig-
nificant and inelegant a bush. We however,
shall take part with Burns, only we would con-
jure a nightingale into his hawthorn, and the
hawthorn into a forest, for of all May delights,
listening to the nightingale is the greatest, and
when heard at still midnight, the moon and
stars above you, filling with lustre the clear
blue sky; the trees lifting up their young and
varied foliage to the silvery light; the deer qui-
etly resting in their thickest shadows, and the
night-breeze, ever and anon, wafting through

106 MAY.

the air “ Sabean odours,” then if you feel nei-
ther love nor poetry, depend upon it, you are
neither lover nor poet. As however in this
country, nightingales are as capricious as the
climate, a good singing gentleman is no bad
substitute, as a friend of ours convinced us on
such an occasion, making the woods echo with
the “ Pibroch of Donnel Dhu.”

Frowrers. The return of May again brings
over us a living sense of the loveliness and de-
lightfulness of flowers. Of all the minor crea-
tions of God they seem to be most completely
the effusions of his love of beauty, grace and
joy. Ofall the natural objects which surround
us they are the least connected with our abso-
lute necessities. Vegetation might proceed, the
earth might be clothed with a sober green; all
the processes of fructification might be per-
fected without being attended by the glory
with which the flower is crowned; but beauty
and fragrance are poured abroad over the earth
in blossoms of endless varieties, radiant evi-
dences of the boundless benevolence of the
Deity. They are made solely to gladden the
heart of man, for a light to his eyes, for a
living inspiration of grace to his spirit, for a
perpetual admiration. And accordingly, they
seize on our affections the first moment that we
behold them. With what eagerness do very

MAY. 107

infants grasp at flowers! As they become older
they would live for ever amongst them. They
bound about in the flowery meadows like young
fawns; they gather all they come near; they
collect heaps; they sit among them, and sort
them, and sing over them, and caress them, till
they perish in their grasp.

This sweet May morning

The children are pulling -

On every side,

In a thousand valleys far and wide

Fresh flowers.
Worpsworrtn.

We see them coming wearily into the towns
and villages with their pinafores full, and with
posies half as large as themselves. We trace
them in shady lanes, in the grass of far-off
fields by the treasures they have gathered and
have left behind, lured on by others. still
brighter. As they grow up to maturity, they
assume, in their eyes, new characters and beau-
ties. Then they are strewn around them, the
poetry of the earth. They become invested by
a multitude of associations with innumerable
spells of power over the human heart; they
are to us memorials of the joys, sorrows, hopes,
and triumphs of our forefathers; they are, to
all nations, the emblems of youth in its love-
liness and purity.

The ancient Greeks, whose souls pre-emi-

108 MAY.

nently sympathised with the spirit of grace and
beauty in every thing, were enthusiastic in their
love, and lavish in their use of flowers. They
scattered them in the porticoes of their temples,
they were offered on the altars of some of their
deities; they were strewed in the conqueror’s
path ; on all occasions of festivity and rejoicing
they were strewn about, or worn in garlands.

It was the custom then to bring away

The bride from home at blushing shut of day,

Veiled, in a chariot, heralded along

By strewn flowers, torches and a marriage song.
Keats.

The guests at banquets were crowned with
them:
Garlands of every green, and every scent,
From vales deflowered, or forest-trees branch-rent,
In baskets of bright osiered gold were brought,
High as the handles heaped, to suit the thought
Of every guest, that each as he did please
Might fancy-fit his brows, silk-pillowed at his ease.
Keats,
The bowl was wreathed with them, and where-
ever they wished to throw beauty, and to ex-
press gladness, like sunshine they cast flowers.
Something of the same spirit seems to have
prevailed amongst the Hebrews. “ Let us fill
ourselves,” says Solomon, “ with costly wine
and ointments; and let no flower of the spring
pass by us. Let us crown ourselves with rose-
buds before they be withered.” But amongst

MAY. 109

that solemn and poetical people they were com-
monly regarded in another and higher sense,
they were the favourite symbols of the beauty
and the fragility of life. Man is compared to
the flower of the field, and it is added, “the
grass withereth, the flower fadeth.” But of all
the poetry ever drawn from flowers, none is so
beautiful, none is so sublime, none is so im-
bued with that very spirit in which they were
made as that of Christ. “ And why take ye
thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of
the field, how they grow; they toil not neither
do they spin, and yet, I say unto you, that even
Solomon in all his glory, was not arrayed like
one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the
grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-mor-
row is cast into the oven, shall he not much
more clothe you, O ye of little faith!’ The
sentiment built upon this, entire dependance on
the goodness of the Creator, is one of the lights
of our existence, and could only have been ut-
tered by Christ ; but we have here also the ex-
pression of the very spirit of beauty in which
flowers were created; a spirit so boundless and
overflowing that it delights to enliven and
adorn with these riant creatures of sunshine
the solitary places of the earth; to scatter them
by myriads over the very desert “where no
man is; op the wilderness where there is no

110 MAY.

man ;” sending rain, “ to satisfy the desolate
and waste ground, and to cause the bud of the
tender herb to spring forth.”
In our confined notions, we are often led to

wonder why

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its fragrance on the desert air;
why beauty, and flowers, and fruit, should be
scattered so exuberantly where there are none
to enjoy them. But the thoughts of the Al-
mighty are not as our thoughts. He sees them;
he doubtlessly delights to behold the beauty of
his handiworks, and rejoices in that tide of glory
which he has caused to flow wide through the
universe. We know not, either, what spiritual
eyes besides may behold them; for pleasant is
the belief, that

Myriads of spiritual creatures walk the earth.
And how often does the gladness of uninhabited
lands refresh the heart of the solitary travel-
ler! When the distant and sea-tired voyager
suddenly descries the blue mountain-tops, and
the lofty crest of the palm-tree, and makes
some green and pleasant island, where the ver-
dant and blossoming forest-boughs wave in the
spicy gale; where the living waters leap from
the rocks, and millions of new and resplendent
flowers brighten the fresh sward, what then
is the joy of his heart! To Omnipotence crea-

MAY. 111

tion costs not an effort, but to the desolate and
the weary, how immense is the happiness thus
prepared in the wilderness! Who does not re-
collect the exultation of Vaillant over a flower
in the torrid wastes of Africa? A magnificent
lily, which, growing on the banks of a river,
filled the air far around with its delicious
fragrance, and, as he observes, had been re-
spected by all the animals of the district, and
seemed defended even by its beauty. The
affecting mention of the’ influence of a flower
upon his mind in a time of suffering and de-
spondency, in the heart of the same savage
continent, by Mungo Park, is familiar to every
one.

In the East flowers are made to speak the
language of sentiment. The custom of embel-
lishing houses and garnishing tables with them
is unquestionably eastern. Perhaps the warmer
countries of Europe are less in the use of them
than they were formerly. Boccaccio talks of
them being disposed even in bed-chambers :
“ E nelle camere i letti fatti, e ogni cosa di
fiori, quali nella stagione si potevano avere, pi-
ena :” and at the table of the narrators of the
Decameron stories, as “ Ogni cosa di fiori di
ginestra coperta.” In England they are much
less used than on the Continent, and much less
than they were by our ancestors. On May-

112 MAY.

day, at Whitsuntide, and on other holiday oc-
casions, the houses were profusely decorated
with them, and they were strewn before the
door. Over the extinction of many popular
customs I cannot bring myself to grieve; but
there is something so pure and beautiful in the
plentiful use of flowers, that I cannot but la-
ment the decay of these. Perhaps the most
touching of our popular uses of flowers is that
of strewing the dead with them, designating the
age, sex, or other particular circumstances, by
different flowers. How expressive in the hand
of a fair young girl, cut off in her early spring,
are a few pure and drooping snow-drops, an
image exquisitely employed by Chantrey in his
celebrated piece of sculpture—the two Chil-
dren at Litchfield. Let the pensile lily of the
valley for ever speak of the gentle maid that
has been stricken down in her May; and the
fair white lily of the youth shorn in his un-
sullied strength; and let those who have passed
through the vanities of time have
Flowers of all hues, and with its thorn the rose.

But even this tender custom is on the decline,
from a needless notion that they generate in-
sects, and tend to destroy the body they adorn.
In reality, however, the love of flowers never
was stronger in any age or nation than in ours.
We have, perhaps, less love of showy festivity

MAY. Ih es}

than our ancestors, but we have more poetry
and sentiment amongst the people at large.
We have conveyed from every region its most
curious and splendid plants; and such is the
poetical perception of natural beauty in the
general mind, that wherever our wild flowers
spring up, in the grass, on the overhanging
banks of the wild brook, or in the mossy shade
of the forest, there are admiring eyes to behold
them.

May is so called from the goddess Maia, a
name under which the earth was worshipped
at this dedal season of the year. The Saxons
termed it Trimilki, because they began to milk
their cows three times a-day in this month,

The flowers of the chestnut-tree begin to
unfold: the tulip-tree has its leaves quite out ;
and the flowers of the Scotch-fir, the beech, the
oak, and the honey-suckle, climbing round its
neighbour for support, are now in full bloom.
The mulberry-tree puts forth its leaves; the
walnut-tree is in flower; so too are the lilach,
the barberry, and the maple. Towards the end
of the month that magnificent and beautiful
tree, the horse-chestnut, and the hawthorn flower,
the mountain-ash, the laburnum, the guelder-
rose, the alder, the elm, and the wayfaring tree.

I

1j4 MAY.

Wayfaring tree ! what ancient claim

Hast thou to that right pleasant name ?

Was it that some faint pilgrim came
Unhopedly to thee,

In the brown desert’s weary way,

Mid toil and thirst’s consuming sway,

And there, as ’neath thy shade he lay,
Blest the wayfaring tree ?

Or is it that thou lov’st to show

Thy coronals of fragrant snow,

Like life’s spontaneous joys that flow
In paths by thousands beat ?

Whate’er it be, I love it well ;

A name, methinks, that surely fell

From poet, in some evening dell,
Wandering with fancies sweet.

A name given in those olden days,
When, mid the wild-wood’s vernal sprays,
The merle and mavis poured their lays

In the lone listener’s ear, _
Like songs of an enchanted land,
Sung sweetly to some fairy band,
Listening with doffed helms in each hand

In some green hollow near.

ie tte

Rye is in ear at the end of the month. This
too is the bentiny time of pigeons. After the
spring-corn has vegetated, until the harvest,
they are driven to immature seeds and green
panicles of the grasses for subsistence, and are
seen in large flocks in pasture fields, where they

MAY. 115

pick up so bare a living as to have occasioned
an old couplet, often quoted in the country,
The pigeon never knoweth woe,
Until a benting it doth go.

The leafing of the trees is commonly com-
pleted in this month. It begins with the
aquatic kinds, such as willow, poplar, and al-
der; and ends with the oak, beech, and ash.
These are sometimes very thin of foliage even
at the close of May.

Bers. Towards the end of May the bee-
hives send forth their earliest swarms. One
queen-bee is necessary to form each colony ;
and wherever she flies, they follow. Nature
directs them to march in a body in quest of a
new habitation, which, if left to their choice,
would generally be in the trunk of some hollow -
tree. But man who converts the labours, and
instincts of so many animals to his own use,
provides them with a more secure dwelling and
repays himself with their honey. There is
something very picturesque in the manner of
reclaiming the swarms of bees. Their depar-
ture is announced for a day or more before it
takes place by an unusual bustle and humming
in the hive. Some person, commonly a boy, is
set to watch, and the moment their flight is
proclaimed, a ringing is commenced upon a pan,
or fire-shovel, which, as country people say,

116 MAY.

charms them down. They alight, or rather the
queen-bee alights, upon the end of a bough,
and the rest of the bees clustering, or as it is
termed knitting, about her, form a living, brown,
dependent cone. Beneath this some adroit
operator spreads a cloth (upon a table if one
can be had) and holding an empty hive in-
verted under the swarm, suddenly shakes them
into it, and places it, with all the captive colony
in it, upon the cloth. In this state they are
conveyed to the place they are intended to
occupy, and the following morning they are
found to have taken kindly to their new dwell-
ing. They will frequently fix themselves in the
roofs of houses.

It is a superstition common both in France
and in this country, to announce to the bees
the death of the master of the family; in some
places, of any individual of the family, or it is
believed, the bees would die, or fly away. It
is also reckoned unlucky to sell bees, in some
places, and for this reason when a person parts
with a hive, he will not receive its value in
money, but stipulates for a certain part of its
produce.

RURAL OCCUPATIONS.

Cattle are turned out to pasture as soon as
there is a sufficiency of grass, which is not till

MAY. Ll 4

towards the end of the month. The spring
crops being sown, the great business of the
farmer is now on his fallows. The farm-yard
is cleared of manure; turf is pared and burnt.
Cow-cabbage and potatoes are planted, water-
meadows are irrigated to encourage the growth
of the hay-crop; young quickset hedges are
cleared of weeds; hop-plantations require clean-
ing, and other attentions. Now too, as the sap
begins to flow freely, trees are barked, and
felled, as the larch, alder, but especially the
oak. There is much of the picturesque in the
sight of the woodman at work at all times, and
although I regret to see the destruction of tim-
ber, yet a large tree with all its branches pro-
strate on the ground is a fine sight; the clear,
golden-coloured chips scattered about, and a
fresh sylvan odour breathing from the wounded
boughs, and the brown cylindrical shells of
bark ranged in pyramidal rows to dry. It isa
beautiful but melancholy object, a noble oak
stripped of its bark just as all its “ budding
honours” are become “ thick upon it; and
felled to the ground, or left a blasted skeleton
in the midst of summer greenness.

Abundance of grass now plunges the house-
wife into all the cares, and nice clean processes
of the dairy, skimming, churning, and cheese-
making. The farm-house is now an affluent

118 MAY.

place, abounding in all the good things which
may be made from milk; rich cream, sweet
butter, curds, curds and cream, syllabubs, cus-
tards, and so forth. Where there is a dairy, at
this season, fetching up cows, milking, churning,
scouring utensils, making, pressing, and turning
cheese, etc. leave no lack of employment.

Osiers are now peeled, and it is a pleasant
sight to see groups of young and old seated in
the open air, at this employment. The garden
demands various operations of weeding, train-
ing, and putting in flower-seeds. The children
of the poor have an easy and pleasant occupa-
ticn in gathering cowslips for wine. Poultry-
broods, as last month, demand attention; corn
is weeded, and rearing calves turned out.

ANGLING.

Carp is not in season, nor barbel, till the
middle of the month: perch now become fine,
and afford good sport till the end of June:
their haunts are clear, swift rivers, with pebbly
bottoms; in moderately deep waters, near
sluices, etc. They frequent holes by the sides
of little streams, and the hollows under banks:
they are best taken in cloudy, windy weather,
and, as some say, from seven to ten in the fore-
noon, and from two to seven in the afternoon:
but Isaac Walton says they will bite at all sea-
sons, and all hours; “being like the wicked of

MAY. 119

this world, not afraid, though their companions
perish in their sight.” Worms, minnows, boiled
horse-beans, cadis, and oakworm, (cynips) and
gentles, are his baits. The chub will this month
take flies, snails, beetles with the legs off, and
the black bee, which builds in clay walls. His
haunts are streams shaded with trees. The
tench is well taken this month, with a red
worm, a lob-worm, well scoured gentle, or a
green caterpillar shook from a tree. But the
pride of May angling is the trout; which, how-
ever, 1s not perfectly prime till next month.
Cloudy weather, a little windy, especially from
the South, is in high favour with the trouter,
because the streams which this beautiful fish
inhabit are usually not deep, and very clear,
thereby exposing the angler entirely to his
quick eye. ‘The finest old trouts, however, are
taken in the night with a worm, being too shy
to come out of their holes, or to rise in the day :
they are often taken by torch-light in Hamp-
shire, as salmon are in Scotland, striking them
down with a spear.

Flies. The oak-fly to be found from the be-
ginning of this month till the end of August,
on the bole of an oak or ash, always standing
head downwards: the hawthorn-fly, a small,
black fly: the Turkey-fly, red and yellow: al-
der-fly, and the great hackle. These are chiefly
stone-flies, or phryganez.

120 MAY.

MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS.

ARRIVALS,

Alcea Torda, Razor-bill, comes May, goes Aug. Haunts, Rocky isles.

Anthns trivialis, Field Titlark, goes Aug. Grassy fields.

Caprimulgus Europeus, Fern-owl, comes early in May, goes Sept.
Oak woods.

Charadrius Morinellus, Dottrel, goes Aug. Heaths and mountains.

Curruca salicaria, Sedge Warbler, English Mock-bird, goes Sept.
Hedges in low places.

Curruca arundinacea, Reed Warbler, goes Sept. Water-sides,
marshes.

Falco Subbuteo, Hobby, goes Oct. Woods and fields.

Lanius Collurio, Red-backed Shrike, goes Sept. Fields in Southern
counties.

Ortygometra crex, Land Rail, goes Oct. Meadows.

Muscicapa Grisola, Spotted Flycatcher, comes May 12, goes Sept.
Wall-trees about houses.

DEPARTURES.

Anser ferus, Bean Goose, goes May, comes Sept. Haunts, Fens
and corn-fields.

CALENDAR OF THE FLOWER GARDEN.

Class II. Order 1. Phillyree, mult. Phillyreas, various.

Syringa Persica, Persian Lilach. 6.

Syringa v. Jatifolia, Broad-leaved Lilach.

Veronica aphyllia, Naked-stalked Speedwell. 7.

Veronica bellidoides, Broad-leaved Speedwell.

Ill. 1. Valeriana Phu, Garden Valerian. 7.

Iris Florentina, cum mult. aliis. Florentine Iris, with many others.

IV. 3. Ilex opaca, Carolina Holly. 6.

Tlex v. angustifolia, Narrow-leaved Holly.

V.1. Azalea pontica, Yellow Azalea. 6.

Azalea nudiflora, Red Azalea. 6.

Azalea v. coccinea, Scarlet Azalea.

Azaiea v. carnea, Flesh-coloured Azalea.

Azalea y. a/ba, Early White Azalea.

Azalea v. papilionacea, cum mult. aliis. Variegated Azalea, with
many others.

Lonicera sempervirens, Trumpet Honey-suckle. 8.

Lonicera Pyrenaica, Pyrenean Honey-suckle.

MAY. 121

V.1. Lonicera Diervilla, Yellow Honey-suckle. 7.

Lonicera caprifolium, Italian White Honey-suckle. 6.

Lonicera v. rubra, Early Red Honey-suckle.

Lycium barbarum, Willow-leaved Boxthorn. 8.

Lycium Europeum, European Boxthorn. 8,

Anchusa angustifolia, Narrow-leaved Buglos. 8.

Symphytum Orientale, Eastern Comfrey. 7.

Phlox glaberrima, Smocth-stalked Lychnidea. 6.

Phlox pilosa, Hairy Lychnidea. 6.

Phlox ovata, OvalJ-leaved Lychnidea.

Phlox stolonifera, Creeping Lychnidea. 6.

Verbascum ferrugineum, cum aliis. Rusty-leaved Mullein, with
others. 7.

Viola montana, Mountain Violet. 6.

Viola grandiflora, cum aliis. Great-flowered Violet, with others. 8.

Campanula speculum, Venus looking-glass. 7.

Vinca major, Greater Perriwinkle. 7,

Vinca minor, Lesser Perriwinkle. 7.

Echium orientale, Eastern Viper’s Buglos. 8.

Echium violaceum, Violet Viper’s Buglos.

Echium vy. fore pleno, Double Viper’s Buglos.

V.3. Vibernum opulus Amer: American Guelder-rose. 6.

Vibernum v. resea, Snowball Guelder-rose.

Staphyllea trifolia, Three-leaved Bladder-nut. 6.

Rhus aromaticum, Aromatic Sumach.

V.5. Statice. Cephalotes, Large sinyle-leaved Thrift.

Statice cordata, Heart-leaved Thrift. 7.

VI. 1. Tradescantia Virginica, Virginian Spiderwort. 6.

Lilium pomponisinm, Pomponium Lily. 6.

Fritillaria Pyrenaica, Pyrenean Fritillary.

Scilla Peruviana, Peruvian Hyacinth.

Scilla Lusitanica, Portugal Hyacinth.

Scilla campanulata, Spanish Hyacinth. 6.

Asphodelus luteus, Yellow Asphodel. 7.

Asphodelus ramosus, Branching Asphodel. 7.

Anthericum ramosum, Branching Anthericum, 6.

Anthericum Liliago, Grass-leaved Anthericum.

Anthericum Liliastrum, St. Bruno’s Anthericum. 6.

Convallaria racemosa, Solomon’s Seal. 6.

Convallaria bifolia, Lily of the Valley. 6.

Tulipa suaveolens, Van Thol Tulip.

Hyacinthus Romanus, Roman Hyacinth.

Hyacinthus monstrosus, Feathered Hyacinth. 6.

Hemerocallis cerulea, Blue Day-Lily. 7.

VIII. 1. nothera rosea, Rose-flowered Tree Primrose.

(nothera primula, Dwar!-yellow Tree Primrose. 9.

Vaccinium stamineum, cum mult. aliis. Green-twigged Bleaberry,
with many others. 6.

122 MAY.

VIII. 1. Daphne Cneorum, Sweet-scented Daphne.

Erica viridepurpurea, Green and purple Heath.

X. 1. Ledum latifolium, Labrador Tree.

Rhododendron ferrugin: cum mult. aliis. Rusty-leaved Rhododen-
dron, with many others. 6.

Andromeda paniculata, cum mult. aliis. Panicled Andromeda, with
many others. 6.

X. 2. Saxifraga Pensylvatica,cum mult. aliis. Pensylvanian Sax-
ifrage, with many others. 6.

Saponaria ocymoides, Basil-leaved Soapwort. 7.

X. 3. Silene alpestris, Mountain Catcbfly. 7.

X. 4, Cerastium repens, cum aliis. Mouse-ear Chickweed, with
others. 6.

XI. 3. Euphorbia spinosa, cum mult, aliis. Shrubby Spurge, with
many others. 9.

Reseda alba, Upright Reseda. 10.

XII. 1. Philadelphus coronarius, Common Syringa. 6.

Philadelphus nanus, Dwarf Syringa. 6.

Amygdalus pumila, Dwarf Almond. 6.

Pronus Virginiana, cum mult. aliis.. Virginian Birds’-cherry, with
many others. 6.

XII. 2. Crataegus crus-galli, cum mult. aliis. Thorn Cockspur, with
many others. 6.

XI. 4. Pyrus Pyracantha, cum mult. aliis. Evergreen Thorn, witb
many others.

Cydonia communis, Common Quince. 6.

Spirea tri-lobata, Three-lobed Spiraea. 6.

XII. 5. Rosa spinosissima, cum mult, aliis. Striped Scotch Rose,
with many others.

Calycanthus floridus, Carolina Allspice. 7.

Calycanthus y. ob/ongus, Long-leaved Allspice.

Geum strictum, Upright Avens. 6.

XIIL. 1. Cistus populifolius, Poplar-leaved Cistus. 6.

Cistus v. minor, Small Cistus. ”

Cistus marifolius, Marum-leaved Cistus. 6.

Acta racemosa, American Herb Christopher. 6.

Papaver orientale, Oriental Poppy. 6.

XIIL. 2. Peonia coralloides, cum mult. aliis. Female Peony, with
many others. 6.

XIII. 5. Aquilegia montana, Mountain Columbine. 6,

Aquilegia Siberica, Siberian Columbine.

Aquilegia viridiflora, Green-flowered Columbine. 6.

XIII. 7. Anemone pratensis, cum mult. aliis. Meadow Anemone,
with many others. 6.

Ranunculus aconitifolius, cum mult. aliis, Fair Maids of France,
with many others. 6.

Thalictrum aquilegifolia, cum mult, aliis. Feathered Columbine,
with many others. 7.

MAY. 123

XV. 1. Lunaria rediviva, Perennial Honesty. 6.

XV. 2. Hesperis matronalis, Single Rocket. 8.

Matthiola annua, Ten-week-Stock. Li.

Matthiola incana, Brompton Ten week-Stock. 11.

Cheiranthus fruticulosus, Wallflower. 11.

Cheiranthus Alpinus, Alpine Stock. 11.

XVII. 2. Corydalis nobilis, Great-flowered Fumitory.

Corydalis spectabilis, Scarlet Fumitory.

XVII. 4. Spartinum multifilorum, cum aliis. White Broom, with
others. 6.

Ononis rotundifolia, Round Rest-harrow. 7.

Ononis fruticosa, Shrubby Rest-harrow,. 7.

Cytisus Laburnoum, Common Laburnum.

Cytisus v. Zatifolia, Scotch Laburnum.

Robinia pseudo-acacia, Common Acacia. 6.

Robinia hispida, Rose Acacia. 9.

Lupinus perennis, Perennial Lupine. 7.

XVIII. 4. Hypericum perfoliatum, Perfoliate St. John’s-wort. 6.

XIX. 1. Leontodum aureum, Golden Dandelion.

Tragopogon villosus, Villous Goat’s-beard. 6.

Tragopogon porrifolius, Purple-flowered Gvat’s-beard. 6.

Calendula arvensis, Field Marygold. 9.

XXI. 4. Aucuba Japonica, Blotch-leaved Aucuba. 7.

XXI.7. Quercus Phillos, cum aliis. Willow-leaved Oak, with
others. 6.

Carpinus Virginiana, Virginian Hornbeam,

Carpinus betulus, Common Hornbeam.

Carpinus orientalis, Eastern Hornbeam.

Thuja occidentalis, American Arbor-vite.

Thuja orientalis, Chinese Arbor-vite.

Cupressus sempervirens, Upright Cypress.

XXII. 2. Salix incubacea, Spreading Willow.

XXII. 9. Coriaria myrtifolia, Myrtle-leaved Sumach. 7.

XXII.12. Juniperis sabina, cum mult, aliis. Savine, with many
others. 6.

XXIII. 2. Fraxinus ornus, Flowering Ash. 6.

SELECT CALENDAR OF BRITISH BOTANY.

Class Il, Order 1. Veronica chameedrys, cum aliis. Germander
Speedwell, with others. Locality, woods and hedges. Dura-
tion, 10.

Pinguicula vulgaris, Yorkshire Sanicle. Bogs. 6.

il. 2. Anthoxanthum odoratum. Sweet-scented Vernal Grass.
Pastures. 6.

III. 2. Alopecurus pratensis. Common Foxtail Grass. Meadows. 8.

Aira precox. Early Hair Grass. Heaths. 6,

124 MAY.

III. 2. Melica uniflora, Wood Melic Grass. Woods. 7.

Briza media, Common Quaking Grass. Pastures. 6.

IV. 1. Asperula odorata, Sweet Woodruff. Woods. 9.

Galium cruciatum, Crosswort. Hedges. 6.

Plantago major, Greater Plantain. Road-sides. 10.

Epimedium alpinum, Barren Wort. Yorkshire, Scotland, on
mountains. 10.

IV. 3. Ilex aquifolium, Common Holly. Hedges. 10.

Menchia erecta, Upright Pearlwort. Heaths. 6.

V.1. Myosotis cespitosa, Tufted Water Scorpion-Grass. Watery
places. 6.

Myosotis sylvatica, Wood Scorpion-Grass. Woods. 7.

Anchusa sempervirens, Evergreen Alkanet. Amongst rubbish. 7.

Sympbytnum officinalis, Common Comfrey. Banks of rivers. 6.

Viola tricolor, Pansy, Heartsease. Gardens and fields. 9.

Viola Intea, Yellow Mountain Violet. Mountains. 9.

Rhamnus catharticus, Common Buckthorn. Hedges. 9.

Rhamnus Frangula, Berry-bearing Alder. Moist woods. 9.

Euonymus Europeus, Spindle Tree. Hedges. 9,

Vinca minor, Lesser Perriwinkle. Banks. 6.

Vinca major, Greater Perriwinkle. Moist woods. 6.

V. 2. Chenopodium Bonus Henricus, Mercury Goosefoot. Way-
sides. 6.

Myrrhis odorata, Sweet Cicely. Mountainous pastures. 7.

Sanicula Europea, Wood Sanicle. Woods. 6.

Bunium flexuosum, Earth-nut, or Pig-nut. Pastures. 6.

Smyrnium Olusatrum, Alexanders. Among ruins. 6.

Meum athamanticum, Spignel. Mountainous pastures. 7.

V. 3. Viburnum Lantana, Wayfaring Tree. Woods, 7.

VI. 1. Leucojum estivum, Summer Snowflake. Moist meadows. 7.

Narcissus poeticus, Poetic Narcissus. Open fields. 7.

Allium ursinum, Bear’s Garlic. Moist Woods, 6.

Scilla nutans, Harebell Squill. Woods. 6.

Convallaria majalis, Lily of the Valley. Woods. 6.

Convallaria multiflora, Common Solomon’s Seal. Woods, rare, 6.

Berberis vulgaris, Common Barberry. Hedges. 6.

VIi.1. Trientalis Europea, Winter Green. Pine woods. 6.

VIII. 1. Vaccinium myrtillus, Bilberry, Heaths and woods. 6.

Acer psendo:platanus, Sycamore. L woods and hedges. 6.

Acer campestre, Common Maple.

VIII. 3. Paris quadrifolia, Herb Paris. Truelove. Woods, 6.

X.1. Andromeda polifolia, Marsh Andromeda. Peat bogs. 6.

X.2. Saxifraga cespitosa, Tufted Alpine Saxifrage. Mountainous
rocks, rare. 6.

Saxifraga hypnoides, cum aliis. Mossy Alpine Saxifrage, with
others. Walls and rocks. 6.

X. 3. Arenaria verna, Vernal Sandwort. Mountains. 8.

X. 4. Oxalis corniculata Yellow, Wood-Sorrell. Waste ground. 10.

MAY. 125

X. 4. Lychnis dioica, Red and White Campions. Fields and
gardens. 10.

XII. 1. Prunus Padus, Bird’s Cherry. a

Prunus Cerasus, Wild Cherry Tree. i Woods. 6.

XII. 2. Mespilus Oxycantha, Hawthorn—May.

Pyrus malus, Crab Tree.

Pyrus torminalis, Wild Service Tree. Hedges and Woods. 6,

Pyrus aucuparia, Mountain Ash. Mountainous woods. 6.

Pyrus Aria, White Beam Tree. Mountains and rocks. 6.

XII. 3. Rubus idzus, Raspberry. Woods and hedges. 6.

Rubus arcticus, Arctic Bramble. Mountainous moors. 6.

Fragaria vesca, Wood Strawberry. Banks and woods. 6.

Geum urbanum, Common Avens. Woods and hedges. 8.

XIII. 1. Chelidonium majus, Common Celandine. Waste grounds. 6.

XIII. 3. Adonis Autumnalis, Pheasant’s Eye. Corn-fields. 9.

Ranunculus bulbosus, Bulbous Crowfoot. Meadows. 6.

Ranunculus aquatilis, cum aliis. Floating Crowfoot, with others.
Ponds and rivers. 7.

Trollius Europeeus, Globe Flower. Mountainous woods. 6.

XIV. 1. Lamium purpureum, Red Dead-nettle. Waste grounds. 8.

Galeobdolon luteum, Yellow Dead-nettle. Hedges and woods. 6.

XIV. 2. Melampyrum pratense, Common Cow-wheat. Woods. 8.

Antirrhinum Gymbalaria, Ivy-leaved Snap-Dragon. Banks and
walls. 11.

Linnza borealis, Two-flowered Linnzea, Pine-woods, Scotland. 6.

XV.1. Crambe maritima, Sea Kale. Sandy sea-coast. 6.

XV. 2. Cardamine impatiens, Impatient Cardamine. Moist
places. 6.

Erysimuin Alliaria, Jack-by-the-hedge. Banks and hedges. 6.

Hesperis matronalis, Dame’s Violet. Hilly pastures. 6.

Sinapis arvensis, Wild Mustard. Corn-fields. 6.

XVI. 2. Geranium pheum, Dusky Crane’s-bill. Mountainous
thickets. 6.

Geranium robertianum, Herb-Robert. Hedges and banks. 10.

Geranium lucidum, Shining Crane’s-bill. Moist rocks. 8.

Geranium dissectum, Jagged-leaved Crane’s-bill. Wasteground. 7.

XVI. 3. Malva sylvestris, Common Mallow. Road-sides. 9.

XVII. 1. Fumaria lutea, Yellow Fumitory. Old walls. 6.

Fumaria officinalis, Common Fumitory. Gardens and fields. 8.

XVII. 3. Orobus tuberosus, Common Heath Pea. Banks and
woods. 7.

Lathyrus Nissolia, Crimson Grass-Vetch. Bushy places. 6.

Vicia sepium, Common Blush-Vetch. Corn-fields. 6.

Ornithopus perpnsillus, Birds’-foot. Sandy places. 9.

Trifolium pratense, Common Red Clover. Pastures. 9.

XIX. 1. Hieraceum Pilosella, Mouse-ear Hawkweed. Way-
sides. 7.

XX. 1. Orchis morio, Meadow Orchis. Meadows. 6.

Hedges. 6.

126 MAY.

Orchis militaris, Military Orchis. Chalky bills,

Orchis tephrosanthos, Monkey Orchis. Kent. 6.

Orchis latifolia, Marsh Palmate Orchis. Moist meadows. 6.

Ophrys fucifera, Drone Orchis. Chalky hills, Kent. 6.

Listera Nidus-avis, Bird’s-nest Orchis. Shady woods. 6.

Epipactis ensifolia, Narrow-leaved White Helleborine. Moun-
tainous woods. 6.

Corallorrhiza innata, Spurless Coral Wort. Mossy bogs, Scotland. 6.

XXI. 2. Carex dioica,cum mult. aliis. Dioicous Carex, with
many others. Bogs. 9.

XXI. 4.. Bryonia dioica, Red-berried Bryony. Hedges. 9.

XXI. 5. Arum maculatum, Wake-Robin. Banks and woods. 6.

Fragus castanea, Sweet Chestnut.

Carpinus Betulus, Common Hornbeam. ; Weeds. is

XXI, 6. Pinus sylvestris, Scotch Fir. Scotland. 6.

XXII.1. Salix triandra, cum mult. aliis. Triandrous Willow, witb
many others. Osier Grounds. 8.

XXII. 2. Empetrum nigrum, Crowberry. Mountainousheaths. 8.

XXII. 3. Viscum album, Common Misseltoe. On apple and crab-
trees. 8.

Myrica Gale, Sweet Gale, or Dutch Myrtle. Bogs. 8.

XXII. 6. Rhodiola rosea, Mountain Rose-root. Wales, North of
England, etc. 6.

XXII. 8. Juniperus communis, Common Juniper. Heathy downs. 6.

XXIV. 1. Polypodium vulgare, Common Polypody. Walls,
trunks of trees, etc. 10.

Asplenium Tricomanes, Common Maiden-hair. Rocks and old
walls. 12.

Pteris crispa, Curled, or Rock Brakes. Sides of mountains. 8.

Hymenophyllum Tunbridgense, Turbridge Filmy Fern. Moist,
shady, and stony places. 6.

Ophioglossum yulgatum, Adder’s Tongue, Meadows and pastures. 7.

XX. 1. Orchis fusca, Great Brown-winged Orchis. \

SELECT CALENDAR OF BRITISH INSECTS.

Cicindela hybrida, Locality, coast of Norfolk, Suffolk, ete, Month,
To 6.

Brachinus crepitans, Common Bombardier, Near London. To 6.

Carabus monilis. Gardens and meadows. To 9.

Carabus nitens. On heaths, particularly in the North of England.
To7.

Nebria complanata. Coast, Swansea, etc. To 6.

Helobia Marshallana. Mountains of Westmoreland. To 6.

Anchomenus prasinus. Under stones in sandy places. To 8.

Agonum marginatum. Banks of streams. To 6.

Omaceus nigrita. Moist situations. To 7.

MAY. 127

Harpalus ruficornis, Under stones and pathways. To 10.
Colymbetes abbreviatus. Ponds. To 6.

Gyrinus bicolor. Surface of Pools, etc. To 6.

Gyrinus villosus. Margins of rivers, To 6.

Necrophorus germanus,

Necrophorus Sepultor.

Oiceoptoma thoracica. Dead animals and fungi. To 7.
Oiceoptoma rugosa.

Oiceoptoma sinuata.

Silpha quadrimaculata. Oak trees. To 7.

Onthophilus striatus.
Onthophilus sulcatus. §
Geotrupes levis, Smooth Dor-beetle. Dung on heaths. To 10.
Melolontha vulgaris, Common Cockchaffer. Trees and hedges. To 6.
Anomala Horticola. Skirts of woods. To 7.

Cetouia aurata, Rose May-chaffer. Flowers of the Dog-rose. To7.

Telephorus fuscus.
Telephorus lividus. g ee es LC

Necrobia violacea. Dead animals. To 9.
Scolytus Destructor. Bark of the elm. To 7.
Phyllobius argentatus. Woods and hedges. To 6.
Deporaus Betule. Birch tree. To 6.
Brachytarsus scabrosus. White Thorn, To 6.
Donacia dentipes, :

Dotania es , Aquatic plants. To 6.
Cassida nobilis. ; Weedy barks. To 6.
Cassida splendidula.

Helops caraboides. Sandy places. To 7.
Mordella aculeata. Umbellate plants. To 6.

Dung and dead animals, To 7.

Notoxus Monoceros, Unicorn Beetle. Gite 8.
Staphylinus pubescens. Sandy places, 1 To 6.
Staphylinus erythropterus. To7.

Papilio Machaon, Swallow-tail Butterfly. In the fenny counties.
To7.

Papilio Podalirius, Scarce Swallow-tail Butterfly. Woods, Bed-
fordshire. To 8.

Pontia Brassice, Common Cabbage Butterfly. Gardens, etc. And
7 to 9.

Pontia Napi, Green-veined White Butterfly.

Pontia Napee.

Pontia Daplidice, Green-chequered White Butterfly. South of
England. And 8.

Pontia Cardamines, Orange-lip White Butterfly. Woods and mea-
dows. To 6,

Leucophasia Sinapis, Wood White Butterfly. Woods in the south.
And 8.

Nemeobius Lucina, Duke of Burgundy’s Fritillary. Woods in the
south. And 6.

Gardens, ete. And7-

128 MAY.

Melita Athalia, Pearl-bordered likeness. Devonshire. And 6.

Melitea tessellata, Straw May Fritillary. Middlesex. And 6.

Melitzea Artemis, Greasy, or Marsh Fritillary. Meadows. And 6.

Melitwa Selene, Small Pearlbordered Fritillary. Woods and
heaths. And 8.

Melitesa Euphrosyne, Pearl-bordered Fritillary. Woods and heaths.
To 6 and 8.

Argynnis Lathonia, Queen of Spain’s Fritillary. Woods in the
south. And 8.

Thecla Rubi, Green Hair-streak. Hedges and brambles. And 8.

Polyommatus Agriolus, Azure-blue Butterfly. South of England.
And 8.

Polyommatus Alsus, Bedford blue Butterfly. Woods and meadows.
And 7.

Polyommatus Acis, Mazarine blue Butterfly. Chalky districts.
And 7.

Polyommatus Adonis, Clifden blue Butterfly. Downs in the south.
And 8.

Polyommatus Alexis, Common blue Butterfly. Heaths and com-
mons, And 8.

Thymele Alveolus, Grizzled Skipper. Ands.

Thymele Tages, Dingy sine. , Woods and commons, ; Andy.

Pamphila Paniscus, Checquered Skipper. Woods and commons.
And 7.

Pamphila Sylvanus, Large Skipper. Woods and lanes. And 7.

Anthrocera Trifolii, Treafoil Burnet-Moth. Moist woods and bogs.
And 7.

Smerinthus ocellatus, Eyed Hawk Moth. Willow, Apple, and
Poplar. And 6.

Smerinthus Tilia, Lime Hawk Moth. Lime trees. And 6.

Sesia Fuciformis, Narrow-bordered Bee-Hawk Moth. Fens in the
south. And 6.

Sesia Bombyliformis, Broad-bordered Bee-Hawk Moth. Woods.
And 6.

Hepialus Humuli, Ghost Moth: Fields, ete. And 6.

Cossus ligniperda, Goat Moth. Willow trees. And 6.

Cerura Vinula, Puss Moth. Hosier holts. And 6.

Lasiocampa Rubi, Fox-coloured Moth. Woods and heaths. And 6.

Spilosoma meuthastri, Large Ermine. Moist woods. And 6.

Spilosoma lubricepeda, Spotted Buff Ermine. Gardens. And 6.

Diaphora mendica, Spotted Muslin. Woods, And 6.

Callimorpha Jacobee, Cinnabar Moth. Woods, on the Ragwort.
And 7.

Hypena rostralis, Buttoned Snout. Amongst nettles. And 7.

MAY. 129

The Gyrinus villosus, one of the rarest spe-
cies of this genus, inhabits the weedy margins
of streams. It is supposed by some to differ
from its congeners in not being gregarious, but
of this I have some doubts, as it has once in
this neighbourhood been taken abundantly, and
to all appearance is as fond of collecting toge-
ther as the natator, although not so common
or so frequently observed. The gentleman who
took them informs me that on turning over a
stone on the margin of the Trent, he observed
at least fifty specimens.

The Onthophilus sulcatus and striatus are
both found in the vicinity of Nottingham; the
former very rarely, but always near dead ani-
mals: the latter has been extremely abundant
this spring, (1830) in the usual haunts of the
Histeride and Aphodiide.

Cetonia aurata—Rose May-Chaffer, or Brass
Beetle. This beautiful insect is not confined
to the south, some hundreds of specimens have
been captured in this county, and I have some
which were taken at Matlock.

Scolytus Destructor. No one from a casual
survey of this little creature would deem it ca-
pable of such extensive devastation: its ravages
are confined to the Elm (Ulmus campestris),
the mid-bark of which it perforates in a circular
direction, in some instances completing the cir-

K

130 MAY.

cumference of the tree and depositing eggs
during its progress. The larva which are pro-
duced from these eggs perforate the bark at
right angles with the perforation of the mother
insect, both upwards and downwards. The fe-
male is generally found dead at the end of the
circular labyrinth: a tree, when once infected,
never fails to fall a victim in the course of a
few years to this little destroyer, however large
and flourishing.

Notoxus Monoceros is a local British insect,
and appears to haunt the sea coast, and the
banks of the larger rivers in dry sandy situa-
tions; with us on the banks of the Trent, in
one spot, it is found in great abundance, at the
roots of the Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare), and
the silver-weed (Potentilla anserina.): It is also
very fond of dead muscles that are half dried by
the sun. Mr. Marsham has given its habitat
on syngenesious flowers, but I have never eb-
served it to take wing.

Of the twenty-five species of Papiliones enu-
merated in the list of this month, eight only are
known to inhabit this county; of which the Po-
lyommatus Alexis and the Pontia Brassica, Napi
and Cardamines are common, and the Meleteza
Euphrosyne, the Polyommatus Alsus, and the
Pamphila Sylvanus are less frequent: the Pa-

MAY. 131

pilio Machaon has been taken once at Newark
-on Trent, and at Welbeck.

Cossus ligniperda, or Goat-moth. A moth of
large size and considerable beauty, not uncom-
mon towards the end of this and the beginning
of the next month; the larvz live in the solid
wood of the oak, the ash, and the willow, but
more particularly the last; which they perforate
in various directions. They are very destruc-
tive, as may easily be imagined from their du-
ration and size, the length of the full-grown
larvze being four inches, and their period of ex-
istence in that state three years. They remain
in the state of pupa or chrysalis about three
weeks.

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LAYS OF THE SEASONS.

BY MARY HOWITT.

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SUMMER.

Tis summer—joyous summer time !
In noisy towns no more abide ;

The earth is full of radiant things,

Of gleaming flowers and glancing wings,
Beauty and joy on every side.

‘Tis morn ;—the glorious sun is up,

The dome-like heaven is bright and blue ;
The lark, yet higher and higher ascending,
Pours out his song that knows no ending :

The unfolding flowers are brimmed with dew.

134

JUNE.

When noon is in the flaming sky

Seek we some shadowy, silent wood ;
Recline upon a mossy knoll,
Cast care aside, and yield the soul

To that luxurious quietude.

Above, waves wide the linden tree,

With humming-bees the air is thrilled,
And through the sleeping hush is heard
The sudden voice of the woodland bird,

Like sound with which a dream is filled.

Oh pleasant land of idlesse !

Jollity bides not ’neath the trees,
But thought, that roams from folly free,
Through the pure world of poetry,

Puts on her strength in scenes like these !

And sweet it is by lonely meres
To sit, with heart and soul awake,
Where water-lilies lie afloat,
Each anchored like a fairy boat
Amid some fabled elfin lake :

To see the birds flit to and fro
Along the dark-green reedy edge ;

Or fish leap up to catch the fly ;

Or list the viewless wind pass by,
Leaving its voice amid the sedge.

JUNE.

The green and breezy hills—away !
My heart is light, my foot is free,

And, resting on the topmost peak,

The freshening gale shall fan my cheek, —
The hills were ever dear to me!

I stand upon the mountain’s brow,
A monarch in this region wide ;

I and the grey-faced mountain-sheep

The solitary station keep,

As living thing were none beside.

Tis summer eve, a gentle hour ;
The west is rich in sombre sheen ;

And ’mid the garden’s leafy trees,

Springs up a cool refreshing breeze,

And the pale stars are faintly seen.

The white owl with his downy wings
And hooded head goes slowly by ;
The hawk-moth sits upon the flowers ;
And through the silent evening hours

The little brooks make melody.

And walking ’mid the folded blooms
At summer midnight shalt thou feel

A softened heart, a will subdued,

A holy sense of gratitude,

An influence from the Source of Good,
Thy bitterest griefs to heal.

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Pune.

To mute and to material things

New life revolving Summer brings ;
The genial call dead Nature hears,
And in her glory reappears.

SCOTT,

JUNE.

Come on therefore, let us enjoy the good things that are present ;
and let us speedily use the creatures like ag in youth.
Let us fill ourselves with costly wine, and ointments, and let no

flower of the spring pass by us.
Let us crown ourselyes with rose-buds, before they be withered.
THE WispoM OF SOLOMON, ii. 6—8.

WELCOME once more to sweet June, the
month which comes

Half prankt with spring, with summer half imbrowned.

Yet it is almost startling to those who regret
the speed of time, and especially of those

Who like the soil, who like the clement skies,

Who like the verdant hills, and flowery plains,
to behold how far the season has advanced.
But with this we must be sensibly struck, if
we give a retrospective glance to the days
when, in our walks, we hailed with delight the
first announcements of a new spring; the first
snatch of milder air; the first peep of green ;
the first flowers which dared the unsettled ele-
ments ;—snowdrops, primroses, violets, and then
a thousand beautiful and short-lived blooms.

138 JUNE.

They are gone! The light tints of young fo-
liage, so pure, so tender, so spiritual, are vanish-
ed. What the poet applied to the end of sum-
mer, is realized now ;

It is the season when the green delight

Of leafy luxury begins to fade,

And leaves are changing hourly on the sight.

Barton.

A duller and darker uniformity of green has
spread over the hedges; and we behold in the
forest trees, the farewell traces of spring. They
indeed exhibit a beautiful variety. The oak
has ‘‘ spread its amber leaves out in the sunny
sheen ;” the ash has unfolded its more cerulean
drapery; the maple, beech, and sycamore are
clad in most delicate vestures; and even the
dark perennial firs are enlivened by young
shoots and cones of lighter green. Our admi-
ration of the foliage of trees would rise much
higher, did we give it a more particular atten-
tion. The leaves of the horse-chestnut are
superb. Passing through a wood with a friend,
we broke off one without thinking much of what
we were doing, but, being immediately struck
with its size and beauty, we found, on trial, that
it measured no less than one yard and three
quarters round, and the leaf and foot-stalk three
quarters of a yard in length, presenting a na-
tural handscreen of unrivalled elegance of shape.

JUNE. 139

It is now too that many of the forest trees put
forth their blossoms. The chestnut, in the
earliest period of the month, is a glorious ob-
ject, laden with ten thousand waxen pyramidal
flowers. Then come the less conspicuous, but
yet beautiful developements of other giants of
the wood. The sycamore, the maple, and the
hornbeam, are affluent with their pale, yellow
florets, quickly followed by winged seeds; the
ash shows its bunches of green keys; and,
lastly, the lime bursts into one proud glow of
beauty, filling the warm air with honied sweet-
ness, and the ear with the hum of a thousand
bees, —

Pilgrims of summer, who do bow the knee

Zealously at every shrine.

The general character of June, in the hap-
piest seasons, is fine, clear, and glowing, without
reaching the intense heats of July. Its com-
mencement is the only period of the year in
which we could possibly forget that we are in a
world of perpetual change and decay. The
earth is covered with flowers, and the air is
saturated with their odours. It is true that
many have vanished from our path, but they
have slid away so quietly, and their places have
been occupied by so many fragrant and beauti-
ful successors, that we have scarcely been sen-
sible of their departure. Every thing is full of

140 JUNE.

life, greenness, and vigour. Families of young
birds are abroad, and give their parents a busy
life of it, till they can peck for themselves.
Rooks have deserted the rookery, and are feed-
ing their vociferous young in every pasture, and
under every green tree. The swallow and swift
are careering in the clear skies, and

Ten thousand insects in the air abound,

Flitting on glancing wings that yield a summer sound.

WIFFEN.

The flower-garden is in the height of its splen-
dour. Roses of almost innumerable species,—
I have counted no less than fourteen in a cot-
tage garden,— lilies, jasmins, speedwells, rock-
ets, stocks, lupines, geraniums, pinks, poppies,
valerians, red and blue, mignionette, etc. and
the glowing rhododendron abound.

It is the very carnival of Nature, and she is
prodigal of her luxuries. It is luxury to walk
abroad, indulging every sense with sweetness,
loveliness, and harmony. It is luxury to stand
beneath the forest side, when all is still and
basking at noon; and to see the landscape sud-
denly darken, the black and tumultuous clouds
assemble as at a signal; to hear the awful thun-
der crash upon the listening ear; and then, to
mark the glorious bow rise on the lurid rear of
the tempest, the sun laugh jocundly abroad, and

Every bathed leaf and blossom fair
Pour out its soul to the delicious air,

JUNE. 141

It is luxury to haunt the gardens of old-fashion-
ed houses in the morning, when the bees are
flitting forth with a rejoicing hum; or at eve,
when the honeysuckle and the sweet-briar
mingle their spirit with the breeze. It is lux-
ury to plunge into the cool river; and, if ever
we are tempted to turn anglers, it must be now.
To steal away into a quiet valley, by a wind-
ing stream, buried, completely buried, in fresh
grass; the foam-like flowers of the meadow-
sweet, the crimson loose-strife, and the large
blue geranium nodding beside us; the dragon-
fly, the ephemera, and the king-fisher glancing
to and fro; the trees above casting their flicker-
ing shadows on the stream; and one of our ten
thousand volumes of delightful literature in our
pockets,—then indeed might one be a most
patient angler though taking not a single fin.
What luxurious images would there float through
the mind! Gray could form no idea of heaven
superior to lying on a sofa, and reading novels ;
but it is in the flowery lap of June that we can
best climb
Up to the stinshine of uncumbered ease.

How delicious, too, are the evenings become.
The frosts and damps of spring are past: the
earth is dry: the night-air is balmy and re-
freshing: the glow-worm has lit her lamp: the
bat is circling about: the fragrant breath of
flowers steals into our houses: and the moth

142 JUNE.

flutters against the darkening pane. Go forth
when the business of the day is over, thou who
art pent in city toils, and stray through the
newly-shot corn, along the grassy and hay-
scented fields; linger beside the solitary wood-
land ;—the gale of heaven is stirring its mighty
and umbrageous branches. The wild-rose, with
its flowers of most delicate odour, and of every
tint, from the deepest red to the purest pear! ;
the wreathed and luscious honeysuckle, and the
verdurous, snowy-flowered elder embellish every
way-side, or light up the most shadowy region
of the wood. Field-peas and beans, in full
flower, add their spicy aroma: the red clover
is at once splendid and profuse of its honied
breath. The young corn is bursting into ear ;—
the awned heads of rye, wheat, and barley, and
the nodding panicles of oats shoot from their
green and glaucous stems, in broad, level, and
waving expanses of present beauty and future
promise. The very waters are strewn with
flowers; the buck-bean, the water-violet, the
elegant flowering-rush, and the queen of the
waters, the pure and splendid white lily invest
every stream and lonely mere with grace. The
mavis and the merle, those worthy favourites of
the olden bards, and the woodlark fill the so-
litude with their eloquent evening songs.

Over its own sweet voice the stock-dove broods ;

JUNE. 143

and the cuckoo pours its mellowest note from
some region of twilight shadow. The sunsets
of this month are transcendantly glorious: the
mighty luminary goes down pavilioned amidst
clouds of every hue—the splendour of burnish-
ed gold, the deepest mazarine blue fading away
into the highest heavens, to the palest azure ;
and an ocean of purple is flung over the twi-
light-woods, or the far-stretching and lonely
horizon. The heart of the spectator is touch-
ed: it is melted and wrapped into dreams of
past and present — pure, elevated, and tinged
with a poetic tenderness, which can never awake
amid the crowds of mortals or of books.

The state of nature I have described is just
that which might be supposed to exist with per-
petual summer : there are sunshine, beauty, and
abundance, without a symptom of decay. But
this will not last. We soon perceive the florid-
ity of nature merging into a verdant monotony :
we find a silence stealing over the landscape, so
lately filled with the voice of every creature's
exultation. The nightingale is gone, and the
cuckoo will depart in less time than is allowed
him in the peasant’s traditionary calendar.

In April the cuckoo shows his bill ;
In May he sings both night and day;
In June he altereth his tune ;

In July away he'll fly ;
In August go he must.

144 JUNE.

Anon, the scythe is heard ringing,—a sound
happy in its immediate associations, but, in fact,
a note of preparation for winter,—a knell of the
departing year. It reminds us, in the midst
of warmth and fertility, that we must prepare
for nakedness and frost; and that stripping
away of the earth’s glorious robe, which, when
it begins, will never cease till it leaves us in the
dreary, tempestuous region of winter; so
That fair flower of beauty fades away,
As doth the lily fresh before the sunny ray.
Great enemy to it, and all the rest
That in the garden of fair nature springs,
Is wicked time, who, with his scythe addressed,
Doth mow the flowering herbs and goodly things,
And all their glory to the ground down flings,
Where they do wither, and are foully marred ;
He flies about, and with his flaggy wings
Beats down both bud and leaf without regard,
Ne ever pity may relent his malice hard.
Faery Queene, bp. iii.
Let us not, however, anticipate too sensitively
the progress of time: let us enjoy rather the
summer festivities which surround us. The
green fruits of the orchard are becoming con-
spicuous, and the young nuts in hedges and
copses peep from their fringed husks: the gar-
den presents ripe cherries, melting strawberries:
and gooseberries and currants, assuming tints of
ripeness, are extremely grateful. Grasses are
now in flower; andwhen the larger species are

JUNE. 145

collected and disposed tastefully, as I have seen
them by ladies, in vases, polished horns, and
over pier-glasses, they retain their freshness
through the year, and form, with their elegantly
pensile panicles, bearded spikes, and silken
plumes, exceedingly graceful ornaments.
Hay-harvest has commenced, and, i2 some
southern counties, if the weather be favourable,
is completed ; but next month may be consider-
ed as the general season of hay-making.
SumMER F oops. Floods in the summer
months are not unfrequent; and when they
spread into the mowing-grass do immense da-
mage, filling it with sand, and covering it with
an adhesive slime that no future showers will
wash off. Sometimes they come in the midst
of hay-harvest, and then may be seen haycocks
standing in the midst of the water, or floating
down the flooded valleys in vast quantities—
here people intercepting it with boats, or
pulling it out with rakes and hooks; there
plucking it away from the arches of bridges,
which it would soon choke and cause to blow
up. After the subsiding of the waters, hedges
and copses may be seen loaded with it, a me-
lancholy monument of incalculable damage.
Yet rivers never look so well as when they are
swelled bankfull in summer. They have a
noble and abundant aspect, and rush on their
L

146 JUNE.

way magnificently amid views in the pride of
their bloom and greenness, amid the deepest
grass and the richest foliage; and it is a merry
sight to see the little boys sporting like fishes in
the water where it has spread itself in shallow
expanses on the grass.

Fishermen too, take the advantage of these
floods. The waters are rendered turbid, and
the fish are not only deprived of their ordinary
quickness of perception, but are washed out of
their usual haunts. Men may be seen hasten-
ing towards the rivers with their nets, and find
noble sport with carp and barbel and other large
fish, which lie luxuriating on the warm banks
amid the fresh herbage.

SHEEP-SHEARING, begun last month, is gene-
rally completed this. It is one of the most pic-
turesque operations of rural life, and, from the
most ancient times, it has been regarded as a
season of gladness and festivity. The simple
and unvitiated sense of mankind taught them,
in the earlier ages of society, that the bounty of
Nature was to be gathered in with thankfulness,
and in a spirit like that of the Great Giver, a
spirit of blessing and benevolence. Therefore
did they join with the brightness and beauty
of the summer the sunshine of their grateful
souls, and collect with mirth and feasting the
harvests of the field, of the forest, and of the

JUNE. 147

flock. The very spirits of the churlish, the
hard and unkindly natures of the “ sons of
Belial,” gave way before the united influence
of the fair and plentiful time and of natural
religion, so far as to feast their servants. The
Bible, that treasury of the customs of the pri-
mitive nations, gives a most lively picture of
their practice in this particular. Nabal, “a
man in Maon, whose possessions were in Car-
mel, and who had three thousand sheep and
a thousand goats, was shearing his sheep in
Carmel,” when David, knowing it to be a time
of abundance, sent some of his men out of
the wilderness to solicit provisions. The men,
when delivering their leader’s message, used
it is an argument, “for we are come in a good
day.” Some idea may also be formed of the
preparations on such occasions, from the sup-
ply of good things which Nabal’s wife “ made
haste” and gave to David. Two hundred
loaves, and two bottles of wine, and five sheep,
ready dressed, and five measures of parched
corn, and a hundred clusters of raisins, and two
hundred cakes of figs: and it is added, “ Behold
Nabal held a feast in his house, like the feast of
a king.”—-SamueEt ch. xxv.

Such was the custom in this country in the
old-fashioned days. It was a time of merry-
making: the maidens, in their best attire, wait-

148 JUNE.

ed on the shearers to receive and roll up the
fleeces. A feast was made, and king and queen
elected; or, according to Drayton’s Polyolbion,
the king was pre-elected by a fortunate cir-
cumstance.
The Shepherd-king,
Whose flock hath chanced that year the earliest lamb to
bring,
In his gay baldric sits at his low, grassy board,
With flawns, curds, clouted cream, and country dainties
stored ;
And while the bagpipes play, each lusty, jocund swain
Quaffs syllabubs in cans, to all upon the plain ;
And to their country girls, whose nosegays they do wear ;
Some roundelays do sing, the rest the burden bear.
Like most of our old festivities, however, this
has, of late years, declined; yet two instances
in which it has been attempted to keep it alive,
on a noble scale, worthy of a country so re-
nowned for its flocks and fleeces, will occur
to the reader — those of Holkham and Woburn :
and in the wilds of Scotland, and the more
rural parts of England, the ancient glory of
sheep-shearing has not entirely departed. And,
indeed, its picturesqueness can never depart,
however its jollity may. The sheep-washing,
however, which precedes the shearing, has more
of rural beauty about it. As we stroll over
some sunny heath, or descend into some sylvan
valley in this sweet month, we are apt to come

JUNE. 149

upon such scenes. We hear afar off the bleat-
ing of flocks; as we approach some clear stream,
we behold the sheep penned on its banks; in
mid-stream stand sturdy hinds ready to receive
them as they are plunged in, one by one, and
after squeezing their saturated fleeces well be-
tween their hands, and giving them one good
submersion, they guide them to the opposite
bank. The clear running waters, the quiet
fields, the whispering fresh boughs that thicken
around, and the poor dripping creatures them-
selves, that, after giving themselves a staggering
shake, go off gladly to their pasture, form to the
eye an animated and pleasant tout ensemble.
WILD FLOWERS AND THEIR ANCIENT NAMES.
Amongst the most interesting wild flowers now
in full bloom, are the dog-rose, the pimpernel,
thyme, and white bryony. The last is one of
our most elegant plants. Running up in the
space of a month, over a great extent of hedge
or thicket, and covering it with its long twining
stems, spiral tendrils, green vine-like leaves, and
graceful flowers, in a beautiful style of luxu-
riance, it is deserving more notice than it has
yet received, and seems well calculated for
clothing bowers and trellis-work Many of our
wild-flowers derive much interest from the sim-
ple and poetical names given them by our rural
ancestors, as the wind-flower ; the snap-dragon :

150 JUNE.

the shepherd’s-purse ; the bird’s-eye; the fox-
glove; the blue-bell; cuckoo-flower ; adder’s-
tongue, and hart’s-tongue; goldy-locks; hones-
ty; heart’s-ease; true-love; way-bread and
way-faring tree, etc. Many also bear the
traces of their religious feelings ; and still more
remind us of the religious orders by whom they
were made articles of their materia medica, or
materia sancta, each flower being dedicated
to that saint near whose day it happened to
blow.
HOLY FLOWERS.

Woe ’s me—how knowledge makes forlorn ;
The forest and the field are shorn

Of their old growth, the holy flowers ;—
Or if they spring, they are not ours,

In ancient days the peasant saw

Them growing in the woodland shaw,
And bending to his daily toil,

Beheld them deck the leafy soil ;

They sprang around his cottage door ;
He saw them on the heathy moor ;
Within the forest’s twilight glade,
Where the wild deer its covert made ;
In the green vale, remote and still,

And gleaming on the ancient hill.

The days are distant now, gone by
With the old times of minstrelsy,

When all unblest with written lore,
Were treasured up traditions hoar ;

And each still lake and mountain lone
Had a wild legend of its own ;

JUNE. 151

And hall, and cot, and valley-stream,
Were hallowed by the minstrel’s dream.
Then musing in the woodland nook,

Each flower was as a written-book,

Recalling, by memorial quaint,

The holy deed of martyred saint ;

The patient faith, which, unsubdued,

Grew mightier through fire and blood.

One blossom, ’mid its leafy shade,

The virgin’s purity portrayed ;

And one, with cup all crimson dyed,

Spoke of a Saviour crucified :

And rich the store of holy thought

That little forest-flower brought.

Doctrine and miracle, whate’er

We draw from bocks was treasured there.

Faith in the wild wood’s tangled bound

A blessed heritage had found ;

And Charity and Hope were seen

In the lone isle and wild ravine.

Then pilgrims in the forest brown

Slow wandering on from town to town,

Halting ’mid mosses green and dank,

Breathed each a prayer before they drank

From waters by the pathway side.

Then duly morn and even-tide,

Before those ancient crosses gray,

Now mouldering silently away,

Aged and young devoutly bent

In simple prayer, how eloquent !

For each good gift man then possessed

Demanded blessing and was blest.
What though in our pride’s selfish mood,

We hold those times as dark and rude,

152 JUNE.

Yet give we, from our wealth of mind,
Feeling more grateful or refined ?
And yield we unto nature aught
Of loftier, or of holier thought,
Than they, who gave sublimest power
To the small spring and simple flower ?
M.#H.

June is most probably named from Juno, in
honour of whom a festival was held at the be-
ginning of the month.

An old author says “unto June the Saxons
gave the name of Weyd-monath ; because their
beasts did weyd in the meadows, that is, go to
feed there; and hereof a meadow is called in
Teutonic, a weyd; and of weyd we retain our
word wade, which we understand of going
through watery places; such as meadows are
wont to be.” Another author says that weyd
is probably derived from weyden (German) to
graze, or to pasture. He further adds, they call
it Woed-monath, weed month, and also Mede-
monath, Mid-somermonath, and Breck-monath,
thought to be from the breaking up of the
soil, from braecan (Saxon); they also called it
Lida-erra. The word Lida, or Litha, signifying
in Icelandic, to move, or pass over, may imply
the sun’s passing over its greatest height; and
Lida-erra consequently means the first month
of the sun’s descent. ida, it is added, has
been affirmed to mean smooth air.

JUNE. 153

Peas, beans, the Anthoxanthum odoratum, or
sweet-scented vernal grass, now diffuse their
fragrance. The common jay now frequents our
gardens, and makes havoc in the bean-rows:
the fox-glove and the wild red poppy beautify
our fields and wastes: the fern-owl may be seen
about the middle of the month, in the evening,
pursuing the fern-chaffer, its favourite prey:
mackrel is taken in abundance: the elder-tree
is in flower, and the grasshopper is heard.

RURAL OCCUPATIONS.

Somer is ycomen in,

Loud sing cuckoo ;

Groweth seed

And bloweth mead,

And springeth the weed new.

So says the oldest English song, and so the
husbandman finds it. In the midland counties
he weeds his green corn, dresses and manures
his fallows, keeps down weeds, especially thistles
in pastures, and smothering plants in young
fences. Turnips are sown, and in the midland
counties Swedish turnips. Old pastures are
pared and burnt: fruit-trees require clearing
of insects, and hops binding to the poles. The
fields are full of grass, and the dairy-maid full
of employment: compost is mixed for land:
sheep now require much attention and daily,

154 JUNE.

almost hourly, watching to defend them from
the fly, or to preserve them from its effects.
On wide heaths, where the sheep are often
small, and consequently of less individual va-
lue, and where also they cannot be so often and
readily seen, great numbers fall a prey to the
flies, and die the dreadful death of being de-
voured by them and their larve. In my sum-
mer rambles I see continual instances of this
melancholy nature; no doubt often resulting
from the indolence of the shepherds. Heavy,
long-woolled sheep, too, are in danger of being
overset, in which situation they will destroy
themselves by their struggles. From these
dangers they are relieved by the annual wash-
ing and shearing, which now take place. Hay-
making in the earlier districts is now going
on busily. The poor find some employment
in cutting heath on the wastes for making
besoms. In the garden, the chief occupations
consist of weeding, watering, and destroying
insects.

ANGLING.

If we except roach, most fresh-water fish are
now in season: bream is excellent, and may be
caught in the deepest places, in ponds, or still
streams, early in the morning, or late in the
evening, by a very cautious and adroit master

Neen ————————————

JUNE. 155

of the angle, with paste, wasp-grub, dock-grub,
or grasshopper. Most fish will now bite eager-
ly, and fly-fishing is become animated, espe-
cially for trout, which is in its glory. The
angler’s life is now delightful: the country
about him is a paradise, full of greenness and
flowers, which perfume the air; the neighbour-
hood of the water is refreshing; the birds
shower their music down upon him from every
bough, and now, if ever, he has sport to his
heart’s content.

Fries. From the Ist to the 24th the green
drake and stone fly; from the 12th to the 24th
the gray drake and the owl fly, late at night; a
purple hackle, a gold twist hackle, a flesh fly,
the peacock fly, the ant fly, a brown gnat, a
little black gnat, a grasshopper.

CALENDAR OF THE FLOWER-GARDEN.

Class II, Order 1. Jasminum officinale, White Common Jasmine. 10

Jasminum y. argent. var. Silver-striped Common Jasmine.

Jasminum vy. aurea, var. Gold-striped Common Jasmine.

III. 1. Gladiolus communis, Red Cornflag. 7.

Gladiolus byzantinus, Larger Cornflag. 7.

Iris Virginica, cum mult. aliis. Virginian Iris, with many others.

II. 2. Briza maxima, Quaking-grass.

IV. 1. Budlea globosa, Globe-fiowered Budlea. 7.

Scabiosa Alpina, Alpine Scabious. 7.

Asperula crassifolia, Thick-leaved Woodroof. 7.

Alchemilla pentaphylla, Five-leaved Ladies’ Mantle. 8.

Alchemilla argentata, Silvery Ladies’ Mantle. 8.

V.1. Itea Virginez, Virginian Itea. 8.

Ampelopsis quinquefolia, Virginian Creeper. 7.

Lonicera grata, cum mult. aliis. Evergreen Honeysuckle, with
many others. 10.

156 JUNE.

Euonymus latifolius, Broad-leaved Spindle-tree. 7.

Vitis vinifera, Common Grape. 7.

Phlox sauveolens, White-flowered Lychnidea. 7.

Campanula lilifolia, Lily Campanula. 8.

Campanula rapunculoides, cum aliis. Nettle-leaved Campanula,
with others. 7.

Cynoglossum linifolium, Navelwort. 7.

Convolvulus lineatus, Dwarf Bindweed. 8.

Asclepias amena, Oval-leaved Swallow-wort. 8.

V.2. Gentiana lutea, Yellow Gentian. 7.

Gentiana purpurea, Purple Gentian. 7.

Gentiana cruciata, Crosswort Gentian. 7.

Eringium Bonrgati, Cut-leaved Eringo. 8.

Eringium Alpinum, Alpine Eringo. 8.

V. 3. Viburnum cassinoides, Thick-leaved Viburnum. 7.

Viburnum dentatum, Tooth-leaved Viburnum. 7.

Viburnum v. pubescens, Downy-leaved Viburnum. 7.

V. 5. Linum Austriacum, Austrian Flax.

Linum hirsutum, Hirsute flax.

VI. 1. Allium flavum, cum aliis. Yellow Garlic, with others. 7.

Lilium candidum, White Lily.

Lilium bulbiferum, Orange Lily.

Lilium Chalcidonicum, Scarlet Martagon Lily. 7.

Lilium superbum, Superb Lily.

Lilium Martagon, Common Martagon Lily. 7.

Lilium tigrinum, Tiger Lily. 7.

Ornithogalum Pyrenaicum, Pyrenean Star of Bethlehem.

Ornithogalum comosum, Short-spiked Star of Bethlehem.

Hemerocallis flava, Yellow Day-lily.

Hemerocallis fulva, Tawny Day-lily. 7.

Hemerocallis graminea, Grassy Day-lily. 7.

VIII. 1. Daphne Tartouraira, Silver-leaved Daphne. 7.

Daphne Gnidium, Flax-leaved Daphne. 7.

(Enothera Misouriensis, (Enothera Misour. 8.

(Enothera Fraseri, Fraser’s CEnothera. 7.

(Enothera biennis, Evening G2nothera. 9.

(Enothera purpurea, Purple CEnothera. 7.

Epilobium Dodonii, Dodonus’s Willow-herb. 7.

Epilobium cordifolium, Heart-leaved Willow-herb.

Tropeolum majus, Great Nasturtinm. 10.

Tropeolum minus, Small Nasturtium. 10.

X. 1. Kalmia latifolia, Broad-leaved Kalmia. 7.

Kalmia angustifolia, Narrow-leaved Kalmia. 7.

Kalmia v. carnea, Pale-flowered Kalmia.

Rhododendron maximum, Large-leaved Rhododendron.

Rhododendron punctatum, Dotted Rhododendron. 7.

Andromeda Mariana, cum aliis. Maryland Andromeda, with
others. 7.

JUNE. ]

On
~“)

Sophora flavescens, Siberian Sophora. 7.

Dictamnus albus, Fraxinella. 7.

X. 2. Saxifraga Geum, Kidney-leaved Saxifrage. 7.

Dianthus barbatus, cum mult. aliis, Sweet-William, with many
others, 7,

X. 3. Silene rupestris, cum aliis. Rock Catchfly, with others, s.

X. 4. Sedum Aizoon, Yellow Stonecrop. 7,

Seduin virens, Green Sedum. 7.

Sedum deficiens, Round-leaved Sedum,

Agrostemma coronaria, Rose Campion. 9,

Lychnis Chalcedonica, Scarlet Lychuis. 7.

Cerastinm tomentosum, Woolly Chickweed, 7.

Oxalis stricta, Upright Oxalis. s.

XI. 2. Agrimonia odorata, Sweet Agrimony. 7.

XI. 3. Euphorbia coralloides, cum aliis. Coral-stalked Spurge,
with others, 9,

Reseda odorata, Mignonette. 10.

XIL.1.) Prunus Lusitanica, Portugal Laurel.

Philadelphus inodorus, Scentless Syringa. 7

XII. 2. Crategus pyrifolia, Pear-leaved Thorn.

XI. 4. Spirzea salicifolia, Willow-leaved Spirea. 7.

Spirzea filipendula, cum mult. aliis. Dropwort, with many others, 8.

XII. 5. Rubus odoratus, Flowering Bramble. 7.

Rosa lutea, Yellow Rose.

Rosa muscosa, cum mult. aliis. Moss Rose, with many others,

Potentilla Pensylvanica, Pensylyanian Cinquefoil.

Potentilla recta, Upright Cinquefoil. 7.

Potentilla grandiflora, Great-flowered Cinquefoil. 7.

Geum potentilloides, Cinquefoil Avens.

Geum reptans, Creeping Avens. 8.

XIU. i. Papaver somniferus, Carnation Poppy. 7.

Papaver Rbeeas, cum aliis. Dwarf Poppy, with others, 7.

Cistus laurifolius, Laurel-leaved Cistus.

Cistus ladaniferus, cum aliis. Gum Cistus, with others. 7,

XU. 3. Delphininm elatum, cum mult. aliis. Common Larkspur,
with many others. 8.

Aconitum Napellus, cum aliis. Blue Wolfsbane, with others. 7.

XIII. 5. Nigella Romana, cumaliis. Roman Nigella, with others. 9.

XIII. 7. Clematis Virginiana, cum aliis et var. Virginian Virgin’ s-
Bower, with others, and varieties. 5.

Thalictrum nigricum, cum mult. aliis. Simple-stalked Thalictram,
With many others.

Trollius Asiaticus, Asiatic Globe-flower.

Trollius Americanus, American Globe-flower.

Liriodendron Tulipifera, Common Talip-tree.

Magnolia grandiflora, Laurel-leaved Magnolia. 8.

Ranunculus plantanifolius, cum aliis, Plantain-leaved Ranunculus,
with others, 7.

158 JUNE.

XIV. 2. Bignonia capreolata, Two-leaved Trumpet™lower.

Linaria purpurea, cum mult. aliis. Purple Toad-flax, with many
others. 9.

Digitalis lutea, Yellow Foxglove. 8.

Mimulus guttatus, Yellow Monkey-flower.

XV. 1. Iberis umbellata, Purple and White Candytuft.

Alyssum halesiafolium, Sweet Alyssum. 11.

XVI. 2. Passiflora cerulea, Blue Passion-flower. 10.

XVI. 5. Geranium angulosum, Angular Cranesbill. 7.

Geranium palustre, Marsh Cranesbill. 7.

Geranium sanguineum, Bloody Cranesbill. 8.

XVI.7. Althza rosea, Hollyhock. 9.

Malva crispa, cum mult. aliis. Curled Mallow, with many others. 9.

XVII. 2. Corydalis cucullaria, Naked-stalked Fumitory. 7

Corydalis fungosa, Spongy-flowered Fumitory. 9.

Robinia jubata, Bearded Acacia. 7.

XVII. 4. Genista Siberica, Siberian Genista. 8.

Genista Germanica, German Genista. 8.

Genista Hispanica, Spanish Genista. 7.

Cytisus Alpinus, cum aliis. Alpine Cytisus, with others.

Colutea arborescens, Bladder Senna. 8.

Colutea cruenta, Eastern Bladder. 7.

Ononis antiquorum, Tree Rest-Harrow. 7.

Orobus lathyroides, Upright Bitter-vetch.

Lathyrus odoratus, Sweet Pea. 7.

Lathyrus Tangitanus, cum aliis et var. Tangier Pea, with others,
and varieties.

Galega officinalis, Common Goat’s-rue. 8.

Galega orientalis, Oriental Goat’s rue. 8.

Astragalus onobrichis, Purple-Spiked Milk-vetch. 7.

Trifolium lupinaster, Bastard Lupine. 7.

Trifolium incarnatum, Crimson Trefoil.

XVII. 4. Scorpiurus vermiculata, Caterpillar. 7

Scorpiurus muricata, Prickly Caterpillar. 7.

Scorpiurus subvillosa, Villosus Caterpillar. 7

Medicago polymorpha, Hedgehogs. 7

Medicago scutellata, Snails. 7

Hippocrepis unisiliquosa, Single-podded Horse-shoe Vetch. 7.

Hedysarum saxatile, Rock Hedysarum.

Hedysarum coronarium, French Honeysuckle. 7

Hedysarum Crista-galli, Cock’s-comb. 8.

Coronilla coronata, Crown-flowered Coronilla.

Anthyllis cornicina, Hook-podded Kidney-Vetch. 7.

Lotus cytisoides, Cytisus-leaved Lotus. 8.

XVII. 4. Hypericum calycinum, cum mult, aliis. Large-fiowered
St. John’s Wort, with many others. 9.

XIX. 1. Crepis rubra, Red Hawkweed. 7.

Tolpis barbata, Yellow Hawkweed. 7.

JUNE. 159

Catananche lutea, Yellow Catananche, 7.

XIX. 2. Gnaphalium stachys, Red Everlasting, 10.

Gnaphalium Alpinum, Alpine Everlasting. 7.

Chrysanthemum millifol. cum mult. var. Tansy-leaved Chrysan-
themum, with many varieties.

Achillea santolina, cum aliis. Cotton-leaved Milfoil Lavender,
with others, 8.

Senecio elegans, Jacobea. 10.

Zinnia paucifiora, Yellow Zinnia, 7.

Zinnia multiflora, Red Zinnia. 7.

Zinnia elegans, Elegant Zinnia. 7.

Zinnia tumiflora, Violet-coloured Zinnia. 7.

Zinnia verticillata, Whorl-leaved Zinnia. 7.

Anthemis Pyrethrum, Pellitory of Spain. 7.

XIX. 3. Centaurea montana, cum mult. aliis. Mountain Centaunry,
with many others. 8.

Helianthus annuus, var. Dwarf Annual Sunfiower. 10.

Rudbeckia hirta, Hairy Rudbeckia. 11.

XIX. 4. Calendula officinalis, cum aliis. Double Marygold, with
others. 10.

XX. 1. Cypripedium album, White Ladies’-Slipper. 7.

XXI. 3. Zea Mays, Indian Corn. 7.

Amaranthus lividus, Livid Amaranth. 9.

XXIII. 1. Veratrum album, White Hellebore. 8.

Veratrum nigrum, Black Hellebore. 7.

SELECT CALENDAR OF BRITISH BOTANY.

Class Il. Order 1. Circeea Lutetiana, Common Enchanter’s Night
shade. Locality, Moist shady places. Duration, 7.

Veronica Beccabunga, Brook-lime. Ditches. 8.

Pinguicula Lusitanica, Pale Butterwort. Bogs near the sea. 7.

Utricularia vulgaris, Greater Bladderwort. Ditches and stagnant
pools. 7.

Salvia verbenaca, Wild English Clary. In stony places. 10.

HII. 1. Fedia dentata, Oval-fruited Corn-Sallad. Corn-fields. 7.

Valeriana officinalis, Great Wild Valerian. Banks of rivers. 7.

Scirpus sylvaticus, Wood Club-Rush. Moist woods. 8.

Ill. 2. Millium effusum, Spreading Millet-Grass. Woods and
shady places. 7.

Aria caryophyilea, Silver Hair-Grass. Sandy heaths. 7.

Melica nutans, Mountain Melic-Grass. Mountainous woods. 7.

Dactylis glomerata, Rough Cock’s-foot Grass. Meadows and_pas-
tures. 8.

Bromus sterilis, Barren Brome-Grass. Fields and hedges. 7.

Hordeum murinum, Wall Barley. Waste ground. 8.

Hordeum pratense, Meadow Barley. Meadows. 8.

Hordeum maritimum, Sea Barley. Sandy ground, near the sea, 7.

160 JUNE.

IV. 1. Scabiosa columbaria, Small Scabious. Pastures and road-
sides. 8.

Galium Saxatile, Smooth Heath Bedstraw. Heaths. 8.

Plantago media, Hoary Plantain. Pastures and meadows. 8.

Plantago coronopus, Buck’s Horn Plantain. Sandy or gravelly
plains. 8.

Sanguisorba officinalis, Great Burnet. Meadows and pastures. 7.

Cornus sanguinea, Wild Dogwood. Hedges. 7.

Parietaria officinalis, Common Wall-Pellitory. Old wallsand ruins. 9.

Alchemilla vulgaris, Common Ladies’-Mantle. Meadows and pas-
tures. 8.

IV. 3. Potamogeton lucens, cum aliis. Shining Pondweed, with
others. Ditches, ponds, and lakes. 7.

V.1. Myosotis palustris, Great Water Scorpion Grass. Ditches
and wet places. 8. :

Myosotis arvensis, Field Scorpion-Grass. Sandy fields. 8.

Cynoglossum officinale, Common Hound’s-Tongue. Road-sides. 7.

Borago officinalis, Common Borage. Waste ground. 7.

Lycopsis arvensis, Small Bugloss. Corn-fields. 7.

Echium vulgare, Common Viper’s Bugloss. Fields and waste
ground. 7,

Primula farinosa, Bird’s-eye Primrose. Mountainous bogs in north. 7.

Menyanthes trifoliata, Common Buck-Bean. Pools, ditches, and
bogs. 7.

Hottonia palustris, Common Water-Violet. Pools and ditches. 8.

Lysimachia nummularia, Moneywort. Moist woods and pastures. 7.

Anagallis arvensis, Common Scarlet Pimpernel. Gardens and
fields. 9.

Convolvulus arvensis, Small Bindweed. Hedges and fields. 9.

Convolvulus Soldaneila, Sea Bindweed, Sandy sea shore. 7.

Polemonium ceruleum, Blue Jacob’s Ladder. Mountainous places,
rare. 7.

Campanula hederacea, Ivy-leaved Bell-Flower. Wet shady places. 8.

Jasione montana, Sheep’s-Scabious. Sandy fields, 8.

Atropa belladonna, Deadly Nightshade. Amongst ruins. 7.

Solanum duleamara, Woody Nightshade. Moist hedges. 8.

Solanum nigram, Garden Nightshade. Cultivated ground. 9.

Lonicera periclymenum, Common Honeysuckle. Hedges and
woods. 9.

Glaux maritima, Sea Milkwort. Salt marshes. 7.

V.2. Gentiana acaulis, Stemless Gentian. Alpine rocks. 7.

Daucus Carota, Wild Carrot. Borders of fields. 7.

Scandix Pecten-Veneris, Common Shepherd’s-Needle. Corn fields. 9.

Myrrhis temulenta, Rough Cow Parsley. Hedges. 7.

Myrrhis aromatica, Broad leaved Cow-Parsley. Road-sides. 7.

Conium maculatum, Common Hemlock. Waste ground. 8.

Carum Carni, Common Carraway. Meadows and pastures, 7.

Y. 3. Sambneus nigra, Common Elder. Woods and hedges. 7.

JUNE. 161

Viburnum Opulus, Common Guelder- Rose. Wet woods and hedges. 7.

V.5. Linum catharticum, Purging Flax. Dry pastures. 8.

Sibbaldia procumbens, Procumbent Sibbaldia. Scotch mountains. 8.

VI. 1. Ornithogalum Pyrenaicum, Tall Star of Bethlehem. Pas-
tures, 7are. 7.

Narthecium ossifragum, Lancashire Asphodel. Turf bogs. 7.

Acorus calamus, Common Sweet-Flag. Watery places. 8.

VI. 3. Rumex crispus, Curled Dock. Woods, fields, and hedges. 8.

Rumex acetosa, Common Sorrel. Meadows and pastures. 7,

Rumex acetosella, Sheep’s Sorrel. Gravelly ground. 8,

Tofieldia palustris, Scottish Aspbodel. Bogs on the Scottish moun-
tains. 7.

VI. 4, Alisma Damasonium, Star-headed Water-Plantain. Ditches
and pools. 7.

Alisma natans, Floating Water-Plantain. Mountainous lakes. 7.

VIII. 1. Epilobium alpinum, Alpine Willow-Herb. Mountainous
bogs, Scotland. 7.

Vaccinium Vitis Idea, Cowberry. Mountainons bogs, Scotland. 7.

Vaccinium Oxycocens, Cranberry. Mossy bogs. 7.

Calluna vulgaris, Common Ling. Heaths. 7.

Polygonum Bistorta, Great Bistort. Meadows and pastures. 7,

Polygonum viviparum, Alpine Bistort. Alpine situations. 7.

Polygonum Conyolvulus, Black Bindweed. Fields and gardens, 9.

IX. 1. Butomus umbellatus, Common Flowering-Rush. Ditches
and rivers. 8.

X. 1. Monotropa Hypopitys, Yellow Bird’s-Nest. In woods. 7.

Arbutus Uva ursi, Red Bearberry. Alpine heaths. 7.

X.2. Saxifraga umbrosa, London Pride Saxifrage. Yorkshire
and Ireland. 7.

Saxifraga nivalis, Clustered Alpine Saxifrage. Wet rocks on moun.
tains. 7.

Saxifraga stellaris. Starry Saxifrage. Wet rocks on mountains. 7.

Saxifraga azoides, Yellow Mountain Saxifrage. Mountain bogs. 9.

Saxifraga rivularis, Alpine Brook Saxifrage. By rivulets on moun-
tains. 7.

Dianthus cesius, Mountain Pink. Limestone rocks. 7.

X. 3. Silene Anglica, English Catchfly. In sandy fields. 7.

Silene nutans, Nottingham Catehfly. Limestone and sandstone
rocks, 8.

Silene acaulis, Mossy Catchfly. Highlands of Scotland. 7.

Stellaria glauea, Glaucous Marsh Stitchwort. Moist meadows and
bogs. 7.

Arenaria peploides, Sea-side Sandwort. On the sea-coast. 8.

Arenaria rubella, Little Red Sandwort. Scotch mountains. 7.

X. 4. Sedum acre, Wall-pepper, or Biting Stonecrop. Walls,
roofs, and sandy ground. 7.

Sedum villosam, Hairy Wall pepper. Mountainous bogs, 7.

Agrostemma Githago, Corn Cockle. Corn-fields. 8.

M

162 JUNE.

Lychnis Flos Cuculi, Ragged Robin. Moist meadows. 7.

Cerastium Alpinum, Alpine Mouse-eared Chickweed. Scotch moun-
tains, 7.

Spergula arvensis, Corn Spurry. Sandy corn-fields. 8.

Spergula Saginoides, Smooth awl-shaped Spurry. Scotch moun-
tains, 8. :

XI. 2. Agrimonia Eupatoria, Common Agrimony. Borders of
fields. 7.

XII. 2. Spireea-Ulmaria, Meadow-sweet. Meadows and pastures. 7.

XII. 3. Rosa involuta, cum mult. aliis. Prickly unexpanded Rose,
with many others. Scotland. 7.

Rubus cesius, Blue Bramble, or Dewberry. Moist bushy places. 7.

Rubus saxatilis, Stone-Bramble. Mountainous woods. 7.

Rubus Chamemorns, Cloud-berry. Turfy Alpine bogs. 7.

Potentilla fruticosa, Shrubby Cinquefoil. Mountainous thickets. 9.

Potentilla Anserina, Silver-Weed, or Wild Tansy. Moist places. 7.

Potentilla rupestris, Strawberry-leaved Cinquefoil. Rocks in Wales,
rare. 7.

Potentilla argentea, Hoary Cinquefoil. Gravelly pastures. 7.

Potentilla reptans, Common Creeping Cingnefoil. Meadows and
pastures. 8.

Tormentilla officinalis, Common Tormentil. Heaths and dry pas-
tures. 7.

Tormentilla reptans, Trailing Tormentil. Borders of fields. 7.

Geum rivale, Water-Avens. Moist meadows. 7.

Dryas octopetala, White Mountain-Dryas. Scotch mountains. 8.

Comarum palustre, Marsh Cinquefoil. Boggy places. 7.

XIII. 1. Papaver Argemone, Long rough-headed Poppy. Corn-
fields. 7.

Papaver dubium, Long smooth-headed Poppy. Cultivated fields. 7.

Papaver Rheas, Common Red Poppy. Corn-fields. 7.

Papaver Cambricum, Yellow Poppy. Mountainous places. 7.

Tilia grandifolia, Broad-leaved Downy Lime-tree. Woods and
hedges. 7.

Cistus guttatus, Spotted Annual Cistus. Sandy pastures, rare. 7.

Cistus Helianthemum, Common dwarf Cistus. Chalky and sandy
pastures. 8.

XIII. 2. Delpbinium consolida, Field Larkspur. Corn-fields. 7.

Aquilegia vulgaris, Common Columbine. Woods and hedges. 7.

XIII. 3. Thalictrum alpinum, Alpine Meadow-Rue. Mountainous
places. 7.

Thalictrum flavum, Common Meadow-Rue. Wet meadows. 7.

Ranunculus flammola, cum aliis. Lesser Spearwort Crowfoot,
with others. Watery places. 8.

XIV. I. Mentha arvensis, Corn Mint. Corn-fields. 9.

XIV. 2. Rhinanthus Crista-galli, Common Yellow Rattle. Mea-
dows and pastures. 9.

Melampyrum sylvaticum, Wood Cow-Wheat. Alpine woods. 7.

JUNE. 163

Pedicularis palustris, Marsh Lousewort. Bogs. 7.

Pedicularis sylvatica, Common Lousewort. Wet pastures. 7.

Antirrhinum Linaria, Common Yellow Toad-flax. Hedges and
banks. 7.

Digitalis purpurea, Purple Foxglove. Hedges and pastures. 7.

Orobanche major, Greater Broom-Rape. Roots of broom, etc. 7.

XV.1. Cakile maritima, Purple Sea-Rocket. Sandy sea-coast. 9.

XY. 2. Nasturtium officinale, Common Watercress, Springs and
rivulets. 7.

Nasturtium amphibium, Amphibious Watercress. Banks of
streams, 8.

Sisymbrium officinale, Common Hedge-Mustard. Waste ground. 7.

Brassica Monensis, Isle of Man Cabbage. Sandy coast. 7.

Raphanus Raphanistrum, Wild Radish. Corn-fields. 7.

XVI. 2. Geranium sylvaticum, Wood Crane’s-bill. Woods and
thickets. 7.

Geranium pratense, Blue Meadow Crane’s-bill. Meadows. 7.

Geranium Pyrenaicum, Dove’s-foot Crane’s-bill. Meadows and
pastures. 7.

Geranium rotundifolium, Soft round-leaved Crane’s-bill. Waste
ground, 7.

Geranium columbinum, Long-stalked Crane’s-bill. Dry banks. 9.

XVI. 3. Malva rotundifolia, Dwarf Mallow. Way-sides. 9.

XVII. 1. Fumaria claviculata, White Climbing Fumitory. Woods
and hedges. 7.

XVII. 2. Polygala vulgaris, Common Milkwort. Pastures and
heaths. 8.

XVII. 3. Ononis arvensis, Common Rest-Harrow. Pastures and
meadows. 8.

Anthyllis vulneraria, Common Kidney-Vetch. Limestone soil. S.

Hedysarum Onobrychis, Common Saint-foil. Chalky and limestone
soils. 7.

Astragalus glycyphyllos, Wild Liquoria, or Milk-Vetch. Woods
and hedges. 7.

Astragalus hypoglottis, Purple Mountain Liquoria. Mountainous
heaths. 7.

Trifolium officinale, cum aliis. Common Melilot, with others, Box
ders of fields. 7.

Lotus corniculatus, Common Bird’s foot Trefoil. Pastures. 9.

Medicago sativa, Lucerne Trefoil. Woods and chalky fields. 7.

XVIII. 1. Hypericum hirsutum, Hairy St. John’s-wort. Woods
and hedges. 7.

XIX. 1. Tragopogon pratensis, Yellow Goat’s beard. Meadow
and pastures 7.

Picris echioides, Bristly Ox-tongue. Borders of fields. 7.

Hieracium aurantiacum, Orange Hawkweed. Mountainous woods. 7.

Hieracium murorum, Wall Hawkweed. Walls and rocks. 7.

Hieracium sylyaticum, Wood Hawkweed. Walls and dry banks. 7.

164 JUNE.

Crepis tectorum, Smooth Hawk’s-beard. Dry chalky ground. 7.

Crepis biennis, Rough Hawk’s-beard. Chalky pastures. 7.

Hypocheris radicata, Long-rooted Cat’s ear. Meadows and_pas-
tures. 7.

Cnicus lanceolatus, Spear Plume-Thistle. Waste ground, 7.

Cnicus pratensis, Meadow Plume-Thistle. Wet pastures. 9.

Carlina vulgaris, Common Carline Thistle. Heaths. 8.

XIX. 2. Gnaphalium dioicum, Mountain Cudweed. Heathy pas-
tures. 7.

Civeraria palustris, Marsh Flea-wort. Pools and ditches. 7.

Chrysanthemum Leucanthemum, Great Ox-eye Daisy. Meadows
and pastures. 7.

Chrysanthemum segetum, Yellow Corn Marygold. Corn and turnip-
fields. 8.

Achillea Millefolium, Common Yarrow, or Milfoil. Meadows and
pastures. 8.

XIX. 3. Centaurea nigra, Black Knapweed, Hardiron. Pastures,
etc. 8.

XX. 1. Orchis bifolia, Butterfly Orchis. Woods. 7.

Orchis ustulata, Dwarf dark-winged Orchis. Limestone, and chalky
fields. 7.

Orchis abida, White cluster-rooted Orchis. Mountain pastures. 7.

Orchis viridis, Frog Orchis. Meadows and pastures. 7.

Orchis maculata, Spotted Palmate Orcbis. Meadows and _pas-
tures. 7.

Orchis conopsea, Aromatic Orchis. Meadows and pastures. 7.

Aceras anthropophora, Green Man-Orchis. if

Herminium monorchis, Green Musk-Orchis. ¢ Chalky pastures. 7.

Opbrys muscifera, Fly Orchis. J

Listera ovata, Common Tway-blade. Pastures and woods.

Epipactis purpurata, Purple-leaved Helleborine.

Epipactis grandiflora, Large White neleveine Soe woods.

Epipactis rubra, Purple Helleborine. Mountainous woods. 7.

XX. 2. Cypripedium Calceolus, Common Ladies’-Slipper. Woods,
Yorkshire.

XXI. 1. Euphorbia Hiberna, Irish Spurge. Woods and thickets.

XXI. 2. Typha angustifolia, Lesser Reed-mace. Ponds and
ditches. 7.

Carex pulicaris, cum mult. aliis. Flea Carex, or Sedge, with many
others. Heaths, ete.

XXI. 3. Urtica pilulifera, Roman Nettle. Near the sea. 7.

XXII. 1. Salix pentandra, cum mult. aliis. Sweet Bay-leaved
Willow, with many others. Moist hedges. 7.

XXII. 5. Tamus communis, Common Black Bryony. Hedges. 7.

XXIII. 1. Atriplex patula, Spreading Orache. Waste ground. 9.

XXIV. 1. Polypodium Phegopteris, Pale Mountain Polypody.
North of England and Scotland. 7.

Aspidium Filix mas, Male Shield Fern. Woods and banks. 7.

Aspidium Filix feemina, Female Shield-Fern. Marshy places. 7.

, JUNE. 165

Cystea fragilis, Brittle Bladder-Fen. Wet rocks. 7.

Asplenium Ruta muraria, Wall Rue Spleenwort. Rocks and old
walls. 10.

Asplenium Adiantum nigrum, Black Maiden-Hair. Rocks and
walls. 10.

Osmunda regalis, Common Osmund Royal. Boggy places. 7.

Botricbium Lunaria, Moonwort. Pastures. 7.

Lycopodium Selago, Fir Club-Moss. Mountainous heaths. §.

SELECT CALENDAR OF BRITISH INSECTS.

Cicindela sylvatica.
Cicindela sylvicola.
Carabus arvensis. Mountainous heaths.

Carabus violaceus. Under stones and in pathways. To 9.
Carabus glabratus. Norfolk and Cumberland. To 7.
Calosoma inquisitor. Hedges, Windsor. To 7.

Agonum sex-punctatum. Damp places.

Calathus rufangulus. Sandy places. To 9.

Omaceus melanarit .
spans. , Under stones. To 10.

, Locality, Heaths, Suffolk. Month, To 7.

Steropus madidus.

Patrobus rufipes. ? U

Platysma niger.

Harpalus eneus. Pathways. To 10.

Elapbrus cupreus. River banks. To 8,

Colymbetes maculatus. Running streams. To 9,

Hydaticus stagnalis. Ponds in the south, To 7.

Necrophorus Humator.

Necrodes littoralis.

Silpha reticulata. Sandy places. To 7.

Nitidula discoidea. Dead animals. To 7.

Dermestes murinus. Dry decayed skins. To 7.

Hister bimaculatus. Sandy places and dung. To 8.

Lucanus Cervus, Stag Beetle. Oak-woods, Kent, etc. To 7.

Bolbocerus mobilicornis. Norfolk. To 7.

Geotrupes stercorarius, Common Dor-Beetle. Dung. To 8.

Serica brunnea. Dead animals and fox-glove. To 7.

Amphimalla solstitialis, Lesser Cockchafier. White-thorn hedyves.
TO.

Melolontha Fullo, Great Variegated Cockchaffer. South of Eng-
land. To7.

Anomala Frishii. Sea-coast. Matlock. To 7.

Hoplia argentea. Sandy places. To 7.

Trichius fasciatus. Umbelliferous plants. To 7.

Trichius variabilis. Decayed trees, Windsor. To 7.

Trichius nobilis. flowers of the Dog-Rose. To 7.

Elater sanguineus. South of England. ‘Jo 7.

Cleniocerus pectinicornis. Meadows and woods. To 7.

Cleniocerus zneus, Under stones, sandy places. To 8.

nder stones in damp places. To 8.

To 9.

Dead animals and fungi. ; To 10.

166 JUNE.

Atopa cervina. On nettles. To 7.
Lampyris noctiluca, Glow-worm. On dry banks. To 8.
Malthinus flavus.

Malachius eneus. | Woods and hedges. To 7.
Malachins bipustulatus.

Tillus ambulans. >

Tillus unifasciatus, foods etcaipaenve
Toanasimusformicarius. Tos.

Necrobia ruficollis. Amongst bones. To 8.

Ptilinus pectinicornis. Tod.

Ptinus imperialis. , ecayedityece ; Toz.
Hylurgus piniperda. Pine branches. To 7.

Cionus Scropbulariz. On the water-betony. To 7.
Cionus Verbasci- Gardens. To 7.

Cionus Hortulanus. §

Cryptorhynchus Lapathi. Osier-holts. To 7.
Balaninus Nucum., Hazel bushes. To 7.

Hypera Rumicis. On various species of Dock. To7.
Alophus Vau. Sandy places. To 7.

Cleonus sulcirostris. Under stones.

Rhynchites Auquatus. On the White-thorn. To 7.
Apoderus Avellane. On the Hazel-tree. To 7.
Bruchus Pisi. Pea-fields. To 7.

Cerambyx moschatus, Musk-Beetle. Osier-holts. To 7.
Monochamus Sutor. Willow-trees. To 7.

Lamia nubila. Trunks of trees.

Saperda Populnea. Trunks of poplars. To 7.
Saperda ferrea. On the Tilia parvifolia.

Callidium bajulum. Trurks of trees. To 7.
Callidium violaceum. Pine timber. To 7.
Callidium Alni. Woods, on faggots. To 8.

Clytus mysticus. Woods. To7.

Clytus Arietis. Borders of woods. To 7.

Rhagium inquisitor. Woods. To 7.

Rhagium bifasciatum. Decayed Pine trees. To7.
Toxotus meridianus. Woods and hedges. To 7.
Leptura elongata. Borders of woods. To 8.

Leptura ruficornis. Hedges. To 7.

Donacia micans. Aquatic plants. To 7.

Crioceris merdigera. On the White Lily. To 7.
Crioceris cyanella. Woods and hedges. To 7 and 8.
Adimonia Halensis. Woods and heaths. To 7 and 8.
Galeruca Tanaceti. Heath, etc. To 7 and 8.
Chrysomela graminis. Fields, etc. To 7.
Chrysomela Populi. Willows and Poplars. To 7.
Cryptocephalus sericeus. Qn Syngenesious flowers. To7.
Cassida equestris. On the Stachys sylvatica. To 7.
Cassida ferruginea. Weedy banks. To 7.

JUNE. 167

Coccinella ocellata. Beech trees. To 7.

Coccinella 11-punctata. Woods and bedges. To 7.

Lagria hirta. On the White-thorn. To 7.

Pyrochroa rubens. Woods. To 7. °

Cantharis vesicatoria, Blister-Fly. On the Ash tree, rare. To 7.

Creophilus maxillosus. Dead animals. To 7 and 8.

Oxyporus rufus. On fungi. To 7.

Labia minor. Near stables. To 8.

Labidura gigantea. On the sea-coast. To 7.

Gonepteryx Rhamni, Brimstone Butterfly. Woods and heaths.
And 9 and 2.

Colias Hyale, Pale-clouded Yellow Butterfly. Kent, etc. in mea-
dows. And 9.

Pontia Sabellice. South of England.

Pieris Crategi, Black-veined_ White Butterfly. Gardens and
thickets,

Melitwa Pyronia, Dark under-wing Fritillary. Field and marshes
near Londor.

Melita Cinxia, Glanville Fritillary. Meadows in the south.

Argynnis Adippe, High-brown Fritillary. Woods. To 7 and 8.

Vanessa C. album, Comma Butterfly. Woods and heaths. And 9.

Vanessa urtice, Small Tortoiseshell Butterfly. Lanes and fields.
And 9.

Hipparchia Galathea, Marbled white Butterfly. Woods. To 7.

Hipparchia Janira, Meadow Brown Butterfly. Grassy lanes. To
7 and 8,

Hipparchia Hyperanthus, Common Ringlet Butterfly. Grassy woods.
To 7.

Hipparchia Polydama, Marsh Butterfly. Wales. To 7.

Hipparchia Pampbilus, Small Heath Butterfly. Heaths, etc. And 9.

Polyommatns Dorylas. Darenth wood.

Polyommatus Icarius. Kent. And 9.

Polyommatus Agestis, Brown Argus. Woods and fields. To 8
and 9,

Polyommatus Artaxerxes, Scotch Argus. Scotland, ete. And 8.

Ino Statices, Green Forester. Woods and meadows. 8.

Anthrocera Loti, Five-spot Burnett. Moist woods.

Anthrocera Filipendule, Six-spot Burnett. Heaths and meadows.
And 7.

Smerinthus Populi, Poplar Hawk-Moth. Near Poplars. 7.

Sphinx Ligustri, Privet Hawk-Moth. Amongst Privet bushes. 7.

Deilephila Euphorbia, Spotted Elephant Hawk-Moth. Devon-
Shire, etc. 7.

Deilephila Elpenor, Ladies’ Bed-straw. Marshes, ete. 7.

Deilephila Porcellus, Small Elephant Hawk-Moth. Woods in the
south. 7.

Trochilium Apiformis, Hornet-Moth. Woods. 7.

AXgeria Tipuliformis, Currant Hawk-Moth. Gardens. And 7.

168 JUNE.

/£geria Formiciformis, Flame-tipped Redbelt. Meadows. 7.
Hepialus Hectus, Gold Swift. Open places in woods. And 7.
Pygera bucephala, Buff-tip Moth. Gardens and fields, And 7.
Lasiocampa Roboris, Great Egger Moth. On heaths. And 7.
Leucoma Salicis, White Satiu Moth. Near Willows. And 7.
Hypercompa Dominula, Scarlet Tiger Moth. Woods. And 7.
Euthemonia Russula, Clouded Buff Moth. Woods and heaths, And7.
Arctia Villica, Cream-spot Tiger. Plantations. 7.

Nemeophila Plantaginis, Wood Tiger. Woods. And 7.
Spilosoma papyratia, Water Ermine. Moist woods. 7.

Plusia cbrysitis, Burnished-brass. Gardens and fields. And 7.
Anarta Myrtilli, Beautiful Yellow Under wing. Heaths. And 7.
Abraxas Ulmata, Scarce Magpie. Near Elms. And 7.

Abraxas Grossulariata, Currant Magpie. Gardens. And 7.
Pterophorus pentadactylus, White Plume. Hedges. And 8.
Cercopis sanguinolenta. Woods and hedges. And 7.

Calosoma inquisitor. Independently of the
beautiful colouring of the genus to which this
species belongs, the insects it comprises differ
from most of the Geodephaga by peculiarity of
habit; leaving their congeners to pursue their
prey upon the ground, they climb in pursuit of
caterpillars over hedges, and even to the tops of
trees, and fly with a celerity only equalled by
the Cicindeliade. The grubs or larve are so
voracious as to gorge till they become quite
helpless, in which state they are devoured by
those of their brethren, whose “famine is not
filled.”

Agonum sex-punctatum. Several authors
have stated that, since the year 1812, this insect
has disappeared: it once, however, occurred in
this county in 1828.

Calathus rufangulus. The best method of

JUNE. 169

obtaining this elegant and local insect is, by
shaking loose sods of turf in sandy places.

Patrobus rufipes. Mr. Stephens must have
been mistaken when he asserted this to be a
littoral insect. In this part of the kingdom, it
occurs on the banks of rivers and ditches, in
woods, and even on the summits of the Derby-
shire mountains.

Colymbetes maculatus. This beautiful but
variable aquatic beetle, which is so accurately
figured by Mr. Samouelle, in p. 3. f. 15, of his
“ Useful Compendium,” has generally been con-
sidered a local and even a rare species; it
is, however, abundant in several of the Mid-
land counties, in running ditches and small
rivulets.

Lucanus Cervus. The Stag-Beetle may be
considered the king of British beetles; it is
extremely abundant in the southern counties,
particularly in the vicinity of old oak woods,
the decayed stumps of which its larve inhabit
and destroy. I have not heard of its being
taken farther north than Worcester.

Geotrupes stercorarius. Common Dor-Beetle,
or Shard-borne Beetle. This well-known in-
sect, which has buzzed in the face of every
evening rambler, could not escape the notice
of so accurate an observer as Shakspeare ; like
the bat that “flits by on leathern wing,” he

170 JUNE.

regards it as an indicator of time. Macbeth
says to his lady,
Ere to black Hecate’s summons,

The shard-borne beetle, with his drowsy hums,

Hath rung night’s yawning peal, there shall be done

A deed of dreadful note.
But, independent of poetic associations, this
insect is of real utility to the agriculturist. By
perforating the earth underneath the dung of
animals, he becomes a valuable agent, rendering
that which would be deleterious in the mass
productive by dispersion.

Lampyris noctiluca. The bulk of entomo-
logists have copied each other in the error of
asserting that the female glow-worm alone is
luminous; at any rate, all the males taken in
this county (and they are unquestionably of
this species), have had luminous segments to
the abdomen.

Cryptorhynchus Lapathi. This insect, in its
larva state, does incredible mischief in osier-
holts: the basket-makers call it the weevil-
maggot. I am informed, by a cultivator of
osiers, that the perfect insect appears abund-
antly every alternate year. This may indicate
its duration in the larva state.

Balaninus Nucum. A most curious insect,
with a rostrum, extremely slender and longer
than its body. It inhabits hazel bushes, and

JUNE. 171

with its rostrum perforates the nut whilst young,
depositing one egg in each; the wound heals,
and the larva, which proceeds from the egg,
is completely enclosed by the shell; it feeds
upon the kernel till full grown, when it eats
its way out, retires under ground, and changes
to a pupa, appearing next year as a perfect
insect.

Cerambyx moschatus. One of our largest
and most beautiful indigenous beetles, may be
found abundantly in osier-holts in this and the
next month, where you have evidence of its
existence before it is seen, by the fragrant
odour which it emits. Its scent is not of musk,
as the name implies, but of the finest otto of
rose. Would it not have been better to have
adopted the synonym of De Geer (cdoratus, )
or to have substituted that of roseatus, than to
perpetuate error by a scrupulous adherence to
the Linnean name ?

Saperda ferrea. This insect, lately recorded
as British by Mr. Curtis, was first captured in
this county more than a month previous to its
being taken near Manchester. With us it is
only taken during this month; the difference
in latitude may account for the difference in
time.

Rhagium bifasciatum. Perhaps it may not
generally be known that this insect breeds in

172 JUNE.

the decayed stumps of the Scotch fir: such is,
however, the fact, for, in the months of March
and April, the perfect insect may be dug out
in great abundance; but in the summer it may
be taken on the foliage of various trees, and
usually haunts the skirts of woods.

Hepialus Hectus. The insects of this genus
generally frequent meadows and church-yards
during the evening. They have an undulating
flight, frequently hovering for a considerable
time near one spot, and, from this, together
with their light tints, they have obtained the
popular appellation of ghosts.

Cercopis sanguinolenta. This little insect,
which is amongst the largest of our Cicada, is
most beautifully variegated with red and black,
and leaping from one plant to another in bushy
places frequently attracts the attention of per-
sons, otherwise in no way addicted to entomo-
logical pursuits. In this part of the country it
appears a local insect, but is more abundant in
the south. The musical Cicada of the Greeks,
and the shrill ones of the Italians, are nearly
allied to the above; but if we except an insect,
taken some years ago by Mr. Bydder in the
New Forest, there are no musical species in
this country. Some of the American ones,
however, have a note extremely loud. Captain
Hancock heard them in Brazil to the distance

JUNE 173

of a mile. “ This,” as Mr. Kirby accurately
observes, “ is, as if a man of ordinary stature,
supposing his powers of voice increased in the
ratio of his size, could be heard all over the
world,”

|
i,
—- *
ae | —
> ie” :
a = ‘

Now let me tread the meadow paths
While glittering dew the ground illumes,

As, sprinkled o’er the withering swaths,
Their moisture shrinks in sweet perfumes.

CLARE.

JULY

The clouds poured out water; the skies sent out a sound; thine
arrows also went abroad.

The voice of thy thunder was in the heaven; the lightnings light-
ened the world ; the earth trembled and shook.

PsauMs Ixxvii, 17, 18.

Look upon the rainbow and praise him that made it; very beau-
tiful it is in the brightness thereof,

It compasseth the heaven about with a glorious circle, and the
hands of the Most High have bended it.

EccueEsiastTicus xliii. 11, 12.

SumMER! glowing summer! This is the
month of heat and sunshine; of clear, fervid
skies, dusty roads, and shrinking streams;
when doors and windows are thrown open :—
a cool gale is the most welcome of all visitors,
and every drop of rain is worth its weight in
gold! Such is July commonly; yet it is some-
times, on the contrary, a very showery month,
putting the haymaker to the extremity of his
patience, and the farmer upon anxious thoughts
for his ripening corn. Generally speaking,
however, it is the heart of our summer. The
landscape presents an air of warmth, dryness,

176 TUM

and maturity: the eye roves over brown pas-
tures, corn-fields already white to harvest, dark
lines of intersecting hedge-rows, and darker
trees, lifting their heavy heads above them.
The foliage at this period is rich, full, and
vigorous; there is a fine haze cast over dis-
tant woods and bosky slopes, and every lofty
and majestic tree is filled with a soft shadowy
twilight, which adds infinitely to their beauty,
a circumstance that has never been sufliciently
noticed by either poet or painter. Willows are
now beautiful objects in the landscape: they
are like rich masses of arborescent silver, espe-
cially if stirred by the breeze, their light and
fluent forms contrasting finely with the still and
sombre aspect of the other trees.

Now is the general season of haymaking.
Bands of mowers, in their light dresses and
broad straw hats, are astir long before the fiery
eye of the sun glances above the horizon, that
fhey may toil in the freshness of the morning,
and stretch themselves at noon in luxurious
ease by trickling waters, and beneath the shade
of trees. ‘Till then, with regular strokes, and
a sweeping sound, the sweet and flowery grass

falls before them, revealing, at almost every |

step, nests of young birds, mice in their cozy
domes, and the mossy cells of the humble-bee

streaming with liquid honey: anon, troops of

JULY. VW77

haymakers are abroad, tossing the green swaths
to the sun. It is one of Nature’s festivities,
endeared by a thousand pleasant memories and
habits of the olden days, and not a soul can
resist it.

There is a sound of tinkling teams and wag-
gons rolling along lanes and fields the whole
country over, ay, even at midnight, till at
length, the fragrant ricks rise in the farm-
yard, and the pale smooth-shaven fields are
left in solitary beauty.

They who know little about the country may
deem the strong penchant of our poets, and of
myself, for rural pleasures, mere romance and
poetic illusion ; but if poetic beauty alone were
concerned, I must still admire harvest-time in
the country. The whole land is then an
Arcadia full of simple, healthful, and rejoicing
spirits. Overgrown towns and manufactories
may have changed, for the worse, the spirit
and feelings of their population; in them “ evil
communications may have corrupted good man-
ners ;’ but in the country at large, there never
was a more simple-minded, healthful-hearted
and happy race of people than our British
peasantry. They have cast off, it is true, many
of their ancestors’ games and merry-makings,
but they have, in no degree, lost their soul of
mirth and happiness. Many of the sports and

N

178 JULY.

pastimes of our forefathers are, in the retro-
spect, picturesque, and pleasant — but attempt
to practise them at the present day, and the
very villagers would laugh at them as ridiculous
child’s play, and in fact they are child's play.
They were the amusements of a generation —
children in intellectual culture, though of braw-
ny growth in body—they were the pastimes
of beings whom in the race of real knowledge,
our very clowns have left behind. Nay, I ques-
tion whether our peasantry could witness, with-
out an internal feeling of contempt, what were
at one day the highest entertainments of the
highest classes—at which “lords and dukes
and noble captains” toiled day after day, and
the proudest and brightest dames sate wit-
nesses, not in impatience, but in pleasure. In
vain then do we lament our Christmas sports,
and the old games of gentle and simple — they
are pleasant pictures in pleasant associations —
they are highly to be valued as relics and re-
membrances of the olden time—of the good
olden time —good to the good people who
enjoyed them — good possibly in themselves —
exceedingly good at a distance, but
Another race has been, and other palms are won.

Knowledge has run to and fro in the earth. It
has penetrated into the remotest hamlet — into
the obscurest nook, and though many a goodly

JULY. 179

superstition, many a jocund folly have fled be-
fore it, I trust, and I think I know, that suff-
cient simplicity of heart and manner remains,
and is likely to remain in what may be truly
called the country; and instead of ignorance
and laughter, we have intelligence, industry sti-
mulated by higher views, and, whenever there is
occasion to display it, mirth and good fellowship
enough. ‘This is never more conspicuous than
in harvest time.

With the exception of a casual song of the
lark in a fresh morning, and the blackbird and
thrush at sunset, or the monotonous wail of the
yellow-hammer, the silence of birds is now com-
plete; even the lesser reed-sparrow, which may
very properly be called the English mock-bird,
and which kept up a perpetual clatter with the
notes of the sparrow, the swallow, the white-
throat, etc. in every hedge-bottom, day and
night, has now ceased its song also.

Boys will now be seen in the evening twi-
light, with match, gunpowder, etc. and green
boughs for self-defence, busy in storming the
paper-built castles of wasps, the larvee of which
furnish anglers with plenty of excellent baits.
The hornet is very uncommon now in the mid-
land counties. It is a difficult matter to find
a person who has seen a single insect, much less
a nest, a fact certainly not to be regretted, when

180 JULY.

we recollect that three of these fiery insects are
said to be capable of stinging a horse to death;
or when we read the admirable description of
Homer—

So burns the vengeful hornet, soul all o’er,

Repulsed in vain, and thirsty still for gore :

Bold son of air and heat, on angry wings

Untamed, untired, he turns, attacks, and stings.
Spring-flowers have given place to a very diffe-
rent class. Climbing plants mantle and festoon
every hedge. The wild hop, the bryony, the
clematis or traveller’s-joy, the large white con-
volvulus, whose bold, yet delicate flowers will
display themselves to a very late period of the
year —vetches and white and yellow ladies’
bed-straw invest every bush with their varied
beauty, and breathe on the passers by their
faint summer sweetness. The Campanula ro-
tundifolia, the hare-bell of poets, and the blue-
bell of botanists, arrests the eye on every dry
bank, rock, and wayside, with its airy stems
and beautiful cerulean bells. There too we
behold wild scabiouses, mallows, the woody-
nightshade, wood-betony, and centaury: the
red and white striped convolvulus also throws
its flowers under your feet; corn-fields glow
with whole armies of scarlet poppies, cockle,
and the rich azure plumes of the viper’s bugloss ;
even thistles, the curse of Adam, diffuse a glow

JULY. 181

of beauty over waste and barren places. Some
species, particularly the musk-thistle, are really
noble plants, wearing their formidable arms,
their silken vest, and their gorgeous crimson
tufts of fragrant flowers issuing from a coronal
of interwoven down and spines, with a grace
which casts far into the shade many a favourite
of the garden.

But whoever would taste all the sweetness
of July, let him go in pleasant company, if pos-
sible, into heaths and woods: it is there, in her
uncultured haunts, that Summer now holds her
court. The stern castle, the lowly convent, the
deer, and the forester, have vanished thence
many ages, yet nature still casts round the
forest-lodge, the gnarled oak, and lonely mere,
the same charms as ever. The most hot and
sandy tracks, which, we might naturally ima-
gine, would now be parched up, are in full
glory. The Erica Tetralix, or bell-heath, the
most beautiful of our indigenous species, is now
in bloom, and has converted the brown bosom
of the waste into one wide sea of crimson: the
air is charged with its honied odour: the dry
elastic turf glows, not only with its flowers, but
with those of the wild thyme, the clear blue
milkwort, the yellow asphodel, and that curious
plant, the sundew, with its drops of inexhausti-
ble liquor sparkling in the fiercest sun like

182 JULY.

diamonds. There wave the cotton-rush, the
tall fox-glove, and the taller golden mullein;
there grows the classical grass of Parnassus,
the elegant favourite of every poet; there creep
the various species of heathberries, cranberries,
bilberries, etc. furnishing the poor with a source
of profit, and the rich of simple luxury. What
a pleasure it is to throw ourselves down beneath
the verdant screen of the beautiful fern, or in
the shade of a venerable oak, in such a scene,
and listen to the summer sound of bees, grass-
hoppers, and ten thousand other insects, min-
gled with the more remote and solitary cry of
the peewit and curlew! Then to think of the
coach-horse urged on his sultry stage, and the
plough-boy and his team plunging in the depths
of a burning fallow, or of our ancestors, in times
of national famine, plucking up the wild fern
roots* for bread, and what an enhancement of
our cwn luxurious ease !

But woods, the depths of woods, are the most
delicious retreats during the fiery noons of July.
The great azure campanulas or Canterbury bells,
are there in bloom; and in chalk or limestone
districts there are also now to be found those
curious plants the bee and fly orchis. The soul

* It is perhaps not known to every juvenile lover of nature,
that a transverse section of a fern-root presents a miniature
picture of an oak tree.

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TULY. 183

of John Evelyn well might envy us a wood
lounge at this period;

All the cool freshness of the humid air ;
the walk by the border of the brook chiming
over the shadow-chequered pebbles, the green
and breezy canopy above us, and luxurious
thoughts in our hearts.

Throughout the month, the halloo and clapper
of the bird-boy, a classical being since the days
of Giles Bloomfield, are heard amongst the fields
of ripening corn, and towards the end of it corn
harvest commences.

SUMMER AND THE POET.

POET.

Oh! golden, golden summer,
What is it thou hast done?

Thou hast chased each vernal roamer
With thy fiercely burning sun.

Glad was the cuckoo’s hail,—
Where may we hear it now?

Thou hast driven the nightingale
From the waving hawthorn bough.

Thou hast shrunk the mighty river ;
Thou hast made the small brook flee ;

And the light gales faintly quiver
Through the dark and shadowy tree.

184

JULY.

Spring woke her tribes to bloom,
And on the green sward dance ;
Thou hast smitten them to the tomb

With thy consuming glance.

And now Autumn cometh on,
Singing ’mid shocks of corn,

Thou hastenest tobe gone, __
As if joy might not be borne.

SUMMER.

And dost thou of me complain ?
Thou, who with dreamy eyes,

In the forest moss hast lain,
Praising my silvery skies?

Thou, who didst deem divine,
The shrill cicada’s tune,

When the odours of the pine ,
Gushed through the woods at noon ?

I have run my fervid race,

I have wrought my task once more ;
T have filled each fruitful place

With a plenty that runs o’er.

There is treasure in the garner,
There is honey with the bee ;

And oh! thou thankless scorner,
There ’s a parting boon for thee !

Soon as in misty sadness,
Sere Autumn yields her reign,
Winter with stormy madness
Shall chase thee from the plain.

DUTY. 185

Then shall these scenes elysian
Bright in thy spirit burn,
And each summer thought and vision

Be thine till I return.
Wii.

Freip Parus are at this season particularly
attractive. I love our real old English foot-
paths. I love those rustic and picturesque
stiles opening their pleasant escapes from fre-
quented places and dusty highways into the
solitudes of nature. It is delightful to catch a
glimpse of one on the old village-green; under
the old elder-tree by some ancient cottage, or
half hidden by the overhanging boughs of a
wood. I love to see the smooth, dry track,
winding away in easy curves, along some green
slope to the church-yard—to the forest-grange
—or to the embowered cottage. It is to me an
object of certain inspiration. It seems to in-
vite one from noise and publicity into the heart
of solitude, and of rural delight. It beckons
the imagination on through green and whisper-
ing corn-fields, through the short but verdant
pasture ; the flowering mowing-grass ; the odour-
ous and sunny hay-field; the festivity of harvest ;
from lonely farm to farm, from village to village ;
by clear and mossy wells ; by tinkling brooks and
deep wood-skirted streams, to crofts where the
daffodil is rejoicing in spring, or meadows where

186 JANE

the large blue geranium embellishes the summer
wayside; to heaths with their warm elastic
sward and crimson bells—the chithering of
grasshoppers,—the foxglove, and the old gnarl-
ed oak; in short, to all the solitary haunts after
which the city-pent lover of nature pants “as
the hart panteth after the water brooks.” What
is there so truly English? What is so truly
linked with our rural tastes, our sweetest me-
mories, and our sweetest poetry, as stiles and
foot-paths? Goldsmith, Thomson, and Milton
have adorned them with some of their richest
wreaths. They have consecrated them to poe-
try and love. It is along the foot-path in se-
cluded fields, upon the stile in the embowered
lane, where the wild rose and the honey-suckle
are lavishing their beauty and their fragrance,
that we delight to picture to ourselves rural
lovers, breathing, in the dewy sweetness of sum-
mer evening, vows still sweeter. There it is
that the poet seated, sends back his soul into
the freshness of his youth, amongst attachments
since withered by neglect,—rendered painful by
absence, or broken by death; amongst dreams
and aspirations which, even now that they pro-
nounce their own fallacy, are lovely. It is
there that he gazes upon the gorgeous sunset —
the evening star following with its silvery lamp,
the fading day, or the moon showering her pale

_

JULY. 187

lustre, through the balmy night air—with a fancy
that kindles and soars into the heavens before
him; there, that we have all felt the charm of
woods and green fields, and solitary boughs
waving in the golden sunshine, or darkening
in the melancholy beauty of evening shadows.
Who has not thought how beautiful was the
sight of a village congregation, pouring out from
their old grey church on a summer day, and
streaming off through the quiet meadows, in all
directions to their homes? Or who that has
visited Alpine scenery, has not beheld with a
poetic feeling, the mountaineers come winding
down out of their romantic seclusions on a sab-
bath morning, pacing the solitary heath-tracks,
bounding with elastic step down the fern-clad
dells, or along the course of a riotous stream,
as cheerful, as picturesque, and yet as solemn
as the scenes around them ?

Again I say, I love field-paths, and stiles of
all species, ay, even the most inaccessible piece
of rustic erection ever set up in defiance of age,
laziness, and obesity. How many scenes of
frolic and merry confusion have I seen at a
clumsy stile! What exclamations! and blushes,
and fine eventual vaulting on the part of the
ladies! and what an opportunity does it afford
to beaux of exhibiting a variety of gallant and
delicate attentions! I consider a rude stile as

188 JAY

any thing but an impediment in the course of a
rural courtship.

Those good old turnstiles too —can I ever
forget them? the hours I have spun round
upon them when a boy! or those in which I
have almost laughed myself to death at the re-
membrance of my village pedagogue’s disaster !
Methinks I see him now!—the time a sultry
day,—the domine a goodly person of some
eighteen or twenty stone,—the scene a foot-
path sentinelled with turnstiles, one of which
held him fast as in amazement at his bulk.
Never shall I forget his efforts and agonies to
extricate himself; nor his lion-like roars which
brought some labourers to his assistance, who,
when they had recovered from their convulsions
of laughter, knocked off the top of the turnstile
and let him go. It is long since I saw a stile of
this construction, and I suspect the Falstaffs
have cried them down. But without a jest,
stiles and foot-paths are vanishing every where.
There is nothing upon which the advance of
wealth and population has made so serious an
inroad. As land has increased in value, wastes
and heaths have been parcelled out and in-
closed, but seldom have foot-paths been left.
The poet and the naturalist, who before had,
perhaps, the greatest real property in them,
have had no allotment. They have been totally

JULY: 189

driven out of the promised land. Goldsmith
complained in his day, that

The man of wealth and pride
Takes up a space that many poor supplied ;
Space for his lake, his park’s extended bounds,
Space for his horses, equipage and hounds ;
The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth,
Has robbed the neighbouring fields of half their growth :
His seat, where solitary sports are seen,
Indignant spurns the cottage from the green.

And it is but too true that the pressure of
contiguous pride has driven farther, from that
day to this, the public from the rich man’s lands.
“They make a solitude and call it peace.” Even
the quiet and picturesque foot-path that led
across his fields, or stole along his wood-side,
giving to the poor man with his burden, a cooler
and nearer cut to the village, is become a
nuisance. One would have thought that the
rustic labourer, with his scythe on his shoulder,
or his bill-hook and hedging-mittens in his hand,
the cottage-dame in her black bonnet and scar-
let cloak, the neat village maiden, in the sweet-
ness of health and simplicity, or the boy strol-
ling along full of life and curiosity, might have
had sufficient interest in themselves, for a culti-
vated taste not merely to tolerate, but to wel-
come — passing occasionally at a distance across
the park or wood, as objects agreeably enliven-

190 JULY.

ing the stately solitude of the hall. But they
have not; and what is more, those are common-
ly the most jealous of pedestrian trespassers,
who seldom visit their own estates, but permit
the seasons to scatter their charms around their
villas and rural possessions without the heart to
enjoy, or even the presence to behold them.
How often have I myself been arrested in some
long-frequented dale,—in some spot endeared
by its own beauties and the fascinations of
memory, by a board exhibiting in giant cha-
racters, “STOPPED BY AN ORDER OF SESSIONS,”
and denouncing the terrors of the law upon
trespassers! This is a little too much. I would
not be querulous for the poor against the rich.
I would not teach them to look with an envious
and covetous eye upon their villas, lawns, cattle,
and equipage ; but when the path of immemorial
usage is closed, when the little streak, almost as
fine as a mathematical line, along the wealthy
man’s ample field is grudgingly erased, it is
impossible not to feel indignation at the pitiful
monopoly. Is there no village champion to be
found, bold enough to put in his protest against
these encroachments,—to assert the public
right ?—for a right it is as authentic as that
by which the land itself is held, and as clearly
acknowledged by the laws. Is there no local

JULY: 191

“Hampden with dauntless breast” to “ with-
stand the petty tyrants of the fields” and to
save our good old foot-paths? If not, we shall
in a few years be doomed to the highways and
the hedges; to look, like Dives, from a sultry
region of turnpikes, into a pleasant one of ver-
dure and foliage which we may not approach.
Already the stranger, if he lose his way, is in
jeopardy of falling into the horrid fangs of a
steel trap; the botanist enters a wood to gather
a flower, and is shot with a spring-gun; death
haunts our dells and copses, and the poet com-
plains, in regretful notes, that he

Wanders away to the field and glen,

Far as he may for the gentlemen.

I am not so much of a poet, and so little of a
political economist, as to lament over the pro-
gress of population. It is true that I see, with
a poetical regret, green fields and fresh beau-
_ tiful tracts swallowed up in cities; but my joy
in the increase of human life and happiness, far
outbalances that imaginative pain. But it is
when I see unnecessary and arbitrary encroach-
ments upon the rural privileges of the public,
that I grieve. Exactly in the same proportion
as our population and commercial habits gain
upon us, do we need all possible opportunities
to keep alive in us the spirit of Nature.

192 J Ulla:

The world is too much with us ; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers ;
Little there is in Nature that is ours.

We give ourselves up to the artificial habits and
objects of ambition, till we endanger the higher
and better feelings and capacities of our being ;
and it is alone to the united influence of religion,
literature, and nature, that we must look for the
preservation of our moral nobility. Whenever,
therefore, I behold one of our old field-paths
closed, I regard it as another link in the chain
which Mammon is winding around us,—another
avenue cut off by which we might fly to the
lofty sanctuary of Nature, for power to with-
stand him.

July is named after Julius Cesar, one of
whose best deeds was to reform the Calendar.
The Saxons called it heu-monath or hay month ;
and Lida-aftera, or second month after the sun’s
descent.

About the middle of the month, the shoals of
that migratory fish, the pilchard, begin to ap-
pear off the coast of Cornwall. Bees begin to
kill and expel drones; and flying ants quit their
nests. Hens moult or lose their feathers. The
smaller birds do not moult so early, but all
renew their plumage before winter, when they

JULY. 193

are in their finest and warmest clothing. Young
partridges are found among the corn at this
time. Flax and hemp are pulled this month.

RURAL OCCUPATIONS.

Hay-harvest is now general, and fills the
whole country with animation. Honest Tusser
in his “ Five hundreth Poynts of Good Hus-
bandrie” gives the following pithy exhortation
to the farmer in this hay-making month.

Go muster thy servants, be captaine thyselfe,
Providing them weapons and other like pelfe ;
Get bottles and wallets, keepe fielde in the heat,
The fear is as much as the danger is great.

With tossing, and raking, and setting on cox,
Grasse latelie in swathes is now haie for an oxe;
That done, goe to cart it, and have it awaie,
The battell is fought, ye have gotten the daie.

Cattle in the fields require attention to give
them shade and water. Dairy cares continue.
Turnips and potatoes require hoeing: in the
midland counties late turnips are sown. Field-
peas are gathered for market. Hops, and all
kinds of trees may be pruned, the heat speedily
drying their wounds and preventing their bleed-
ing. Those who have finished these operations,
take the opportunity to get stone, mend their
roads, gates, etc., and thatch their ricks. The
corn-crops require constant watching by the

)

194 JULY.

bird-boy, to defend them from hosts of depreda-
tors. Roses and elder-flowers find employment
for the still; although our country ladies do not
indulge themselves in the amusements of the
still-room with the gusto of their grandmothers ;
their cordials of “ sovrain virtue” are almost
forgotten; the present generation has lost its
faith in five-leaved-grass water; and as for
’Esprit des Millefleurs, it is better from Del-
croix a Paris. Peppermint is ready too for the
still ;—the camomile harvest, in Kent and Der-
byshire, employs many children. Heath-berries
of various kinds, as bilberries, cranberries, ete.
and mushrooms are gathered by the poor and
carried for sale into the towns. In the garden,
fruit-trees may be pruned and wall-trees nailed.
Much attention is required in watering, sup-
porting plants, weeding, mowing grass-plots, ete.

ANGLING.

Bream and tench spawn. Grayling is “ very
pleasant and jolly” in these hot months, leaping
twenty times at a fly, and showing much sport.
His haunts, habits, and baits, with the exception
that he is not very fond of a minnow, are pretty
much like those of the trout; but he is bolder,
and therefore requires less patience in the angler
than care not to lose him, through the tender-
ness of his mouth. ‘The fly used cannot be too

JULY. 195

small for him. This fish abounds in our north-
ern rivers, especially the Humber; and the Se-
vern and Wye contain many fine ones. Many
trouts are taken in hot weather by tickling them
as they lie under the hollow banks of small
streams; and pikes as they bask at the surface
in the sunshine are caught by a noose of fine
wire, or horse-hair, at the end of a rod; prac-
tices which, although not reckoned very sports-
manlike, have perhaps quite as much sport in
them as if they were. The chub now will take
any fly, or cherries, or beetles with the legs and
wings cut off; but above all, a grasshopper on
the surface, or at the bottom a young humble-
bee, such as is found in the mowing grass; but
he is a fearful fish, and requires stillness and
secrecy in the angler. The carp is found in the
deepest holes of ponds or rivers, beneath banks,
roots of trees, etc., and is taken early or late in
the day with worm, paste, grub, green peas,
cherries, or a grasshopper at the bottom. The
salmon now makes glorious fishing with the fly
in our northern streams. This noble fish is taken
in a multitude of ways, and is a source of great
profit to the possessors of the streams which it
ascends. It is taken in nets, in traps at the
weirs, by the line, and the spear. In some parts
of Scotland they pursue and spear it by torch-
light. In Solway Frith it is speared in the pools

196 JULY.

left by the receding tide, by men on horseback.
As it spawns in December, and is said not to
recover itself in less than four months, con-
sequently it is not in good condition till April,
after which period it should become better and
better: it however often comes up from the sea
very poor, and requires some abode in the fresh
stream to fatten.

Evening is the best time of the day this month
for fly-fishing. Flies: all the flies taken in
June; also the Orange-fly; a little Dun White;
a Wasp-fly; a Black Hackle; the Shell-fly; a
Black Blue Dun; Black or Red Palmer-worms ;
Cockchaffers.

MIGRATION OF BIRDS.

None takes place this month.

CALENDAR OF THE FLOWER GARDEN.

Class I. Order2. Blitam virgatum, Spinage Strawberry. 8.
litum capitatum, Large Strawberry Blite. 8.

Il. 1. Jasminum fruticans, Yellow Jasmine. 9.

Jasminum humile, Dwarf Jasmine.

Catalpa syringifolia, Common Catalpa, 8.

Veronica Siberica, cum mult, aliis. Siberian Speedwell, with many
others. 8.

Monarda didyma, cum aliis. Scarlet Monarda, with others. 8.

Ill. 1. Iris orchroleuca, Pale Yellow Iris.

Iris halophylla, Long-leaved Iris.

1V. 1. Scabiosa Ukranica, cum aliis. Scabious Ukraine, with
others. 8.

Plantago maxima, cum aliis. Broad-leaved Plantain, with others.

Sanguisorba media, Short-spiked Burnet Saxifrage. 8.

Sanguisorba Canadensis, Burnet Canadian. 8.

VY. 1. Lysimachia Ephemerum, Willow-leaved Loose-strife. 9.

JULY. 197

V. 1. Lysimachia vulgare, cum aliis. Aaron’s-rod Loose-strife, with
others. 9.

Phlox undulata, Wave-leaved Lychnidea. 9,

Phlox Carolina, Carolina Lychnidea. 8.

Phlox maculata, Spotted Lychnidea. 8.

Phlox suffruticosa, Shrubby Lychnidea. 8.

Phlox intermedia, Intermediate Lychnidea,

Campanula grandiflora, cum mult. aliis, Large-flowered Campanula,
with many others. 8.

Phyteuma spicatum, Horn-Rampion. 8.

Phyteuma hemisphericum, Small Horn-Ram pion

Physalis Alkakengi, Winter Cherry. 9.

Physalis Pensylvanica, Pennsylvanian Winter Cherry. 9.

Lobelia cardinalis, Scarlet Cardinal-Flower. 10.

Nolana prostrata, Trailing Nolana. 8.

Impatiens Noli-me-tangere, Touch-me-Not. 8.

Datura Tatula, Purple Stramonium. 9.

Datura Stramonium, White Stramonium, 8.

Viola cuculata, Hollow-leaved Violet. 8.

Viola mirabilis, broad-leaved Violet. Sa

Spigelia Marilandica, Indian Pink. s,

Anchusa Italica, Italian Buglos. 10.

Nicotiana rustica, Common Tobacco. 9.

Celastus bullatus, Scarlet Staff-tree.

V. 2. Asclepias Syriaca, Syrian Swallow-wort. 8.

Asclepias incarnata, Flesh-coloured Swallow-wort. 8.

Asclepias tuberosa, Orange Apocynum, 9.

Eryngium planum, Flat-leaved Eryngo. 9.

Eryngium amethistinum, Amethistine Eringo, 8,

Eryngium campestre, Field Eringo. 8.

Angelica Archangelica, Garden Angelica. 9.

Gentiana asclepiadea, Gentian Swallow-wort. 8.

V. 3. Rus typhinum, Virginian Sumach. 8.

Rus elegans, cum aliis, Carolina Sumach, with others.

Vibernum levigatum, cum aliis. Cassiobury Bush, with others. 8.

V. 5. Statice speciosa, Plantain-leaved Thrift. 8.

Statice Tartarica, Tartarian Thrift. 8.

Statice flexuosa, Zigzag Thrift. 8.

Linum flavum, Yellow Flax. 8.

VI. 1. Frankenia hirsuta, Hirsute Sea-heath.

Lilium Canadense, Canadian Martagon. 8.

Lilium Philadelphicum, Philadelphian Martagon. 8.

Lilium Catesbii, Catesby’s Martagon. 8.

Yucca gloriosa, Superb Adam’s Needle, 8.

Yucca filimentosa, Thready Adam’s Needle, §.

Amaryllis belladonna, Belladonna Lily. 8.

VIII. 1. Erica ciliaris, Ciliated Heath. 9.

GLnothera fruticosa, Shrubby CEnothera, 8.

198 JULY.

VIII. 1. (Enothera grandiflora, Large-flowered CEnothera. 8.

VIII. 3. Polygonum orientale, cum aliis. Red Persicary, with
others. 10.

X. 1. Sophora Japonica, Japan Sophora.

Sophora alopecuroides, Fox-tail Sophora. 8.

Andromeda speciosa, cum malt. aliis. Large-flowered Andromeda,
with many others.

Cassia Marilandica, Maryland Cassia. 10.

Rhododendron Caucasia, Caucasian Rhododendron.

X. 2. Hydrangea arborea, cum aliis. Tree Hydrangea, with others.

Dianthus Carthusianum, Carthusian Pink. 8.

Dianthus glaucus, Glaucous Pink.

Dianthus caryophylli, Clove Pink.

Dianthus Monspeliensis, Montpellier Pink.

Dianthus proliferi, Proliferous Pink. 8.

Dianthus superbus, Superb Male Pink. 9.

X. 3. Silene longiflora, cum mult. aliis. Long-flowered Cateb-fly,
with many others. 9.

Arenaria saxatilis, Rock Sandwort.

Sedum majus, cum aliis. Great Orpine, with others.

X. 4. Lychnis keta, Small Lychnis.

Agrostemma Flos-Jovis, Umbelled Rose-campion.

Agrostemma Ceeli-rosa, Smooth-leaved Rose-campion.

XI. 2. Agrimonia repens, Creeping Agrimony. 9.

XII. 1. Punica granatum, cum var. Pomegranate, with varieties. 9.

XII. 5. Rosa sulphurea, Double Yellow Rose.

Rosa moschata, Single Musk-rose. 9.

Spirza lobata, Lobe-leaved Spirea. 8.

Potentilla Norvegica, cum aliis. Norwegian Cinquefoil, with others. 9.

Geum Virginica, Virginian Avens, 8,

Dryas octopetala, Mountain Dryas. 8.

XIII. 1. Cistus Monspeliensis, cym mult. aliis. Montpelier Cistus,
with many others.

XIII. 3. Aconitum Lycoctonum, cum aliis, Yellow Wolfsbane, with
others. 8.

Delphinium urceolatam, Hollow-leaved Larkspur. 8.

XIII. 7. Clematis crispa, Curled Clematis. 8.

Clematis orientalis, Eastern Clematis. 10.

Clematis flamula, Sweet-scented Clematis. 10.

Magnolia pumila, Dwarf Magnolia. 9.

XIV. 1. Dracocephalon Virginica, cum aliis. Virginian Dragon’s-
head, with others. 9.

Lavendula spica, Lavender. 9.

Lavendula orientalis, White-flowered Lavender.

XIV. 2. Bignonia radicans, Great Trumpet-flower, 8.

Bignonia v. minor, Small Trumpet-flower.

Vitex Agnus-Castus, Chaste Tree. 9.

Vitex v. datifolia, Broad. leaved Chaste Tree.

JULY. 199

XIV. 2. Mimtlus ringens, Oblong-leaved Monkey Flower. 8.

Acantbus mollis, cum aliis. Smooth Acanthus, with others, 9,

Digitalis leacophora, Broad-lipped Foxglove. 10.

XVI. 7. Lavatera Thuringiaca, cum aliis. Large-flowered Lavatera,
with others. 9, :

Hybiscus palustris, Marsh Hybiscus. 8.

Hybiscus trionum, Bladder Ketmia.

Althzea rosea, Hollyhock. 9.

Malva limensis, Blue-flowered Mallow.

XVII. 4. Spartium junceum, Spanish Broom. 9.

Spartium v. flore pleno, Double Spanish Broom.

Cytisus argenteus, cum aliis. Silvery Cytisus, with others. 7.

Robinia glutinosa, Glutinous Acacia.

Lathyrus tuberosus, cum aliis. Lathyrus tuberous, with others. 8.

Vicia pisiformis, Pale-flowered Vetch. 8.

Vicia biennis, Biennial Vetch. 8.

Glycyrrhiza glabra, Common Liquorice.

Coronilla varia, Purple Coronilla. 10.

Galega montana, Mountain Goatsrue.

Hedysarum Canadiense, Canadian Sainfoin, 9.

Lupinus lutens, Yellow Lupine. 8.

Lupinus hirsutus, cum aliis. Large Blue Lupine, with others.

Lotus tetragonalibus, Red-winged Pea. 8,

Lotus var. Yellow-winged Pea.

Astragalus campestris, Field Milk-vetch,

Astragalus Christianus, Great Yellow Milk-vetch.

Anthyllis tetraphylla, Four-leaved Kidney-vetch.

XVIII. 4. Hypericum hircinum, cum aliis. Feetid St. John’s-wort,
with others, 8.

XIX. 1. Sonchus Sibericus, Siberian Sow-thistle. 8.

Hieracium Pyrenaicum, cum mult. aliis, Heart-leaved Hawkweed,
with many others. 8.

Catananche cerulea, Blue Catananche.

Santolina Chame-rupestris, Lavender- Cotton.

Carduus canus, cum aliis. Hoary Thistle, with others. 8.

Cnicus ferox, cum aliis, Prickly Cnicus, with others. 8.

XIX. 2. Senecio coriaceus, Thick-leaved Groundsel. 8.

Senecio abrotanifolia, Southernwood-leaved Groundsel. 8.

Aster estivus, Labrador Aster. 8.

Aster Chinensis, cum aliis. et mult. var. China Aster, with others
and many varieties.

Solidago Mexicana, cum mult. aliis. Mexican Golden Rod, with
many others. 8.

Tagetes patula, French Marygold. 10.

Tagetes erecta, African Marygold. 10.

Xeranthemum annuum, White Xeranthemum. 8.

Xeranthemum var, Double-purple Xeranthemum.

Chrysanthemum coronaria, White-quilled Chrysanthemum. 9.

200 JULY.

XIX. 2. Chrysanthemum tricolor, Yellow Chrysanthemum.

Artemisia glacialis. Creeping Wormwood. 8.

Erigeron purpureum, cum mult. aliis, Purple Erigeron, with many
others. 8.

Cineraria gigantea, Gigantic Cineraria. 8.

Bellis Lusitanica, Portugal Daisy.

XIX. 3. Rudbeckia purpurea, Purple Rudbeckia. 10.

Coreopsis verticillata, Whorled Coreopsis. 10.

Centaurea centaureum, cum mult. aliis. Great Centaury, with many
others. 8.

XIX. 4. Silphium scabrum, cum aliis. Rough Silphium, with
others. 10.

Echinops Retio, Small Globe-Thistle. 9.

Echinops spherocephalus, Great Globe-Thistle. 8.

Urtica pilulifera, Roman Nettle. 8.

XIX. 5. Amaranthus caudatus, Love-lies-bleeding. 8.

Amaranthus hypochondriacus, Prince’s Featber. 8.

Amaranthus fiavus, Yellow Amaranth. 8.

XXII. 6. Smilax lanceolata, cum mult. aliis. Spear-leaved Bind-
weed, with many others.

XXII. 10. Datisca cannabina, Bastard Hemp. 9.

SELECT CALENDAR OF BRITISH BOTANY.

Class Il. Order 1. Cirezea alpina, Mountain Enchanter’s Night-
shade. Locality, Stony mountain places. Duration, 8.

Veronica Anagallis, cum mult, aliis. Water Speedwell, with many
others. Watery places.

Utricularia intermedia, Intermediate Bladderwort. In ditches, Ire-
land and Scotland.

Utricularia minor, Lesser Bladderwort. In ditches and bogs.

Lycopus Europeus, Common Gipsywort. Banks of rivers. 8.

Salvia pratensis, Meadow Clary. Dry meadows.

Ill. 1. Iris Psendacorus, Yellow Water Iris, Pools and rivers.

Scirpus czspitosus, Scaly-stalked Club-Rush. Barren heaths.

Scirpus lacustris, Bull-Rush. Rivers and ponds. 8.

Scirpus maritimus, Saltmarsh Clab-Rush. Salt marshes. §.

Nardus stricta, Common Mat-Grass. Heaths.

III. 2. Arundo Phragmites, Common Reed. Ditches and marshes.

Arundo arenaria, Sea Reed. Sandy sea coasts.

Lolium temulentum, Bearded Darnel. Corn-fields.

IV. 1. Dipsacus fullonum, Fuller’s Teazle. Hedges and ditches.

Dipsacus sylvestris, Wild Teazle. Hedges and banks of rivers.

Scabiosa arvensis, Field Scabious. Corn-fields.

Galium verum, Yellow Bed-Straw. Hedges and hilly places. §

Galium Mollugo, Great Hedge Bed Straw. Hedges and woods. 8.

JULY. 201

IV. 1. Galium boreale, Cross-leaved Bed-Straw. North of England
and Scotland. 8.

Alchemilla Alpina, Alpine Ladies’ Mantle. Alpine rocks.

SWAEY Potamogeton natans, cum aliis. Broad-leaved Pond-weed,
with others. Ditches and pools. 8.

V. 1. Menyanthes nympheoides, Fringed Buck-Bean. Ponds and
rivers, rare. 8.

Lysimachia vulgaris, Great Yellow Loosestrife. Moist, shady places.

Lysimachia thyrsiflora, Tufted Loosestrife. Watery places, Scot-
land. 8.

Anagallis ceerulea, Blue Pimpernel. Corn-fields, rare.

Anagallis tenella, Bog Pimpernel. Spongy bogs. 8.

Azalea procumbens, Trailing Azalea. Highlands of Scotland.

Convolvulus sepium, Great Bindweed. Moist hedges. 8.

Campanula rotundifolia, cum aliis. Round-leaved Bell-Flower, with
others. Fields and road sides. 8.

Lobelia Dortmanna, Water Lobelia. Highland lakes, g,

Impatiens Noli-me-tangere, Touch-me-not Balsam, Wet, shady
places. 8.

Verbascum Thapsus, Great Mullein. Waste ground. 8.

Verbascum nigrum, Black Mullein.. Road-sides and banks. 8.

Verbascum Blattaria, Moth Mullein. Banks and way-sides, rare.

Hyoscyamus niger, Common Henbane. Waste grounds.

Erythrea Centaurium, Common Centaury. Gravelly pastures. 8.

Erythreea latifolia, Broad-leaved Tufted Centaury. Sea-shore, near
Liverpool.

Lonicera Xylosteum, Upright Fly Honeysuckle, Rocky places.

V.2. Herniaria ylabra, Smooth Rupturewort.

Herniaria hirsuta, Hairy Rupturewort.

Salsola Kali, Prickly Saltwort. Sandy sea-shore. 8.

Gentiana campestris, Field Gentian. Elevated pastures. 10.

Eryngium maritimum, Sea Holly, or Eringo. Sandy sea-coast. 8.

Eryngium campestre, Field Eringo. Waste ground, in the sea. 8.

Torilis Anthriscus, Upright Hedge-Parsley. Hedges and fields.

Sium latifolium, Broad-leaved Water-Parsnip. Ditches and fens. 8.

Sium angustifolium, Narrow-leaved Water-Parsnip. Ditches and
pools, 8,

Sium nodiflorum, Procumbent Water-Parsnip. Ditches and
streams. 8.

(nanthe fistulosa, Common Water-Dropwort. Ditches and ponds, 8.

(Enanthe pimpinelloides, Parsley Water-Dropwort. Salt-marshes.

Cinanthe crocata, Hemlock Water-Dropwort. ? Waterers]

Angelica sylvestris, Wild Angelica, 5 a

Ligusticum Scoticum, Scottish Lovage. Coast of Scotland. 8.

Bupleuram rotundifolium, Common Hare’s-Ear. Chalky corn-
fields,

Selinum palustre, Marsh Milk-Parsley. Marshes and boggy mea-
dows,

Pastinaca sativa, Common Wild Parsnip. Borders of fields. 8.

; Sandy places, Dev.8.

202 JULY.

V. 2. Heracleum Sphondylinm, Common Cow-Parsnip. Meadows
and pastures,

V. 3. Tamarix Gallica, French Tamarisk. Cliffs on the south coast.

V. 5. Statice Armeria, Common Thrift. Sea shore. 8.

Statice Limonium, Common Sea Lavender. Muddy sea-shore. 8.

Linum usitatissimum, Common Flax. Cultivated fields,

V. 6. Drosera rotundifolia, Round-leaved Sundew.

Drosera longifolia, Long-leaved Sundew. Turfy bogs. 8.

VI. 1. Allium oleraceum, Streaked Field Garlic. Borders of fields.

Allium vineale, Crow Garlic. Meadows and pastures.

Frankenia levis, Smooth Sea Heath. Muddy salt marshes.

Peplis Portula, Water Purslane. Watery places. 8.

VI. 3. Rumex acutus, Sharp-leaved Dock. Road sides. 8.

Rumex obtusifolius, Broad-leaved Dock. Meadows and pastures. 8.

Rumex Hydrolapathum, Great Water Dock. Ditches and rivers. 9,

VI. 4. Alisma Plantago, Greater Water Plantain. Ponds and
ditches. 8.

VIII. 1. Epilobinm hirsutum, Great Hairy Willow-Herb. Moist,
shady places. 8.

Epilobiam montanum, Smooth-leaved Willow-Herb. Stony places. 9.

Epilobium tetragonum, Square-stalked Willow-Herb. Ditches, 9.

Chlora perfoliata, Perfoliate Yellow-wort. In chalky and sandy
places. 8.

Erica Tetralix, Cross-leaved Heath. Heathy bogs. 8.

Erica cinerea, Fine-leaved Heath. Dry heaths. 8.

Erica vagans, Cornish Heath. Heaths, in Cornwall. 8.

VIII. 2. Polygonum amphibium, Amphibious Persicaria. Ponds
and ditches, 8.

Polygonum Fagopyrum, Buck-wheat Persicaria. Cultivated
ground. 8

X. 1. Pyrola rotundifolia, cum aliis. Round-leaved Winter-Green,
with others. Dry woods, rare. 8.

X. 2. Dianthus Armeria, Deptford Pink. Pastures, etc. 8.

Dianthus deltoides, Maiden Pink.

X. 3. Silene inflata, Bladder Campion.

Silene noctiflora, Night-flowering Catchfly. Sandy fields, rare.

Silene Armeria, Lobels Catchfly. Banks and fields. 8.

Arenaria rubra, Purple Sandwort. On walls and old ruins, 8.

X. 4. Sedum reflexum, Crooked Yellow Stonecrop. On_ roofs
and walls.

Sednm rupestre, St. Vincent’s Rock Stonecrop. Rocks, rare.

Cerastium aquaticum, Water Mouse-ear Chickweed. Wet places. 8.

Spergula nodosa, Knotted Spurry. Sandy bogs. 8.

Cotyledon Umbilicus, Wall Pennywort. Mountainons rocks. 9.

Spergula snbulata, Fringed awl shaped Spurry. Sandy and stony
places, 8.

XI. 1. Lythrum Salicaria, Spiked Purple Loosestrife. Banks of
streams. 8.

. Pastures and fields. 10.

JULY. 203

XI. 3. Reseda Luteola, Dyer’s Rocket, or Weld. Old walls, etc.

Reseda lutea, Wild Mignonette. Waste places. 8.

XI. 4. Sempervivum tectorum, Common House-Leek. Roofs of
houses. 8.

XII. 2, Spirea Filipendula, Common Dropwort. Meadows and
pastures. 8.

XII. 3. Rosa rubella, cum aliis. Red-fruited Dwarf-Rose, with
others. Sea-coast.

Rubus fruticosus, Common Bramble. Hedges, etc.

Rubus plicatus, Plaited-leaved Bramble. Hedges, Shropsbire. 8.

Rubus suberectus, Red-fruited Bramble. Scotland, Wales, and
Yorkshire. 8.

Rubus corylifolius, Hazel-leaved Bramble. Hedges, ete.

Potentilla alpestris, Orange Alpine Cinquefoil. Mountainous places.

XHI. 1. Glaucium luteum, Yellow Horned Poppy. Sandy sez-

coast.

Papaver hybridum, Round Rough-headed Poppy. In sandy, or
chalky fields,

Nymphea alba, White Water Lily. Pools and lakes.

Nuphar lutea, Common Yellow Water-Lily. Rivers and pools.

Nuphar pumila, Least Water-Lily. Scotch lakes.

Tilia Europwa, Common Lime, or Linden Tree. Woods and hedges.

XIII. 2. Stratiotes aloides, Water Aloe, or Water Soldier. Lakes
and pools. 8.

XIII. 3. Clematis Vitalba, Common Trayeller’s Joy. Hedges in
the south. 8.

Ranunculus Lingua, Greater Spear-wort Crowfoot. Ditches and
pools, rare. 8. :

XIV. I. Verbena officinalis, Common Vervain. Road-sides. 8.

Galeopsis villosa, Downy Hemp-nettle.

Galeopsis versicolor, Large-flowered Hemp-nettle. }Sandy fields. 8.

Betonica officinalis, Wood Betony.

Stachys sylvatica, Hedge Woundwort. dL Woods sng Detee Se

Ballota nigra, Black Horehound. Hedges and banks. 8.

Marrubium vulgare, Common Horehound. Dry waste grounds.

Origanum vulgare, Common Marjoram. Bushy places. 8.

Thymus Serpyllum, Wild Thyme. Dry pastures. 8.

Thymus Acinos, Basil. Gravelly pastures. 8.

Thymus Calamentha, Common Calaminth. 8.

Scutellaria galericulata, Common Skull-cap, Banks of rivers. 8.

Scutellaria minor, Lesser Skull-cap. Heathy bogs. 8.

Prunella vulgaris, Common Self-beal. Meadows and pastures. 8.

XIV. 2. Bartsia Odontites, Red Bartsia. Moist pastures. 8.

Euphrasia officinalis, Common Eyebright. Heaths and pastures.

Antirrhinum Elatine, Sharp-pointed Snapdragon. Corn fields. 9.

Antirrhinum majus, Great Snapdragon. Old walls. 9.

Scrophularia nodosa, Knotty-rooted Fig-wort. Banks.

Scrophularia aquatica, Water Fig-wort. Watery places.

204 FURY.

XIV. 2. Orobanche minor, Lesser Broom-rape. Clover fields. 8.

XV. 1. Isatis tinctoria, Dyer’s Woad. Cultivated fields.

XV. 2. Sisymbrium Irio, London Rocket. Rubbish. 8.

XVI. 2. Geranium sanguineum, Bloody Crane’s-bill, Rocky
places. 9.

XVI. 3. Althea officinalis, Common Marsh Mallow. Salt
marshes. 9.

Malva moschata, Musk Mallow. Borders of fields. 8.

Lavatera arborea, Sea Tree-mallow. Maritime rocks, rare. 10.

XVII. 3. Genista tinctoria, Dyer’s Green weed. Meadows and
pastures. 9.

Pisum maritimum, Sea Pea. Stony sea-shore. 8.

Lathyrus pratensis, cum aliis. Yellow Meadow Vetchling, with
others. Cultivated fields, rare. 8.

Vicia sylvatica, Wood Vetch. Woods and hedges. 8.

Vicia Cracca, Tufted Vetch. Hedges. 8.

Astragalus uralensis, Hairy mountain Milk Vetch. Scotch mountains.

Astragalus campestris, Yellowish Milk Vetch.

Trifolium arvense, Hare’s-foot Vetch. Barren fields. 8.

Trifolium frigiferum, Strawberry-headed Vetch. Moist meadows
and pastures. 8.

Lotus major, Great Bird’s-foot Trefoil. Moist hedges. 8.

XVIII. 1. Hypericum Androsenum, Tutsan, or Park-leaved St.
John’s-wort. Alpine rocks and woods. 8.

Hypericum perforatum, Common Perforated St. John’s-wort.
Woods and hedges. 8.

Hypericum humifusum, Trailing St. John’s-wort. Moist, sandy
heaths, 8.

Hypericum pulchrum, Small upright St. John’s-wort. Woods and
heaths. 9.

XIX. 1. Prenapthes muralis, Ivy-leaved Wall Lettuce. Old walls,
etc. 8.

Hieracium alpinum, Alpine Single-flowered Hawkweed. Wales and
Scotland.

Hieracium Auricula, Orange Hawkweed. Mountainous places.

Hieracium paludosum, Marsh Hawkweed. Wet places.

Cichorium Intybus, Wild Succory. Borders of fields. 8.

Arctium Lappa, Common Burdock. Waste ground, etc. 8.

Serratula tinctoria, Common Saw-wort. Woods and banks. 8.

Serratula Alpina, Alpine Saw-wort. Scotch mountains. 8.

Carduus nutans, Musk Thistle. Heaths and fields. 8.

Cnicus palustris, Marsh Plumethistle. Fields. 8.

Cnicus arvensis, Creeping Plumethistle. Fields.

Cnicus Heterophyllus, Melancholy Plumethistle. Pastures in the
north. 8.

Cnicus acaulis, Dwarf Plumethistle. Pastures and meadows. 8.

Onopordium Acanthium, Common Cotton Thistle. Waste ground. 8.

JULY. 205

XIX. 1, Eupatorium cannabinum, Common Hemp Agrimony.
Sides of rivulets. 8.

XIX. 2. Tanacetum vulgare, Common Tansy. Meadows and pas-
tures. 8. j

Gnaphalium Germanicum, Common Cudweed. Pastures and
heaths. 8.

Conyza squarrosa, Plowman’s Spikehard. Caleareous soils, 8.

Erigeron acre, Blue Flea-bane. Dry, uncultivated land. 8.

Senecio Jacobea, Common Ragwort. Pastures and banks. 8.

Senecio aquaticus, Marsh Ragwort. Moist places. 8.

Senecio Saracenicus, Broad leaved Ragwort. Moist meadows. 8.

Solidago Virgaurea, Common Golden-rod. Woods and heaths. 9.

Achillza Ptarmica, Sneezewort. Wet places. 8.

XIX. 3. Centaurea Cyanus, Corn Blue-Bottle. Corn-fields. s.

Centaurea Scabiosa, Greater Knapweed. Borders of fields. 8.

Centaurea Calcitrapa, Common Knapweed. Gravelly ground. 8.

Centaurea solstitialis, Yellow Knapweed. Cultivated fields. 9.

XX. 1. Orchis pyramidalis, Pyramidal Orchis, Chalky pastures,
etc. 8. ;

Orchis hircina,* Lizard Orchis. Chalky soil, rare.

Ophrys apifera, Bee Orchis. Chalky and limestone soils,

Ophrys arachnites, Late Spider Orchis. Pastures, Kent.

Listera cordata, Heart-leaved Mountain Tway-blade. Turfy bogs.

Epipactis latifolia, Broad-leaved Helieborine. Woods and banks. §.

Epipactis palustris, Marsh Helleborine. Bogs. 8.

Malaxis paludosa, Bog-Orchis. Plea) q

Malaxis Leselii, Two-leaved Orchis. § Spongy bogs.

XX. 3. Aristolochia Clematitis, Common Birthwort. Amongst
ruins. 8.

XXI. 1. Euphorbia Peplis, Purple Sea-Spurge. Devonshire coast. 9.

Euphorbia exigua, Dwarf Sea-Spurge. Corn-fields. 9.

Euphorbia helioscopia, Sun Sea-‘Spurge. Gardens and fields. 9.

XXI. 2. Typha latifolia, Great Reed-Mace.

Sparganium ramosum, Branched Bur-Reed. ¢ Pools and ditches. 8.

Sparganium simplex, Unbranched Bur heeds

Carex incurva, cum aliis, Curved Carex, or Sedge, with many
others. Alpine rivulets. 8.

XXI. 5. Myriophyllum spicatum, Spiked Water Millfoil. Ditches
aud pools, 5.

Myriophyllum verticillatum. Whorled Water Millfoil. Ditches
and pools.

Sagittaria sagittifolia, Common Arrow-head. Ditches and pools. 8.

* Sir James Srnith suspected that the Nottinghamshire habitats
for this rare plant were incorrect. At the present time, it cannot
be found, but there isthe Orchis bifolia, which Dr. Deering must
have mistaken for it.

206 JULY.

XXII. 4. Humulus Lupulus, Common Hop. Moist hedges.

XXII. 7. Mercurialis annua, Annual Mercury. Cultivated ground. 9.

Hydrocharis Morsus rane, Common Frog-bit. Ditches and pools. 9.

XXIII. 1. Atriplex portulacoides, Sea Orache. :

Atriplex laciniata, rawel Sea Orache. ; Thejcoart: > (8:

XXIV. 1. Polypodium Dryopteris, Three-branched Polypody.
Mountainous woods. 8.

Aspidium Oreopteris, Heath Shield-fern. Mountainons places.

Aspidium aculeatum, Common Prickly Shield-fern. Moist, stony
woods.

Aspidium lobatum, Close-leaved Shield-fern. Hedges and woods.

Cystea dentata, Toothed Bladder-fern. Mountain rocks.

Scolopendrium vulgare, Common Hart’s Tongue. Moist rocks.

Blechnum boreale, Northern Hard-fern. Moist heaths. 8.

Pteris aquilina, Common Brakes, or Brakeu. Woods, heaths, and
fields.

Woodsia ilvensis, Oblong Woodsia. A

Woodsia hyperborea, Round-leaved Woodsia. \alpine rocks. 9.

Lycopodium clavatum, Common Clubmoss. Sandy heaths. 8-

SELECT CALENDAR OF BRITISH INSECTS.

Cicindela Germanica. Locality, Kent and the Isle of Wight.
Odontonyx rotundatus. In stony places. Month, to 9.
Colymbetes vitreus. o's Loe
Cuipaibetes ater. Lin Siiaih di streams. 7) 9.

Dyticus dimidiatus. In the fenny counties.

Berosus globosus. Stagnant pools. To 10.

Platycerus caraboides. Decayed trees.

Telephorus cyaneus.

Tillus elongatus. t woot in the north.

Clerus apiarius.

Corynetes violaceus. Old houses, etc. To 9.

Balaninus nucum. On hazel bushes. To 8.

Liparus Germanicus. I :

Liparus Anglicanus. } malic pont

Hylobius abietis. On the Scotch fir. To 8.

Prionus coriarins. Old oak woods.

Clytus Arietis, The Wasp-Beetle. Gardens and hedges. To 9.
Crypticus glaber.
Acridia grisea.
Acridia varia.
Acridia bipunctatum.
Vespa crabro, The Hornet. Old trees. To 9.
Vespa vulgaris, Common Wasp. Banks. To 9.
Vespa rufa, Red Wasp. Mud-banks.

Vespa Britannica, The British Wasp. On trees.

Sandy places. To §.

JULY. 207

Argynnis Aglaia, Dark-green Fritillary. Woods and heaths. To 8.

Argynnis Paphia, Silver-washed Fritillary. Woods and heaths.
Tos.

Vanessa Polychloros, Large Tortoise-shell Butterfly. Lanes, near
Elm Trees.

Vanessa Io, Peacock Butterfly. Lanes, ete.

Apatura Iris, Purple Emperor Butterfly. Oak woods in the south.

Limenitis Camilla, White Admiral. Woods in the south.

Hipparchia Semele, Grayling Butterfly. Heaths, ete. Tos.

Hipparchia Tithonus, Large Heath Butterfly. Woods and heaths.
To 8.

Hipparchia Leigea. Isleof Arran. To 8.

Hipparchia Cassiope, Small Ringlet Butterfly. Westmoreland and
Cumberland.

Hipparchia Iphis, Scarce Heath Butterfly. Yorkshire and Cumber-
land.

Hipparchia Davus. Near Manchester.

pane Hero, Silver-bordered Ringlet. AehacenRoresk

ipparchia Arcanius.

Thecla Quercus, Purple Hair-Streak. Oak woods. To 8.

Thecla Pruni, Black Hair-Streak. Gardens and hedges.

Thecla Spini, Pale-brown Hair-Streak. Norfolk.

Lycena dispar, Large Copper. The Fens of Cambridgeshire and
Huntingdonshire.

Lycena Hippothoe, Dark Underwinged Copper. Kent?

Polyommatus Arion, Large Blue Butterfly. Pastures and commons,
rare,

Polyommatus Alcon. Buckinghamshire.

Polyommatus Corydon, Chalk-hill Blue Butterfly. Downs in tie
south.

Polyommatus Eros, Pale Blue Butterfly. Kent and Surrey.

Polyommatus Argus, Silver-studded Blue Butterfly. Heaths.

Pamphila Linea, Small Skipper. Heathy woods. To 8.

Trochilium Crabroniformis, Lunar Hornet-Moth. Woods in the
south.

Zeuzera Esculi, Wood Leopard Moth. On the trunks of trees.

Clisiocampa Neustria, Barred Tree Lackey. Hedges and gardens.

Odonesiis Potatoria, Drinker-Moth. Woods and hedges.

Orgyia antiqua. Common Vapourer. Gardens.

Porthesia chrysorrhea, Yellow-tailed Moth. Hedges.

Arctia Caja, Great Tiger Moth. Gardens.

Lithosia complana, Common Footman. Fields and lanes.

Plusia Iota, Golden Y moth. Gardens, etc.

208 JULY

Prionus coriarius. It is a fact generally ob-
served that insects multiply extremely in pecu-
liar habitats. Providence having assigned to
each animal its peculiar offices and instincts,
seems to have ordained that in situations where
the agency of numbers is required, the increase
of the tribe should keep pace with the increas-
ing necessity for its existence. In the northern
regions, where vegetation is scant, and where
the evils arising from fallen timber is scarcely
felt, the species of Cerambicide, or Wood-
dispersers, (to which tribe the Prionus coriarius
is referred,) are few, and the individuals of each
species rarely met with. In the temperate
zone, where vegetation is more abundant, the
insects of this class increase in proportion; and
in tropical climates, where vegetation is luxuri-
ant, and where tornado and storms concur with
other causes to desolate large tracts of country,
and fell the trees of the fcrest,—there, to pre-
vent the evils which the progress of vegetation
would sustain from the fallen trees, the benig-
nity of Providence has caused the Cerambicide
to abound: myriads of large and various species
unite to remove the evil. The enormous trees
of the tropics vanish, as it were, before these
little agents of supreme power, and room is con-
sequently left for Nature to manifest herself
once more in varied but generous profusion.

Wil Nie 209

This class in England is comparatively small
—about eighty species. They are found in old
woods, and in the stumps of trees. The Prionus
coriarius is the largest we possess, and, unlike
its congeners, its flight is during the evening.
Its larva inhabits the oak.

Zeuzera Aisculi, (the Leopard-Moth.) A
very beautiful and interesting species, nearly
allied to the Goat-Moth, but of far less fre-
quent occurrence. In the larva state it inha-
bits the Elm and Pear trees, and the perfect
insect makes its appearance about the begin-
ning of July. It is of a snowy white, spotted
with round, greenish, or bluish spots; which,
together with its large size, soft, downy body,
and somewhat hyaline anterior wings, give it
a very delicate appearance. It has twice oc-
curred near Nottingham.

Around him ply the reaper band,

With lightsome heart and eager hand,
And mirth and music cheer the toil,—
While sheaves that stud the russet soil,
And sickles gleaming in the sun,

Tell jocund Autumn is begun.

PRINGLE.

AUG U ST;

Lift up your eyes and Jook on the fields; for they are white
already to harvest.

JOHN iv. 35.

Tue grand feature of this month is Corn
Harvest. It is a time for universal gladness
of heart. Nature has compieted her most im-
portant operations. She has ripened her best
fruits, and a thousand hands are ready to reap
them with joy. It is a gladdening sight to
stand upon some eminence and behold the
yellow hues of harvest amid the dark relief of
hedges and trees, to see the shocks standing
thickly in a land of peace; the partly-reaped
fields—and the clear, cloudless sky, shedding
over all its lustre. There is a solemn splendour,
a mellowness and maturity of beauty thrown
over the landscape. The wheat crops shine on
the hills and slopes as Wordsworth expresses it
“like golden shields cast down from the sun.”
For the lovers of solitary rambles, for all who
desire to feel the pleasures of a thankful heart,

2/2 AUGUST.

and to participate in the happiness of the simple
and the lowly, now is the time to stroll abroad.
They will find beauty and enjoyment spread
abundantly before them. They will find the
mowers sweeping down the crops of pale barley,
every spiked ear of which, so lately looking up
bravely at the sun, is now bent downward in a
modest and graceful curve, as if abashed at his
ardent and incessant gaze. ‘They will find
them cutting down the rustling oats, each fol-
lowed by an attendant rustic who gathers the
swath into sheaves from the tender green of the
young clover, which, commonly sown with oats
to constitute the future crop, is now showing
itself luxuriantly. But it is in the wheat-field
that all the jollity, and gladness, and picturesque-
ness of harvest are concentrated, Wheat is more
particularly the food of man. Barley affords
him a wholesome but much abused potation ;—
the oat is welcome to the homely board of the
hardy mountaineers, but wheat is especially,
and every where the “staff of life.” To reap
and gather it in, every creature of the hamlet is
assembled. The farmer is in the field, like a
rural king amid his people—the labourer, old
or young, is there to collect what he has sown
with toil, and watched in its growth with pride ;
the dame has left her wheel and her shady cot-
tage, and, with sleeve-defended arms, scorns to

AUGUST. 213

do less than the best of them:—the blooming
damsel is there, adding her sunny beauty to
that of universal nature; the boy cuts down the
stalks which overtop his head; children glean
amongst the shocks; and even the unwalkable
infant, sits propt with sheaves, and plays with
the stubble, and

With all its twined flowers.

Such groups are often seen in the wheat-field as
deserve the immortality of the pencil. There
is something too about wheat-harvest which
carries back the mind and feasts it with the
pleasures of antiquity. The sickle is almost
the only implement which has descended from
the olden times in its pristine simplicity — to
the present hour neither altering its form, nor
becoming obsolete amid all the fashions and
improvements of the world. It is the same
now as it was in those scenes of rural beauty
which the scripture history, without any la-
boured description, often by a single stroke,
presents so livingly to the imagination; as it
was when tender thoughts passed
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn ;

when the minstrel-king wandered through the
solitudes of Paran, or fields reposing at the feet
of Carmel; or “as it fell on a day, that the

214 AUGUST.

child of the good Shunamite went out to his
father to the reapers. And he said unto his
father, My head, my head! And he said to
a lad, Carry him to his mother. And when he
had taken him, and brought him to his mother,
he sate on her knees till noon, and then died.”
2 Kings, c. iv. 18—20.

Let no one say it is not a season of happiness
to the toiling peasantry; I know that it is. In
the days of boyhood I have partaken their har-
vest labours, and listened to the overflowings
of their hearts as they sate amid the sheaves
beneath the fine blue sky, or among the rich
herbage of some green headland beneath the
shade of a tree, while the cool keg plentifully
replenished the horn, and sweet after exertion
were the contents of the harvest-field basket.
I know that the poor harvesters are amongst
the most thankful contemplators of the bounty
of Providence, though so little of it falls to their
share. To them harvest comes as an annual
festivity. To their healthful frames, the heat of
the open fields, which would oppress the languid
and relaxed, is but an exhilarating and pleasant
glow. The inspiration of the clear sky above,
and of scenes of plenty around them, and the
very circumstance of their being drawn from
their several dwellings at this bright season,
open their hearts and give a life to their memo-

AUGUST. PM iss

ries; and many an anecdote and history from
“the simple annals of the poor” are there re-
lated, which need only to pass through the
mind of a Wordsworth or a Crabbe, to become
immortal in their mirth or woe.

Whilst speaking of harvest, I must not omit
to notice the splendid appearance of the Har-
vest Moon. The circumstance of this moon
rising several nights successively almost at the
same time, immediately after sunset, has given
it an importance in the eyes of farmers; but it
is not the less remarkable for its singular and
splendid beauty. No moon during the year can
bear any comparison with it. At its rising it
has a character so peculiarly its own, that the
more a person is accustomed to expect and to
observe it, the more it strikes him with asto-
nishment. I would advise every one who can
go out in the country, to make a practice of
watching for its rising. The warmth and the
dryness of the earth, the clearness and balmy
serenity of the atmosphere at that season, the
sounds of voices borne from distant fields, the
freshness which comes with the evening, com-
bine to make the twilight walk delicious; and
scarcely has the sun departed in the west, when
the moon in the east rises from beyond some
solitary hill, or from behind the dark rich fo-
liage of trees, and sails up into the still and

216 AUGUST.

transparent air in the full magnificence of a
world. It comes not as in common, a fair but
flat disc on the face of the sky,—we behold
it suspended in the crystal air in its greatness
and rotundity ; we perceive the distance beyond
it as sensibly as that before it; and its apparent
size is magnificent. In a short time, however, it
has acquired a considerable altitude —its appa-
rent bulk has diminished—its majestic grandeur
has waned, and it sails on its way calmly beau-
tiful, but in nothing differing from its usual
character.

During this month Nature seems to expe-
rience a second spring. Several trees, particu-
larly the oak and elm, put forth shoots and new
leaves, enlivening the sombre woods. ‘The
hedges assume a lighter green; and if their
leaves have been devoured in the spring with
caterpillars, as is sometimes the case, they are
now completely reclothed in the most delicate
foliage. The ground already experiences the
effect of the shortening days. The drought
occasioned by the intense heat and long days
of July has abated, cool nights, dews, and occa-
sional showers restore the mown fields and
sunburnt pastures to a degree of verdure, and
reanimate the remaining flowers. The small
blue campanula, wild scabious, blue chicory,
the large, white convolvulus, hawkweeds, and

AUGUST. 217

the Hrica vulgare, or common heath, still adorn
wastes, fields, and waysides. The pink-and-
white convolvulus has been one of the chief
ornaments of summer, flowering in the dryest
spots, where all around is brown from extreme
drought, with cheerful beauty. A few clusters
of honeysuckles may yet be seen, here and
there, on the hedges. And the antirrhinum
linaria, or common toad-flax is in full flower in
the thickets.

It may not be out of place here to notice that
singular property of seeds by which they are
preserved in the ground for ages. It appears
from certain circumstances that when they are
buried below that particular depth at which
they feel the influence of the atmosphere and
consequently vegetate, they are in a state of
preservation which may and does often con-
tinue for centuries, perhaps, for aught we know
to the contrary, to the end of the world, if un-
disturbed; certainly, however, to an amazing
extent of time. By this beautiful law of the
all-wise Creator, the vegetable tribes are never
likely to be lost. However cultivation or care-
lessness may tend to extirpate certain species,
their seeds lie in myriads in the treasury of the
earth, and some event such as we sometimes
witness, the lowering of a hill, the cutting of
a single turf, exposes them to the action of the

218 AUGUST.

air, and forth they spring. Thus it is that
farmers are frequently surprised on ploughing
up a field that has lain in lea beyond the
memory of man, to see a plentiful crop of va-
rious and unusual plants spring up. So I have
observed in Sherwood Forest that where turf
is pared, henbane is almost sure to exhibit
itself, though none has been seen in the neigh-
bourhood for years. Many instances of this
kind have no doubt attracted the attention of
all curious lovers of nature.

Brooks and watery dykes now display a
luxuriance of flowers and verdure. The heat
which withered all else has cherished them,
having a constant supply of moisture. Water-
flags, bulrushes, and reeds, have attained their
full growth; the arrowhead grows in large
masses elegantly interspersed with its delicate
flowers. The white and yellow water-lilies still
flourish, as do those richly blossoming plants,
the crimson loosestrife and flowering rush.
Willows are still rich in foliage, and to those
who love to take a book into some pleasant
sylvan nook, it is very charming to stroll during
the warmth of the day amongst the willow-holts
on the banks of rivers. The ground is dry, you
may lounge at your ease. There is a grateful
freshness in the wilderness of green boughs and
leaves that surround you; no tree, saith the

AUGUST. 219

venerable Evelyn, affordeth so cool a shade as
the willow; and thus agreeably hidden, you
may often catch glimpses of the habits of the
shyer and smaller animals ; traits which perhaps
have yet escaped the naturalist, and which may
tend to eradicate those ignorant prejudices so
cruel and oppressive to many of the innocent
commoners of nature. The water-rat is con-
sidered a common thief, and is killed wherever
he is found. If you watch him in his secluded
streams, you will quickly discern that his food
is almost entirely the herbage which grows in
them, and especially the leaf of the arrow-
head. I have seen him repeatedly sally forth
from his retreat, crop a leaf of arrow-head and
bear it away in his mouth by the stem, as the
dove is drawn returning to the ark with the
olive branch. Who would not find a greater
gratification in watching the happy and unde-
structive habits of a timid little creature than
in shooting it, or worrying it with dogs? I do
not mean to say that these, or any other wild
animals, should be suffered to increase till they
become nuisances, but in moderate numbers
I would let them enjoy God’s good gifts of life
and sunshine ; and if they must be the victims
of our rights, they should never be the objects
of our wantonness.

While speaking of the habits of animals I

220 AUGUST.

may as well add one or two other facts. The
corn-crake which visits us in summer, and keeps
up in our meadows its cry of crake, crake, is,
it is well known, not easily to be seen. It runs
with great rapidity, and is loth to take wing.
When found, it has the instinct, in common
with some other animals, and especially insects,
to feign death. A gentleman had one brought
to him by his dog. It was dead to all appear-
ance. As it lay on the ground, he turned it
over with his foot—he was convinced it was
dead. Standing by, however, some time in
silence, he suddenly saw it open an eye. He
then took it up—its head fell—its legs hung
loose—it appeared again totally dead. He then
put it in his pocket, and before very long he
‘ felt it all alive and struggling to escape. He
took it out, it was as lifeless as before. He
then laid it again upon the ground and retired
to some distance; in about five minutes it warily
raised its head, looked round, and decamped at
full speed.

I was, on a fine summer day, sitting in the
meadows opposite Tutbury Castle in Stafford-
shire, contemplating the remains of that fabric
which once imprisoned the Queen of Scots.
On the slope of the castle-hill facing me, I ob-
served a rabbit sitting by its burrow. Sud-
denly from a bush at some distance issued a

AUGUST. ; PAIN

large weasel, and darting on with the rapidity
of an arrow, attempted to make its way into
the burrow, in which, no doubt, were the rab-
bit’s young ones. The rabbit, with an air of
the utmost sany-froid, raising itself as the weasel
approached, received him with several smart
thumps upon the head. He fled back, but
speedily renewed the attack, and was received
in the same style. The assault, battery, and
retreat were maintained for at least a quarter’
of an hour, when the weasel crawled away ap-
parently exhausted and appeared no more.
Such is the valour infused by parental instinct
into the most weak and timid creatures.

During this month swarms of young frogs
released from the tadpole state of existence in
ditches and pools, are hopping across your path,
and in the evening numbers of the large black
beetle (geotrupus stercorarius) fly humming
and striking against you, often in your face.
After rains mushrooms are to be found in
abundance in old pastures.

Those singular appearances in the grass com-
monly called Fairy Rixcs, are never more
conspicuous than in the autumn months. Even
when all other grass is brown, they exhibit a
well-defined and bright green circle. The pro-
duction of these remarkable circles, and the
property which they possess of every year be-

222 AUGUST.

coming larger, have, of late years, been the
subjects of various theories. They have been
attributed to lightning, to fungi, which every
year grow upon the outer margin of the circle,
and then perishing, cause, by the rich remains,
a fresh circle of vivid green to appear, somewhat
wider of course than the former one. They
have also been attributed to insects. The least
plausible theory is that of lightning; the most
plausible that of fungi. Insects are a conse-
quence of the fungi, rather than a cause of the
circle ; for where there are fungi there will be
insects to devour them. Fungi are also always
found more or less about them. I have seen
them of so large a species that, in their growth,
they totally destroyed the grass beneath them,
dividing the green ring into two, and leaving
one of bare rich mould between them. The
origin of these circles too, which hitherto has
escaped the eyes of the naturalist, but which
is nothing more than a small mushroom-bed,
made by the dung of cattle lying undisturbed
in the grass where first deposited, till it be-
comes completely incorporated with the soil
beneath, favours, more than all, the theory of
the fungi. Every one knows that where this
occurs, a tuft of rank grass springs up, in the
centre of which a crop of fungi sometimes ap-
pears, and again perishes. There then is the

AUGUST. 223

nucleus of a fairy-ring. The next year the
tuft is found to have left a green spot, of per-
haps a foot and half diameter, which has already
parted in the centre. This expansion goes on
from year to year; the area of the circle is
occupied by common grass, and successive crops
of fungi give a vivid greenness to the ring which
bounds it. That only a few tufts are converted
into fairy-rings may be owing to their not being
sufficiently enriched to become mushroom-beds :
but that all fairy-rings which exist have this
origin will be found to admit of little doubt.
This, though true, is nevertheless a humiliating
exposé of the charmed fairy-rings; but
Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of cold philosophy ?
There was an awful rainbow once in Heaven :
We know her woof, her texture ; she is given
In the dull catalogue of common things :
Philosophy will clip an angel’s wings ;
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line ;
Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine ;
Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made
The tender-personed Lamia melt into a shade.
Keats.
Birds are now seen wandering about in large
flocks, having completed all their summer cares,
and now enjoy the range of earth and air in
one long holyday, till their companies shall be
thinned by gunpowder and winter weather.

224 AUGUST.

This glowmg month frequently presents
splendid appearances in the highly electric
clouds. In August 1827, I was walking in the
country early in the morning. The sky was
perfectly clear till the sun rose above the hori-
zon. ‘The country was then gradually obscured
by a thick haze, which about an hour afterwards
soared steadily but rapidly aloft, leaving the
landscape as clear as before, but filling the sky
with an unbroken expanse of motionless cloud.
I returned in the evening; the heavens and
earth exhibited a magnificent spectacle. The
landscape possessed a striking lustre and clear-
ness, and was brought, as it were, immediately
to the eye by that effect of transparent vapour
which often precedes thunder-storms. The
vault of heaven was strewn with what are called
horse-tail clouds, some white, drawn out like
webs of some light and transparent texture,
suddenly seized and tossed about by a giant
hand, and curling up at their extremities like
tempestuous and foamy billows. In the west
the setting sun cast up his lines of radiating
beams to the zenith, which appeared to be
answered in the east by corresponding radia-
tions of black lines, which crossed the clouds
directly into the higher heavens. These vanish-
ed with the sun. The heat of the atmosphere
during this time was intolerable, and the eve-

AUGUST. 225

ning terminated by a night of tremendous thun-
der and lightning.

Towards the end of the month symptoms of
the year’s decline press upon our attention.
The morning and evening air has an autumnal
freshness; the hedge-fruit has acquired a tinge
of ruddiness; the berries of the mountain-ash
have assumed their beautiful orange hue; and
swallows twitter as they fly, or sit perched in a
row upon a rail or the dead bough of a tree.
The swift has taken its departure. That beau-
tiful phenomenon, the white fog, is again be-
held rolling its snowy billows along the valleys ;
the dark tops of trees emerging from it as from
a flood.

Now is the season for enjoying the animated
solitude of sea-side rambles. The time is also
come when sportsmen may renew their health-
ful recreation: the season for grouse-shooting
upon the moors commencing on the 12th of
August, whereas partridge-shooting does not
begin till the Ist of September, when the corn-
lands may be expected to be cleared.

August is so termed after Augustus, as July
from Julius Cesar. The Romans were accus-
tomed to call July and August originally Quin-
tilis and Sextilis, or fifth and sixth, dating from

Q

226 AUGUST.

the old yearly commencement of March: Septem-
ber, October, November, and December, mean-
ing the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth months
accordingly. Our Saxon ancestors called it,
says Verstegan, Arn-monath, barn-month, from
the filling of their barns; arm meaning harvest.
Some say it was called, as well as June, Woed-
monath.

In the middle of this month, the young gold-
finch broods appear; lapwings congregate, this-
tle-down floats, and birds resume their spring-
songs. A little afterwards flies abound in
windows, linnets congregate, and bulls make
their shrill autumnal bellowing, and towards
the end, the beech-tree turns yellow, the first
symptoms of approaching autumn. The nut-
hatch chatters, and the robin’s pensive note is
again heard.

Hops are gathered this month. We cannot
boast of our vineyards; but we question whe-
ther Italy itself can show a more beautiful or
picturesque scene than an English hop-garden
in picking-time. The hops, which have luxu-
riantly climbed to the very tops of their poles,
hang on all sides their heavy heads of scaly
flowers in festoons and garlands, and the groups
of pickers, seated in the open air beneath the
clear lustre of an autumnal sky,—age in its
contentment, and youth in its joy,—and the

AUGUST. 227

~~

boys and girls, who carry to them the poles,
covered with all their nodding honours, may
match, for objects of interest, the light forms
and dark eyes of Italy. Kent, Sussex, and
Worcestershire, are the counties most famous
for the growth of hops. Considerable quan-
tities, however, are cultivated in Nottingham-
shire, and are known in commerce by the name
of North Clay Hops. Those of Kent rank first
in quality. Tusser, who wrote in 1557, gives,
in his “ Five Hundreth Poyntes of Good Hus-
bandrie,” the following rules for the choice of a

HOP GROUND.

When fansie persuadeth, among other crops,
To have for his spending sufficient of hops,
Must willingly follow of choices to choose
Such lessons approved as skilful do use.

Ground gravellie, sandie, and mixed with claie
Is naughtie for hops, anie maner of waie ;

Or if it be mingled with rubbish and stone,
For drieness and barrenness, let it alone.

Choose soile for the hop of the rottenest mould,
Well donged and wrought as a garden-plot should ;
Not far from the water, but not overflown ;

This lesson well noted is meete to be known.

The sun in the south, or else southlie and west,
Ts well to the hop, as a welcomed guest ;

Sut wind in the north, or else northerlie east,
To the hop, is as ill as a fraie in a feast.

wo
ro
io.2)

AUGUST.

Meet plot for a hop-ground once found, as is told,
Make thereof account as of jewel of gold;

Now dig it and leave it, the sunne for to burne,
And afterwards fence it to serve for that turne.

The hop for his profit I thus do exalt,

It strengtheneth drink, and it favyoureth malt ;
And, being well brewed, long kept it will last,
And drawing abide, if ye drawe not too fast.

RURAL OCCUPATIONS.

Hay-ricks are trimmed and thatched, mown
fields manured, and meadows watered before
corn-harvest, which sets in this month, and
forms its great business. Potatoes require
earthing-up. . Cabbage-seed is sown, and poul-
try watched upon the stubbles. Honey is
gathered. Old grass-lands are pared and burnt
for wheat, and the ashes spread and ploughed
in. In the garden withered stems of flowers,
and remains of exhausted crops, require re-
moving, and the ground digging afresh. Bulbs
are taken up, seeds gathered, and some kinds
sown for the next spring.

ANGLING,

Tench spawn. All other fresh-water fish
may be considered in season. From this time,
till late in the year, roach is taken in great
quantities in the Thames and other rivers.

AUGUST. 229

Evening is the best time during this month
for fly-fishing.

Flies, the same as in July ; then the ant-fly,
the fern-fly, a white hackle, a Harry-long-legs,
and all the browns and duns, as in May.

MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS.

The business of incubation being now over
with most birds, the migratory motions again
commence ; some seeking the bounteous pro-
visions of autumn, and some their winter quar-
ters. The Siskin, the Mountain Finch, and the
Cross-beak, are not very regularly seen. The
last comes, in a few particular summers, in large
flocks, and commits great havoc in our orchards.
The quail is said to remain frequently the whole
year.

MiGRATIONS OF BIRDS.

ARRIVALS.

Calidris arenaria, Sanderling, comes Aug. goes Feb. Hauuts, Beach.

Fringilla Montifringilla, Mountain Finch, goes Feb. Mountains.

Fringilla Spinus, Siskin, goes Feb. Near London.

Larus nevius, Grey Gull, comes Aug. 4, goes April 10. Beach.

Larus argentatus, Blue Gull, or Herring, comes Aug.4, goes April 10.
Beach.

Loxia Curvirostra, Crossbeak, comes Aug. 4, goes April 10.
Orchards, rare.

Limosa egocephala, Godwit, goes Feb.

Limosa rufa, Bar-tailed Godwit, goes Feb,

Squatarola cinerea, Grey Plover, comes Aug. 26, goes Dec. 1.

Strepsilas interpres, Common Turnstone, goes March.

Totanus Glettis, Green-shanked Gotwit, goes Feb. pBeaeh.

Totanus fuscus, Cambridge Gotwit, goes May.

Totanus striata, Purple Sandpiper, goes May. |

Tringa Canutus, Knot, comes Aug. 28, goes Feb. 3. }

Tringa alpina, Purre, goes Feb. /

230 AUGUST.

DEPARTURESs

Alca Torda, Razor-bill, comes May. Haunts, Rocky isles.
Anthus trivialis, Field Titlark, comes May. Grassy fields.
Charadrius Morinellus, Dottrel, comes May. Heaths and mountains.
Columba Turtur, Turtle Dove, comes April. Woods in Kent.
Coturnix vulgaris, Quail, comes April. Grassy fields.
Cuculus canorus, Cuckoo, comes April. Fields generally.
Cypselus Apus, Swift, goes 15, comes April. Eaves and towers.
Emberiza Miliaria, Bunting, comes March. Grassy fields.
Fratercula arctica, Puffin, goes 15, comes April. North coasts.
Larus ridibundus, Red-legged Smew, goes 12, comes

March 4, b seashore,
Uria Troile, Foolish Guillimot, comes Oct.
Vanellus cristatus, Lapwing, comes April. Heaths and fields.
Ynnx Torquilla, Wryneck, comes April. Orchards and woods.

CALENDAR OF THE FLOWER-GARDEN.

Class 11. Order 1. Veronica incisa, Cut-leaved Speedwell. 9.
Veronica allioni, Creeping Speedwell. 9.

Veronica pinnata, Wing-leaved Speedwell, 9.

Ill. 1. Iris dichotoma, Dichotamus Iris.

Commelina erecta, Upright Commeline.

1V. 1. Scabiosa leucantha, Snowy Scabious. 9.

Cornus Canadensis, Canadian Dogwood.

[V. 3. Ilex cassina, Dahoon Holly.

V. 1. Phlox paniculata, Pannicled Lychnidea. 9.

Lobelia urens, Acrid Lobelia. 9.

Lobelia sipbylitica, Blue Cardinal-flower. 10.

VY. 2. Asclepias purpureus, Purple Swallow-wort. 9.

VY. 3. Rhus Copallinum, Lentiscus-leaved Sumach. 9.

VI. 1. Hemerocallis alba, White Day-lily. 9.

Scilla autumnalis, Autumnal Squill.

VIII. 1. Erica stricta, Straight-branched Heath.

VIII. 3. Polygonum scandens, Climbing Polygonum.
Polygonum virginicum, Virginian Polygonum.

X. 1. Andromeda acuminata, Acute-leaved Andromeda.
X. 2. Saxifraga aspera, Rough-leaved Saxifrage.
Saxifraga Hirculus, Yellow Marsh Saxifrage.

Dianthus pungens, Pungent Pink. 10.

XI. 1. Lythrum trifiorum, Three-flowered Lythrum.
Lythrum verticilatum, Whorled Lythrum.

XII. 4. Spireea tomentosa, Woolly-leaved Spirwa.

XI. 5. Rosa bracteata, Lord Macartney’s White Rose. 9.
XIV. 1. Dracocephalon denticulatum, Tooth-leaved Dragon’s Head.
Prunella Pensylyanica, N. American Self-heal. 10.

AUGUST. 931

XIV. 2. Chelone glabra, White-flowered Chelone. 10.

Chelone obliqua, Red-flowered Chelone. 10.

Pentstemon pubescens, American Pentstemon. 9.

Pentstemon levigatum, Smooth-leaved Pentstemon. 9.

XVI. 7. Hibiscus Syriacus, cum var. Althea Frutex. with va-
rieties. 9.

XVIL. 4. Glycine opios, Tuberous-rooted Glycine.

XIX. 1. Cnicus tuberosus, Tuberous Thistle.

Chrysochoma biflora, Two-flowered Goldilocks. 9.

Chrysochoma villosa, Hoary-leaved Goldilocks, 9.

XIX. 2. Baccharis hamilifolia, Groundsel-tree. 11.

Tanacetum Balsamita, Costmary.

Aster elegans, cum mult. aliis. Showy Aster, with many others. 10.

Solidago elliptica, cum mult. aliis. Oval-leaved Golden rod, with
many others.

Achillea cristata, cum aliis. Slender-branched Milfoil, with others. 9.

Inula crithmifolia, Golden Samphire. 9.

X1X. 3. Helianthus multiflorus, cum aliis. Perennial Sunflower,
with others. 10.

Rudbeckia laciniata, Jagged-leaved Rudbeckia. 9.

Rudbeckia digitata, Narrow-leaved Rudbeckia.

Coreopsis tripteris, cum aliis. Three-leaved Coreopsis, with others. 9.

Centaurea sonchifolia, Sow-thistle leaved Centaury.

XIX. 4. Silphium terebinthinum, Broad-leaved Silphium.

Polymnia Canadensis, Canada Polymnia. 10.

Iva frutescens, Shrubby Iva.

XXI. 4. Urtica nivea, Snowy nettle. 9.

XXI. 5. Ambrosia trifida, Trifid-leaved Ambrosia. 9.

Ambrosia elatior, Tall Ambrosia. 9.

Ambrosia artemisiafolia, Wormwood-leaved Ambrosia. 9.

XXIV. 1. Orodia sensibilis, Sensitive Fern.

SELECT CALENDAR OF BRITISH BOTANY.

Class I. Order 1. Salicornia herbacea, Common Jointed Glasswort.
Locality, muddy sea-shore. Duration, 9.

III. 1. Scirpus pauciflorus, cum aliis. Chocolate-headed Clubrush,
with others. Moors and mountains.

Ill. 2. Melica cerulea, Purple Melic-grass. Turfy heaths.

Spartina stricta, Twin-spiked Cord-grass. Muddy sea-shore.

Rottbollia incurvata, Sea Hard-grass. Salt-marshes.

IV. 1. Dipsacus pilosus, Small Teasel. Moist shady places. 9.

Scabiosa succisa, Devil’s-bit Scabious. Moist pastures. 10.

Plantago maritima, Sea Plantain. Sea-shore. 9.

IV. 3. Ruppia maritima, Sea Ruppia. Salt water ditches. 9.

V. 1. Campanula bybrida, Corn Bell-flower. Corn-fields.

232 AUGUST.

Phyteuma orbiculare, Round-headed Rampion. Cha!ky pastures,
rare. 9.

Lobelia urens, Acrid Lobelia. Heaths, Devon. 9.

Verbascum virgatum, Large-flowered Mullein. Fields and way-
sides, rare.

Erythraa pulchella, Dwarf-branched Centaury. Sandy ground near
the sea.

VY. 2. Chenopodium urbicum, cum aliis. Upright Goosefoot, with
others. Gardens and fields. 9.

Beta maritima, Sea Beet. Sea-coast.

Cuscuta Europea, Greater Dodder. On thistles and nettles. 9.

Cuscuta Epithymum, Lesser Dodder. On heath and furze.

Swertia perennis, Marsh Felwort. Alpine meadows.

Gentiana Pneumonanthe, Marsh Gentian. Moist turfy heaths. 9.

Gentiana nivalis, Small Alpine Gentian. Scotch mountains.

Gentiana Amarella, Autumnal Gentian. Limestone pastures. 10.

Sium repens, Creeping Water Parsnip. Meadows and ditches.

Sison Amomum, Hedge Honewort. Chalky banks.

Sison segetum, Corn Honewort. Moist fields.

Cicuta virosa, Water Hemlock. Ditches and ponds, rare.

Crithmum maritimum, Sea Samphire. Rocky sea-coast.

Apium graveolens Wild Celery. Ditches near the sea. 9.

Cnidium Silaus, Meadow Pepper Saxifrage. Meadows and _pas-
tures. 9.

VI. 1. Juncus maritimus, Lesser sharp Sea-rush. Salt marshes.

Juncus biglumis, Two-flowered Sea-rush. Bogs in the Highlands.

Juncus obtusiflorus, Blunt-flowered Sea-rush. Marshes.

VI. 3. Rumex puleher, Fiddle Dock. Pastures.

Rumex maritimus, Golden Dock. Ditches, ete. 9.

Alisma ranunculoides, Lesser Water-plantain. Ditches and bogs. 9.

X. 2. Saxifraga Hirculus, Golden Marsh-saxifrage. Turfy bogs,
very rare.

Saponaria officinalis, Common Soapwort. Meadows and banks. 9.

Silene maritima, Sea Campion. Rocks by the sea. 10.

Sedum Telephium, Orpine, or Live long. Fields and banks. 9.

XI. 1. Lythrum hyssopifoliuam, Hyssop-leaved Loosestrife. Ditches,
etc. rare.

XIIf. 1. Tilia parvifolia, Small-leaved Lime-tree. Woods.

XIV. 1. Mentha sylvestris, cum mult. aliis. Horse Mint, with
many others. Waste watery places. 9.

Galeopsis Ladanum, Red Hemp Nettle. Limestone and chalky
fields. 9.

Stachys palustris, Marsh Woundwort. Watery places.

Chenopodinm vulgare, Common Wild Basil. Bushy places.

XIV. 2. Orobanche ramosa, Branched Broom rape. Hemp fields.

XV. 1. Alyssom maritimum, Sweet Alyssum. Cliffs near the sea. 9.

XV. 2. Cardamine bellidifolia, Daisy leaved Lady’s Smock. Al-
pine pastures.

AU GUST. 233

Sinapis muralis, Sand Mustard. Barren sea-coast. 9.

XVI. 1. Fumaria parviflora, Small-flowered Fumitory. Fields
south of England. 9.

XVII. 3. Ulex nanus, Dwarf Furze. Dry heaths. 9.

Vicia Intea, Rough-podded Yellow Vetch. Near the coast.

XIX. 1. Sonchus arvensis, Corn Sowthistle. Corn fields.

Lactuca virosa, Strong-scented Lettuce. Borders of fields, ete. 9.

Apargia Taraxaci, Dandelion Hawk-bit. Scotch and Welsh moun-
tains.

Apargia autumnalis, Autumnal Hawk-bit. Meadows and pastures.

Hieracium yillosum, cum aliis. Shaggy Alpine Hawkweed, with
others. Alpine rocks.

Cnicus eriophorus, Woolly-headed Plume-thistle. Chalky pastures.

Cnicus tuberosus, Tuberous Plume-thistle. Wiltshire Downs,

Bidens tripartita, Three-lobed Bur-marigold. Watery places.

Chrysocoma Linosyris, Flax-leaved Goldilocks. Rocks by the sea,
rare. 9. ;

Diotis maritima, Sea Cotton-weed. Sandy sea-coast, rare. 9.

XIX. 2. Artemisia campestris, Field Southernwood. Sandy
heaths, rare.

Artemisia Absinthium, cum aliis. Common Wormwood, with
others. Waste sandy ground.

Gnaphalium margaritaceum, cum aliis. American Cudweed, with
others. Banks of rivers.

Aster Tripolium, Sea Star-wort. Sea-coast. 9.

Inula dysenterica, Common Flea-bane. Moist places.

Pyrethrum inodorum, Corn Feverfew. Cultivated fields. 9.

Anthemis nobilis, Common Chamomile. Gravelly places. 9.

Achillea serrata, Serrated Yarrow. Derbyshire.

XIX. 3. Centaurea Jacea, Brown Radiant Knapweed. Moist
meadows. 9.

XX. 1. Neottia spiralis, Sweet Ladies’ Traces. Meadows and
pastures.

XXI. 1. Euphorbia Portlandica, Portland Spurge.

Euphorbia paralia, Sea Spurge.

XXI. 3. Urtica dioica, Great Common Nettle. Hedges, ete. 10.

XXI. 4. Xanthinum strumarium, Broad-leaved Bat-weed. Moist
ground, rare, 9.

Amaranthus Blitum, Wild Amaranth, Moist ground. 9.

XXIII. 1. Atriplex erecta, Upright spear-shaped Orache. Waste
ground, rare.

Atriplex littoralis, Graes-leaved Sea Orache.

Atriplex pedunculata, Peduucled Orache. , On the coast. 9.

XXIV. 1. Aspidium cristatum, Crested Shield-fern. Boggy heaths.

Lycopodium Selzginoides, Prickly Club-moss. Wet mountains and
heaths, ¢.

Lycopodium alpinum, Mountain Club-moss. Stony mountains and
heaths,

\sea-coast 9.

234 AUGUST.

SELECT CALENDAR OF BRITISH INSECTS.

Nebria livida. Coast of Yorkshire. To 9.

Callistus lunatus. Kent.

Zabrus gibbus. Corn-fields.

Geotrupes sylvaticus, Wood Dor-Beetle. Heaths.

Ripiphorus paradoxus. Wasp nests.

Locusta flavipes, Yellow-legged Locust.

Acheta campestris, Field Cricket. Banks. To 9.

Colias Earopome, The Clouded Sulphur Butterfly. Meadows in the
South. To 9.

Vanessa Antiope, The Camberwell Beauty. Willows and oaks.
To 9.

Vanessa Atalanta, The Red Admiral. Gardens. To 9.

Cynthia Cardui, The Painted Lady. Heaths and woods. To 10.

Hipparchia Blandina, Scotch Argus. Isle of Arran and Durham.

Thecla Betule, Brown Hair-streak Butterfly. Birch woods.

Lycena Chryseis, The Purple-edged Copper Butterfly. Epping and
Ashdown Forest. To9.

Lycena Virgauree, The Middle Copper Butterfly. Isle of Ely.

Pamphila Comma, The Pearl Skipper. Heaths and downs. To 9.

Porthesia auriflua, Brown-tail Moth. Hedges.

Ripiphorus paradoxus. This curious insect
is, I believe, invariably found in the nest of the
common wasp, or its immediate vicinity. The
female deposits her eggs in the cells of the
wasp’s comb, and leaves them to be fed, pro-
tected, and reared in the same manner as the
young wasps. This curious proceeding is only
equalled by the cuckoo, who leaves her eggs to
the hedge-sparrow.

In this part of the country there are few
wasp-nests without one or more of this insect,
if the cells be carefully examined.

Locusta; (locusts and grasshoppers.) This
country is only occasionally visited by the de-

AUGUST. 235

vastating migratory locust (Locusta Migratoria,)
which, with other large species of the same
genus, make such tremendous havoc with every
green thing in more southern latitudes. The
smaller species, to the number of more than
twenty, are found in this country, and towards
the end of the summer months tend to enliven
by their chirpings almost every heath and dry
bank in the kingdom. Grasshoppers were held
in high estimation by the Egyptians and Greeks
for their musical powers. Kirby and Spence
contend that these were Cicade; but if we
are to believe certain ancient gems in the
Florentine Gallery, they were clearly of the
genus Locusta, to which our grasshoppers be-
long; and this fact is confirmed by Kirby and
Spence themselves, in Vol. II. page 401, where
they inform us, that in Spain “ people of fashion
keep these animals—called there Grillo—in
cages, which they name Grilleria, for the sake
of their song.”

They add that—*“ Tettigonia, F., called by
the Ancient Greeks—by whom they were often
kept in cages for the sake of their song—Tet-
tix, seem to have been the favourites of every
Grecian bard, from Homer and Hesiod to Ana-
creon and Theocritus—supposed to be perfectly
harmless, and to live only upon dew; they were
addressed by the most endearing epithets, and

236 AUGUST.

were regarded as all but divine. One bard
entreats the shepherds to spare the innoxious
Tettix, that nightingale of the nymphs, and to
make those mischievous birds, the thrush and
blackbird, their prey. ‘ Sweet prophet of the
summer,’ says Anacreon, addressing this insect,
‘the Muses love thee; Phoebus himself loves
thee, and has given thee a shrill song; old age
does not wear thee; thou art wise, earth-born,
musical, impassive, without blood; thou art al-
most like a god.’ So attached were the Athe-
nians to these insects that they were accus-
tomed to fasten golden images of them in their
hair, implying, at the same time, a boast that
they themselves, as well as the Cicade, were
Terre filii. They were regarded indeed by all
as the happiest as well as the most innocent of
animals—not, we will suppose, for the reason
given by the saucy Rhodian Xenarchus, when
he says,
Happy the Cicadas’ lives,
Since they all have voiceless wives.

“Ifthe Grecian Tettix, or Cicada, had been
distinguished by a harsh and deafening note,
like those of some other countries, it would
hardly have been an object of such affection.
That it was not, is clearly proved by the con-
nexion which was supposed to exist between it
and music. Thus the sound of this insect and

AUGUST. 237

of the harp were called by one and the same
name. <A Cicada, sitting upon a harp, was a
usual emblem of the science of music, which
was thus accounted for :—When two rival mu-
sicians, Eunomus and Ariston, were contending
upon that instrument, a Cicada, flying to the
former, and sitting upon his harp, supplied the
place of a broken string, and so secured to him
the victory.”

As far as is at present known respecting the
vocal powers of the Cicadz and the Locusta, it
appears that the whole of the foregoing quo-
tation will more strictly apply to the latter than
to the former; but if it can be clearly shown,
on equal authority with these Gems, that the
Grecian Tettix is the Cicada, or Tettigonia,
of modern entomologists, it will follow that the
Greeks were in the habit of including both fami-
lies under the same appellation. See plate 96,
of Engravings of Gems from the Florentine
Gallery, or a copy in the Continued Appendix
to Calmet’s Dictionary of the Bible, page 77.

September.

Near yonder hedgerow, where high grass and ferns

The secret hollow shade, my pointers stand.

How beautiful they look ! with outstretch’d tails,

With heads immovable and eyes fast fix’d,

One fore-leg raised and bent ;—the other firm,

Advancing forward, presses on the ground.
VINCENT’S POWLING

LAYS OF THE SEASONS.

BY MARY HOWITT.

AUTUMN.

Arise, thou child of nature, rise !
Arouse thy slumbering spirit now !

The Autumn sheaves are on the hill,

And solemn are the woods and still,
With clustering fruits on every bough.

There ’s merry laughter in the field,
And harmless jest and frolic rout ;
And the last harvest-wain goes by
With its rustling load so pleasantly
To the glad and clamorous harvest shout.

There are busy gleaners in the field—
The old, whose work is never done,

And eager, laughing, childish bands,

Rubbing the ears in their little hands,
And singing ‘neath the autumn sun.

There are peasants in the hamlets low,
Busied among their orchard-trees,
Where the pleasant apples are red and gold,
Like token-fruits of those of old,
In the gardens of the Hespendes.

240 SEPTEMBER.

And boys are busy in the woods,

Gathering the npe nuts, bright and brown ;—
Tn shady lanes the children stray
Looking for blackberries through the day,

Those berries of such old renown !

—Grey mists at morn brood o’er the earth,
Shadowy as those on northern seas :

The gossamer’s filmy work is done,

Like a web by moonlight fairies spun,
And left to whiten in the breeze.

The sun bursts forth—the distant hills
Shine out, and splendid is the day—
A sombre radiance crowns each tree,
A fading glory solemnly
Hangs on each leaf in its decay ;

Go to the silent autumn woods !
There has gone forth a spirit stern ;

Its wing has waved in triumph here,

The Spring’s green tender leaf is sere,
And withering hangs the summer fern.

Now to the mountains turn thine eye,—
How shine they through the burnished air !
The little flocks, like drifts of snow,
The shepherds’ sheilings grey and low,
Thou seest them in their beauty there.

—Oh to lie down in wilds apart,
Where man is seldom seen or heard ;

In still and ancient forests, where

Mows not his scythe, ploughs not his share,
With the shy deer and cooing bird !

SEPTEMBER.

To go, in dreaminess of mood,

O’er a lone heath, that spreads around
A solitude like a silent sea,
Where rises not a hut or tree,

The wide-embracing sky its bound !

Oh! beautiful those wastes of heath,
Stretching for miles to lure the bee,

Where the wild-bird, on pinion strong,

Wheels round and pours his piping song,
And timid creatures wander free.

—Far sails the thistle’s hoary down ;
All summer flowers have passed away—
This is the appointed time for seed,
From the forest-oak to the meanest weed,
A time of gathering and decay,

But go not to the autumn hills,

Stand not beneath the autumn trees,
If thy unchastened spirit brook
No warning voice, no stern rebuke,

For thy life’s ceaseless vanities !

Now lift thine eyes, weak child of pride,
And lo! behind yon branching pine,

Broad, red, and like a burning sun,

Comes up the glorious autumn-moon,

God’s creature, like a thing divine !

Tt is not, as our childhood deemed
The nightly moon, a silver shield,
Borne on some viewless warrior’s breast
In battle from the east to west,
Along the blue ethereal field,
R

241

242

SEPTEMBER.

Oh high magnificence of eve !
Thus silent in thy pomp of light,
A world self-balanced thou appearest,
An ark of fire, thou onward steerest
Thy upward, glorious course aright !

The peasant stands beside his door,
To mark thee in thy bright ascent ;
The village matron, ’neath her tree,
Sits, in her simple piety,
Gazing in silent wonderment.

’Tis well when aught can wake the heart
To love and faith whose trust is right!
Tis well when the soul is not seared,
And the lew whisper can be heard
That breathes through nature day and night!

SEPTEMBER.

He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the ser
vice of man, that he may bring forth food out of the earth.
And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make
his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart.
PsaLMs civ. 14, 15.

Tue last month commenced with corn-har-
vest, this commences with the harvest of death.
On the Ist of September partridge-shooting
commences. Sportsmen have been busy seeing
their dogs, guns, and ammunition put in pre-
paration. As the day has approached, the
spirit of anticipation has become vivid and
anxious. Many atime have they reconnoitred,
till they know to a rood where every covey in
the neighbourhood lies, and of what number it
consists. Many a time have they planned their
first day’s route, and enjoyed in imagination
their sport. Little has been the sleep of the
last night. They have been up at the window
repeatedly, to look for the first streak of dawn,
and have actually taken the field ere it is half

244 SEPTEMBER.

light. The dogs are as impatient as their mas-
ters; whining and fawning, and endeavouring
to the best of their ability to tempt them
abroad; and now that their kennel door is
thrown open, with what a bound of joy they
spring forth! They cry, they howl, they
plunge and gallop to and fro in the wildness
of their exultation; and the best trained are
for a time incapable of preserving decorum.
Perhaps there are no men who follow their
pursuits with such gusto as sportsmen. All
the stimulating influence of chase and achieve-
ment, of discovery and possession, are theirs :

And oh! what a soul of delight is there

As they rush in the strength of the desert air!

In the bounding limb, in the glorying flow

Of spirits in healthful hearts that glow !

And to these we may add, the influence of the
scenes into which their object carries them,
For there is transport in the chase ;
And there is joyance in the sport
Of field and forest, and each place

Where the wild game-broods make resort,
The sedgy stream and bowery spring.

Perhaps to many it may appear apocryphal
that the sportsman is sensible of such refined
influences, but on this head I am positive. The
philosophical inquirer is aware how many causes
are combined in the production of our most

SEPTEMBER. 245

ordinary pleasures, and, among the numerous
sources of a sportsman’s enjoyment, the in-
fluence of natural beauty is one of the most
efficient. It may not be very apparent; in nine
cases out of ten it may even be unknown to the
man himself, yet it is not the less true; the
love of Nature, and the silent apprehension
of her beauty, is a freely-bestowed and far-
spreading gift. It lives in the least cultured
heart, as the beautiful wild-flower in the un-
ploughed heath. It lives often a pleasant,
though unperceived guest. It spreads the
charm of its influence when its possessor has
not even a name for it, yet still it lives,—and
they who cannot talk of it, yet feel it in its
sweetness and its power. The sportsman sel-
dom analyses his own feelings; he cares not
to inquire into the causes of his taste and his
gratification; but those causes exist in the se-
cret of his heart, and he follows their delightful
impulse with joy. Ask a sportsman if he be
an admirer of nature,—he has perhaps never
thought of the subject; but the moment he
goes forth he gives a practical testimony of his
attachment. Whither does he go? To the
free and fresh air, to the solitude of the heath
and the mountain, to dells and copses, where
his fine dogs plunge amid the red fern and the
fading leaves, and the pheasant, the partridge,

246 SEPTEMBER.

the hare, start forth in their wild beauty ;
where the tall, dry grass and the autumnal tree
fill the soul with their richness—to the clear
and tinkling stream that stretches on alter-
nately through the bowery brake, the obscurity
of the wood, and the riant sunshine of open
fields. Is it merely the possession of his game
that delights him here? The enthusiasm with
which he dwells on a sketch of Landseer’s, which
merely pictures the same thing to his eye, is
a sufticient refutation of such a notion. His
every-day actions and words are denials of it.
He couches down for a momentary rest on the
hill-side, where the country opens before him
in pictorial loveliness. He flies from the pelt-
ing shower to the hut or tree, and recounts at
eve by his own fire-side, with his dogs basking
on the hearth before him, his whole day’s round
of adventure, with every outward expression
of enthusiasm, with such happy and picturesque
phrases, as often make the places he speaks of
rise up before you, and with an inward glow of
happiness that exclaims to itself “ This is life !”
I know that such are his feelings, and* there-
fore, notwithstanding that his pursuit cannot be
totally exempt from the charge of cruelty, it is
impossible not to sympathize with him. Yet,
to my thinking, shooting is, of all field-sports,
the least cruel ; the brutal mind will exhibit its

SEPTEMBER. 247

ferocity in every thing, and in nothing has that
brutality been more evinced than in that whole-
sale butchery which many gentlemen have, of
late years, thought fit to boast of in the news-
papers, deeming it an honour to slaughter some
hundred brace of birds in a day; but the hu-
mane and practised sportsman, led on, not by a
blood-thirstiness worthy of a Cossack, nor by
vanity worthy of an idiot, nor by the pleasure
of seeing an unfortunate animal run gasping be-
fore the jaws of its enemies, and suffer at every
step a death of fear, but by the desire of a
healthful recreation, will single out his victim
and destroy it in a moment. The shooter in
truth enjoys to the utmost what is here said of

THE HUNTER.

High life of a hunter! he meets on the hill

The new-wakened daylight, so bright and so still ;

And feels, as the clouds of the morning unroll,

The silence, the splendour, ennoble his soul.

*Tis his on the mountains to stalk like a ghost,
Enshrouded in mist, in which nature is lost,

Till he lifts up his eyes, and flood, valley and height,

In one moment all swim in an ocean of light ;

While the sun like a glorious banner unfurled,

Seems to wave o'er a new, more magnificent world.

’Tis his, by the mouth of some cavern his seat,

The lightning of heaven to behold at his feet,
While the thunder below him, that growls from the cloud,
To him comes in echo more awfully loud.

248 SEPTEMBER.

When the clear depth of noontide with glittering motion

O’erflows the lone glens, an aérial ocean ;

When the earth and the heavens, in union profound,

Lie blended in beauty that knows not a sound.

As his eyes in the sunshiny solitude close,

’Neath a rock of the desert in dreaming repose,

He sees in his slumbers such visions of old

As wild Gaelic songs to his infancy told,

O’er the mountains a thousand plumed hunters are borne,

And he starts from his dream at the blast of the horn.
Witson.

But let us leave the sportsman for the gene-
ral aspect of nature which is now decidedly
autumnal. The trees are beginning to change
colour, the orchards are affluent of pears, plums
and apples ; and the hedges are filled with the
abundance of their wild produce, crabs, black
glossy clusters of privet, buckthorn, and elder-
berries, which furnish the farmer with a cordial
cup on his return from market on a winter's
eve, and blackberries, reminding us of the Babes
in the Wood.

Their little hands and pretty lips
With blackberries were dyed ;

And when they saw the darksome night
They sate them down and cried.

The hedgerows are also brightened with a
profusion of scarlet berries of hips, haws, honey-
suckles, viburnum and bryony. The fruit of the
mountain-ash, woody nightshade and wildser-

SEPTEMBER. 249

vice is truly beautiful, nor are the violet-hued
sloes and bullaces, or the crimson, mossy ex-
crescences of the wild rose-tree insignificant
objects amid the autumnal splendours of the
waning year.

Notwithstanding the decrease of the day,
the weather of this month is, for the most part,
splendidly calm; and Nature who knows the
most favourable moment to display all her
works, has now instructed the Geometric Spider
to form its radiated circle on every bush, and
the Gossamer Spider to hang its silken threads
on every blade of grass. We behold its in-
numerable filaments glittering with dew in the
morning, and sometimes, such is the immense
quantity of this secretion that it may be seen
floating in a profusion of tangled webs in the
air; and covering our clothes, as we walk in the
fields, as with cotton. These little creatures,
the Gossamer Spiders, it has long been known,
have the faculty of throwing out several of
their threads on each side, which serve them as
a balloon to buoy them up into the air. With
these they sail into the higher regions of the
atmosphere, or return with great velocity. By
recent experiments, it appears that the Spider
and its web are not, as it was supposed, of less
specific gravity than the air, and by that means
ascend. The phenomenon has been supposed

250 SEPTEMBER.

to be electrical, but this is doubtful. It yet
requires explanation.

There is now a brightness of the sky, and a
diaphanous purity of the atmosphere, at once
surprising and delightful. We remark with
astonishment how perfectly and distinctly the
whole of the most extensive landscape lies in
varied, solemn beauty before us; while, such
is the reposing stillness of Nature, that not a
sound disturbs the sunny solitude, save perhaps
the clapping of pigeons’ wings as they rise from
the stubbles. The clearness of vision may
partly arise from the paucity of vapour ascend-
ing from the ground at this dry season, and
partly from the eye being relieved from the
intensity of splendour with which it is oppressed
in summer; but be it what it may, the fact has
not escaped one of our most beautiful poets ;

There is a harmony
In Autumn, and a lustre in its sky,

Which through the summer is not heard nor seen,
As if it could not be, as if it had not been.

Now it is delightful among mountains. Moun-
tains! how one’s heart leaps up at the very
word! There is a charm connected with moun-
tains so powerful, that the merest mention of
them, the merest sketch of their magnificent
features kindles the imagination, and carries
the spirit at once into the bosom of their en-

SEPTEMBER. 251

chanted regions. How the mind is filled with
their vast solitude! how the inward eye is
fixed on their silent, their sublime, their ever-
lasting peaks! How our heart bounds to the
music of their solitary cries, to the tinkle of
their gushing rills, to the sound of their cata-
racts! How inspiriting are the odours that
breathe from the upland turf, from the rock-
hung flower, from the hoary and solemn pine!
how beautiful are those lights and shadows
thrown abroad, and that fine, transparent haze
which is diffused over the valleys and lower
slopes, as over a vast, inimitable picture !

At this season of the year the ascents of our
own mountains are become most practicable.
The heat of summer has dried up the moisture
with which winter rains saturate the spongy turf
of the hollows; and the atmosphere, clear and
settled, admits of the most extensive prospects.
Whoever has not ascended our mountains knows
little of the beauties of this beautiful island.
Whoever has not climbed their long and heathy
ascents, and seen the trembling mountain-flow-
ers, the glowing moss, the richly-tinted lichens
at his feet; and scented the fresh aroma of the
uncultivated sod, and of the spicy shrubs; and
heard the bleat of the flock across their solitary
expanses, and the wild cry of the mountain-
plover, the raven, or the eagle; and seen the

252 SEPTEMBER.

rich and russet hues of distant slopes and emi-
nences, the livid gashes of ravines and preci-
pices, the white glittering line of falling waters,
and the cloud tumultuously whirling round the
lofty summit; and then stood panting on that
summit, and beheld the clouds alternately gather
and break over a thousand giant peaks and
ridges of every varied hue,—but all silent as
images of eternity; and cast his gaze over lakes
and forests, and smoking towns, and wide lands
to the very ocean, in all their gleaming and
reposing beauty, knows nothing of the treasures
of pictorial wealth which his own country pos-
sesses.

But when we let loose the imagination from
even these splendid scenes, and give it free
charter to range through the far more glorious
ridges of continental mountains, through Alps,
Apennines or Andes, how is it possessed and
absorbed by all the awful magnificence of their
scenery and character! The sky-ward and in-
accessible pinnacles, the

Palaces where Nature thrones

Sublimity in icy halls !
the dark Alpine forests, the savage rocks and
precipices, the fearful and unfathomable chasms
filled with the sound of ever-precipitating wa-
ters; the cloud, the silence, the avalanche, the
cavernous gloom, the terrible visitations of

SEPTEMBER. 253

Heaven’s concentrated lightning, darkness and
thunder; or the sweeter features of living, rush-
ing streams, spicy odours of flower and shrub,
fresh spirit-elating breezes sounding through
the dark pine grove; the ever-varying lights
and shadows, and aérial hues; the wide pro-
spects, and, above all, the simple inhabitants !
We delight to think of the people of moun-
tainous regions; we please our imaginations
with their picturesque and quiet abodes; with
their peaceful secluded lives, striking and un-
varying costumes, and primitive manners. We
involuntarily give to the mountaineer heroic
and elevated qualities. He lives amongst noble
objects, and must imbibe some of their nobility ;
he lives amongst the elements of poetry, and
must be poetical; he lives where his fellow-
beings are far, far separated from their kind, and
surrounded by the sternness and the perils of
savage nature; his social affections must there-
fore be proportionably concentrated, his home-
ties lively and strong; but, more than all, he
lives within the barriers, the strongholds, the
very last refuge which Nature herself has rear-
ed to preserve alive liberty in the earth, to
preserve to man his highest hopes, his noblest
emotions, his dearest treasures, his faith, his free-
dom, his hearth, and his home. How glorious
do those mountain-ridges appear when we look

254 SEPTEMBER.

upon them as the unconquerable abodes of free
hearts; as the stern, heaven-built walls from
which the few, the feeble, the persecuted, the
despised, the helpless child, the delicate woman,
have from age to age, in their last perils, in all
their weaknesses and emergencies, when power
and cruelty were ready to swallow them up,
looked down and beheld the million waves of
despotism break at their feet:—have seen the
rage of murderous armies, and tyrants, the blast-
ing spirit of ambition, fanaticism, and crushing
domination recoil from their bases in despair.
“Thanks be to God for mountains!” is often
the exclamation of my heart as I trace the His-
tory of the World. From age to age, they have
been the last friends of man. In a thousand
extremities they have saved him. What great
hearts have throbbed in their defiles from the
days of Leonidas to those of Andreas Hofer !
What lofty souls, what tender hearts, what poor
and persecuted creatures have they sheltered in
their stony bosoms from the weapons and _tor-
tures of their fellow-men !
Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold!

was the burning exclamation of Milton’s ago-
nized and indignant spirit, as he beheld those
sacred bulwarks of freedom for once violated by
the disturbing demons of the earth; and the

SEPTEMBER. 255

sound of his fiery and lamenting appeal to
Heaven will be echoed in every generous soul
to the end of time.

Thanks be to God for mountains! The va-
riety which they impart to the glorious bosom
of our planet were no small advantage; the
beauty which they spread out to our vision in
their woods and waters, their crags and slopes,
their clouds and atmospheric hues, were a splen-
did gift; the sublimity which they pour into our
deepest souls from their majestic aspects; the
poetry which breathes from their streams, and
dells, and airy heights, from the sweet abodes,
the garbs and manners of their inhabitants, the
songs and legends which have awoke in them,
were a proud heritage to imaginative minds ;
but what are all these when the thought comes,
that without mountains the spirit of man must
have bowed to the brutal and the base, and pro-
bably have sunk to the monotonous level of the
unvaried plain.

When I turn my eyes upon the map of the
world, and behold how wonderfully the coun-
tries where our faith was nurtured, where our
liberties were generated, where our philosophy
and literature, the fountains of our intellectual
grace and beauty, sprang up, were as distinctly
walled out by God’s hand with mountain ram-
parts from the eruptions and interruptions of

256 SEPTEMBER,

barbarism, as if at the especial prayer of the
early fathers of man’s destinies, I am lost in an
exulting admiration. Look at the bold barriers
of Palestine! see how the infant liberties of
Greece were sheltered from the vast tribes of
the uncivilized North by the heights of Hemus
and Rhodope! behold how the Alps describe
their magnificent crescent, inclining their oppo-
site extremities to the Adriatic and Tyrrhene
Seas, locking up Italy from the Gallic and Teu-
tonic hordes till the power and spirit of Rome
had reached their maturity, and she had opened
the wide forest of Europe to the light, spread
far her laws and language, and planted the seeds
of many mighty nations!

Thanks to God for mountains! Their colossal
firmness seems almost to break the current of
time itself; the geologist in them searches for
traces of the earlier world, and it is there too
that man, resisting the revolutions of lower re-
gions, retains through innumerable years his
habits and his rights. While a multitude of
changes has remoulded the people of Europe,
while languages, and laws, and dynasties, and
creeds, have passed over it like shadows over
the landscape, the children of the Celt and the
Goth, who fled to the mountains a thousand
years ago, are found there now, and show us in
face and figure, in language and garb, what their

SEPTEMBER. ios |

fathers were; show us a fine contrast with the
modern tribes dwelling below and around them ;
and show us, moreover, how adverse is the spirit
of the mountain to mutability, and that there
the fiery heart of Freedom is found for ever.

Swallows now betray symptoms of their ap-
proaching departure, flying in large flocks, set-
tling on the ground in the fields in vast num-
bers, whither the increasing chillness of the air
has driven the flies, or clustering on the tops of
houses, or the dead boughs of trees, making a
Jow universal sort of warble. The robin renews
his note, the stone-curlew clamours at the be-
ginning of this month, wood-owls hoot, hares
congregate, and young blackbirds and thrushes
may be heard in copses, essaying their first
powers of song. Hops are gathered in this
month as well as in the last. Nuts are per-
fectly ripe in the woods; and of all the plea-
sures of rural life few can surpass the enjoyment
of nutting. Pleasant is it all times to wander
in woods,

Where there ’s neither suit nor plea,

But only the wild creatures and many a spreading tree :
especially pleasant is it at this season,—their
tempered gloom, their silence, the wild cries
that flit ever and anon through them, the leaves
which already rustle to the tread, all is full
of a thoughtful pleasantness. And then those

s

258 SEPTEMBER.

breaks ; those openings, those sudden emergings
from shadow and silence to light and liberty;
those unexpected comings out to the skirts of
the forest, or to some wild and heathy tract in
the very depth of the woodlands! How plea-
sant is the thought of it! I feel the fresh-
blowing breeze of autumn, I scent the fresh
odour of the turf which never was cultivated,
I feel its elasticity beneath my tread, and re-
joice as I behold on its lonely bosom a few
loiterers which remain of all summer's flowery
tribes; a solitary honeysuckle on some young
birch; a few hare-bells, bright and blue as sum-
mer skies. The rich crimson flush of forest
ground,
Where myriad heath-flowers congregated bloom,

is fast fading away; the fern is assuming its rus-
set hue; docks lift their ruddy and full-seeded
heads; thistles stand covered with down, like a
foam, ready at the lightest breeze to float away
to a thousand places; and the grass of Parnassus
crowns the silent waste with its pure and classic
beauty. And who that has lived or sojourned
any part of his youth in the country has not
some delicious remembrances connected with
nutting? For me, those dim and vast woods,
whither our good schoolmaster conducted his
jolly troop of boys once in the season—those
rustling boughs amongst which we rushed and

SEPTEMBER. 259

plunged with the rapturous impetuosity of young
deer — those clusters which tempted us to climb,
or to crash down the tree that bore them, like
many other ambitious mortals destroying to pos-
sess—those brown-shellers which came patter-
ing down upon our heads — our dinner 4 la gipsy,
and our triumphant march home with our load-
ed satchels, these were not merely enjoyed one
day, they have filled us on a hundred different
occasions with felicitous reflections! I love a
day’s excursion into the woods with a choice
party with all my soul. Not as many attempt
the matter when they would be exceedingly
Arcadian—not a formal and formidable Villeg-
giatura, an invasion of the silent woods with gigs
and post-chaises; startling the creatures of soli-
tude with the flash of scarfs, ribbons and para-
sols, with their cloth as ceremoniously spread
as for a city feast, their cold collations arranged
by conceited livery-servants, their breaking of
bottles and obstreperous merriment; but with
souls familiar with the mysteries and spirit of
Nature, their simple repast spread under the
green boughs by fair hands, and partaken with
light and merry hearts prepared to enjoy all
that the freshness and beauty of the scene may
pour into their bosoms, and what their own so-
cial natures will abundantly afford them. With
such I have, in past years, enjoyed to perfection

260 SEPTEMBER.

the luxury of a Nutting expedition, and I recur
to the memory of it with double interest now
that some of the partners of my pleasure are
sleeping in the dust.

I must not omit the great variety of fungi
which flourish this month. These are of every
size, shade, and hue, according to species and
situation, from the slender filament of scarlet or
yellow upon some decaying stump, to the bold,
broad agaric of a foot in height and diameter,
standing in the forest as a fitting table for King
Oberon. No production of Nature but is en-
dowed with some portion of that beauty so
lavishly diffused through creation; and these
humble and despised vegetables, which the
clown kicks away with his foot, will certainly
appear to an attentive eye not destitute of their
share. In roaming the ancient wilds of Sher-
wood Forest in the autumn of 1827, I was par-
ticularly struck with their varying character ;
some broad, tabular and flecked with brown;
some in the shade of trees of a pearly whiteness,
others of a brilliant rose-colour, some whose de-
licate surfaces were studded with dark emboss-
ments, some fashioned like a Chinese parasol ;
others gibbous and grotesque, the massy puff-
ball, which before it becomes dry has been
known to weigh several pounds, the pestilent,

SEPTEMBER. 261

scented, and ginger mushrooms, for all the
world, the exact resemblance of a Simnel-
cake.

“Our Saxon ancestors,” says Verstegan,
* called this month Gerst-monath, for that bar-
ley which that month commonly yielded was
called gerst, the name of barley being given
unto it by reason of the drinke therewith made,
called deere, and from beerlegh it came to be
berligh, and thence to barley. So in like man-
ner beereheym, to wit, the overarching, or cover-
ing of beer, came to be called berham and after-
wards barme, having gotten I wot not how many
names besides.”

Saffron, used in medicine and in dying, con-
sisting of the pointals of the crocus, is this
month gathered, and prepared in large quanti-
ties, particularly at Saffron Walden. Apples
are gathered and cider and perry are made.
Herrings pay their annual visit to England in
September and afford a rich harvest to the
inhabitants of its eastern and western coasts.
Towards the end of the month the nuthatch
visits our orchards, particularly those which
abound with nut-trees.

As this is a time at which many visit the sea-
coast, the following extract from “ Drummond's

262 SEPTEMBER.

first steps to Botany,” a most excellent and in-
teresting little work, may be fitly introduced.
“ Perhaps no scene, or situation, is so intensely
gratifying to the naturalist as the shore of the
ocean. The productions of the latter element
are innumerable, and the majesty of the mighty
waters lends an interest unknown to an inland
landscape. The loneliness too of the sea-shore
is much cheered by the constant changes aris-
ing from the ebb and flow of the tide, and the
undulations of the water’s surface, sometimes
rolling like mountains, and again scarcely mur-
muring on the beach. As you gather there

Each flower of the rock and each gem of the billow,

you may feel with the poet, that there are joys
in solitude, and that there are pleasures to be
found in the investigation of nature of the most
powerful and pleasing influence.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods ;

There is a rapture on the lonely shore ;

There is society where none intrudes

By the deep sea, and music in its roar.

But nothing can be more beautiful than a
view of the bottom of the ocean, during a calm,
even round our own shores, but particularly in
tropical climates, especially when it consists
alternately of beds of sand and masses of rock.
The water is frequently so clear and undisturb-
ed, that, at great depths, the minutest objects

SEPTEMBER. 263

are visible; groves of coral are seen expanding
their variously-coloured clumps, some rigid and
immoveable, and others waving gracefully their
flexile branches. Shells of every form and hue
glide slowly along the stones, or cling to the
coral boughs like fruit ; crabs and other marine
animals pursue their prey in the crannies of
the rocks, and sea-plants spread their limber
fronds in gay and gaudy irregularity, while the
most beautiful fishes are on every side sporting
around.

The floor is of sand, like the mountain-drift,

And the pearl-shells spangle the flinty snow :
From coral rocks the sea-plants lift

Their boughs, where the tides and billows flow ;
The water is calm and still below,

For the winds and waves are absent there ;
And the sands are bright as the stars that glow

In the motionless fields of the upper air.
There, with its waving blade of green,

The sea-flag streams through the silent water,
And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen

To blush like a banner bathed in slaughter ;
There with a light and easy motion

The fan-coral sweeps through the clear deep sea,
And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean

Are bending like corn on the upland lea ;
And life in rare and beautiful forms

Is sporting amid those bowers of stone,
And is safe when the wrathful spirit of storms

Has made the top of the waves his own.

264 SEPTEMBER.

And when the ship from his fury flies
Where the myriad voices of ocean roar,
When the wind-god frowns in the murky skies,
And demons are waiting the wreck on shore,
Then far below in the peaceful sea
The purple mullet and gold-fish rove,
Where the waters murmur tranquilly
Through the bending twigs of the coral-grove.
PERCIVAL.

RURAL OCCUPATIONS.

Finishing corn harvest and thatching ricks ;
laying in winter fuel, as coals, wood, etc.,
ploughing and sowing wheat upon the fallows,
also after-crops of tares, clover, early peas, etc. ;
gathering in orchard-fruit for sale, and for cider-
making, and gathering the hop-harvest are the
chief employments of this month. Much work
may be found in the garden in removing de-
cayed plants, digging, gathering seeds, sowing
and planting for next year. The gathering of
nuts, acorns, blackberries, and elderberries, finds
many of the poor employment and profit, but it
is to be regretted that vast quantities of hazel-
nuts are annually lost in this kingdom through
the extreme jealousy of the country gentlemen,
who forbid the poor to enter their woods on
account of the game.

SEPTEMBER. 265

ANGLING.

Tench is not in season; Bream is at its best,
but must be taken early or late in the day, and
in gloomy, windy weather, being the shyest of
fish; Perch may be caught till the end of the
month; and Dace is best caught from this time
till the end of the year. Baits as in April, also
a Camel Brown Fy.

MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS.

ARRIVALS,

Anser ferus, Bean Goose, comes Sept. goes May. Haunts, Fens and
corn-fields.-

Numenins Arquata, Sea Curlew, comes Sept. 4, goes Feb. 6. Coast
in winter.

Scolopax Gallinago, Snipe, comes Sept. 1, goes March 6. Marshes.

Scolopax Gallinula, Snipe Jack, comes Sept.10, goes March 6.
Marshes and runnels.

Sula Bassana, Gannet, or Solon Goose, comes Noy. goes March.
Rocky isles.

Totanus ochropus. Green Sandpiper, goes April. Sea-shore, pools,
and streams.

Totanus fuseus, Cambridge Godwit, goes April. Sea-shore.

Totanus striata, Purple Sandpiper, goes April. Sea-shore.

Turdus pilaris, Fieldfare, comes Nov. goes March. Fields generally.

Turdus Lliacus, Redwing Thrush, comes Nov. goes March. Fields
generally.

DEPARTURES.

Caprimulgus Europeus, Fern Owl, comes May. Haunts, Oak wooda,

Charadrius Hiaticula, Ring Dottrel, comes April. Sea-shore.

Charadrius Plavialis, Green Plover, comes April. Heaths in sam-
mer, coasts in winter.

Curruca sylvia, Whitethroat, comes April. Hedges generally.

Curruca sylviella, Lesser Whitethroat, comes April. Hedges
generally.

Curruca atricapilla, Blackeap, comes April T3. Gardens,

Curruca salicaria, Sedge Warbler, comes May. Hedges in low
places.

266 SEPTEMBER.

Curruca arundinacea, Reed Warbler, comes May. Water-sides,
marshes,

Curruca luscinea, Nightingale, comes April. Woods and copses.

Curruca sibillatrix, Wood Wren, comes April. Woods, tree-tops.

Currnca hortensis, Pettychaps, comes April. Shrubberies, southern
counties,

Curruca locustella, Grasshopper Lark, comes April. Bushes and
brakes.

Emberiza Scheniclus, Reed Sparrow, comes March. Reedy fens
and streams.

Hirundo rustica, Swallow, comes April. Chimneys.

Lanius Collurio, Red-backed Shrike, comes May. Fields, southern
counties.

Muscieapa Grisola, Spotted Flycatcher, comes May 12. About
houses.

Muscicapa atricapilla, Pied Flycatcher, comes April. Woods.

Motacilla flava, Yellow Wagtail, comes April. Green corn,

Oidicnemus Bellonii, Stone Curlew, comes March. Stony uplands.

Regulus Trochilus, Yellow Wren, comes March. Copses, thickets.

Regulus Hippolais, Chiff chaff, comes March. Copses, thickets.

Saxicola cnanthe, Wheatear, comes March. Ploughed fields, heaths.

Sterna Hirundo, Common Tern, comes April. Sea-shore.

Sterna minuta, Lesser Tern, comes April. Sea-shore.

Sterna Boysii, Sandwich Tern, comes April. Coasts of Suffolk and
Kent.

Sterna Dugalli, Roseate Tern, comes April. Scottish shores.

Sterna nigra, Black Tern, comes April. Fens, lakes, and rivers.

Tringa Pugnax, Ruff, comes April. Fens,

Turdus Torquatus, Ring Ousel, comes April. Mountainons parts.

CALENDAR OF THE FLOWER GARDEN.

Class III. Order 1. Crocus serotinus, Late Crocus.

Crocus nudiflorus, English autumnal Crocus.

Crocus sativus, Garden Crocus. 10.

V.1. Hedera Helex v. latifolia, Broad-leaved Ivy. 10.

V.4. Aralia spinosa, Angelica Tree.

VI. 1. Lilium Carolinianum, Carolina Lily, 10.

Leucojum autumnale, Autumnal Snowflake.

VI. 3. Colchicum autumnale, Common Meadow Saffron.

X.1. Arbutus unedo, cum var. Strawberry Tree, with varieties.

XIII. 1. Goldonia pubescens, Loblolly Bay.

XIV.2. Vitex agnus castus, Chaste Tree.

Vitex v. latifolia, Broad-leayed Chaste.

XIX. 1. Eupatorium altissimum, cum aliis. Tall Eupatorium, with
others. 10.

Chrysocoma Lynosyris, German Goldilocks. 10.

SEPTEMBER. 267

Liatris elegans, Hairy-cupped Liatris. 10.

Liatris pilosa, Pilose Liatris. 10.

Senecio luridus, Dingy Groundsel.

Dahlia superfilua, cum mult. var. Purple Dahlia, with many var.

Aster dumosus, cum mult. aliis. Purple-flowered Aster, with many
others. 10.

XIX. 2. Solidago viminea, cum mult. aliis. Twiggy Golden-rod,
with many others.

Chrysanthemum Indicum, Indian Purple Chrysanthemum. 11.

XIX. 3. Helianthus altissimus, cum aliis. Tall Sunflower, with
others. 10.

Coreopsis procera, Tall Coreopsis. 10.

Coreopsis alternifolia, Alternate-leayed Coreopsis. 10.

XXII. 6. Smilax aspera, Rough Bindweed.

XXII. 12. Cisampelos smilacina, Smilax-leaved Cisampelos. 11.

SELECT CALENDAR OF BRITISH BOTANY.

Class I. Order 1. Salicornia radicans, Creeping Jointed Glass-wort.
Locality, Muddy sea-shores.

Chara gracilis, Slender Shining Chara. Ponds and boggy pools.

Ill. 1. Crocus sativus, Saffron Crocus. Meadows and pastures.

V.4. Parnassia palustris, Common Grass of Parnassus. Boggy
places. Duration, 10.

VI. 3. Colchicum autumnale, Common Meadow Saffron. Mea-
dows ana pastures. 10.

VI.7. Alisma repens, Creeping Water Plantain. Lakes in North
Wales. 10.

VIII. 2. Polygonum Hydropiper, Biting Persicaria. Wet places.

Polygonum minus, Small Creeping Persicaria. Watery places.

X. 1. Arbutus Unedo, Common Strawberry Tree. Lake of Kil-
larney.

XIV.1. Mentha acutifolia, Fragrant sharp-leaved Mint. Banks of
rivers.

Mentha rubra, Tall Red Mint. Banks of rivers.

Mentha Pulegium, Penny-royal. Wet commons.

Stachys germanica, Downy Wound-wort. Limestone soil.

XIX. 1. Bidens cernua, Nodding Bur-marygold. Ditches and
ponds.

XIX. 2. Inula pulicaria, Small Fleabane. Moist places.

SELECT CALENDAR OF BRITISH INSECTS.

Chlenius vestitus. Locality, Damp banks.
Helophorus fennicus. Pools and ditches,
Coccinella 12-punctata, Twelve-spotted Lady-bird.

Coccinella 16-guttata, Sixteen-spotted Lady-bird. ¢ Hedges.

268 SEPTEMBER.

Proscarabeus autumnalis. Margate.

Acridia viridissima, , Marehes:

Acridia verrucivora.

Gomphocerus rufus,

Blatta germanica. Houses and warehouses.

Colias Chrysotheme. Norfolk ?

Colias Edusa, Clouded Yellow Butterfly. South, etc.
Acherontia Atropos, Death’s-head Hawk Moth.
Sphinx Convolvuli. Convolvulus Hawk Moth, ¢ Gardens.

Acherontia Atropos (Death’s-head Hawk-
moth.) This large and splendid lepidopterous
insect appears to be spread throughout the
country; in some parts sparingly, in others
abundantly. It has several times occurred
near Nottingham, and, I understand, is of fre-
quent occurrence near Dronfield, Derbyshire.

On the Continent, where the Death’s-head
Hawk-moth abounds, it has been regarded by
the superstitious with dread, not only on ac-
count of the figure of a death’s head, which is
marked on its thorax, but also from the plain-
tive cry which it makes on being captured.
Reaumur has, I think, clearly shown that this
cry proceeds from the friction between the
palpi and its long spiral tongue. Bees are so
intimidated by this noise, that they allow it to
enter their hives, and rob them of their winter
stores, without resistance.

The beautiful Sphinx Convolvuli (Convol-
vulus Hawk-moth,) has recently been captured
in the vicinity of Nottingham.

@®ctober.

Quoth I, fair lass, wilt thou gang wi’ me,

Where black-cocks crow, and plovers cry?
ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.

OCTOBER.

The harvest is past, the summer is ended.
JEREMIAH Viii. 20.

OcroBeR bears pretty much the same cha-
racter in the fall of the year, as April does in
the spring. The beginning of April is. still
wintry, the end may often lay strong claims
to the name of summer; the commencement
of October is frequently distinguished by the
lingering of summer-warmth and summer-flow-
ers, the end by frosts and snows. It is a month
as various as April—clear skies and fogs,
drought and rain, sunshine and storm, green-
ness and nakedness, it has them all, and often
in a rapid succession. In the early part of the
month the hardy yarrow and a few other flowers
remain, and the meadow-saffron (colchicum au-
tumnale) and the autumnal crocus (crocus au-
tumnalis) spring up and give a last gleam of
floral beauty to the year. The grass, if the
weather be mild, is vividly green, and luxuriant

270 OCTOBER.

as in spring. Fine clear days occasionally come
out, affording in the perfect repose of the land-
scape, the blueness of the waters, and the
strong shadows cast by the trees upon the
sunny ground, the highest pictorial beauty, but
they are speedily past, and rains and mist wrap
the face of the earth in gloom. Yet the glooms
and obscurity of Autumnal fogs, however dreary
to the common eye, are not unwelcome to the
lover of Nature. They give an air of wildness
to the most ordinary scenery ; but to mountains,
to forests, to solitary sea-coasts they add a
sombre sublimity that at once sooths and ex-
cites the imagination ; and even when not plea-
sant themselves, they minister to our pleasures
by turning the heart to our bright firesides, to
the warmth and perpetual summer of home.

Orchards are now finally cleared of fruit, and
gardens have lost the chief of their attractions ;
farmers are busy ploughing, and getting in
their wheat. Swallows generally disappear this
month.

Woops.—tThe glory of this month, however,
is the gorgeous splendour of wood-scenery.
Woods have in all ages vividly impressed the
human mind; they possess a majesty and sub-
limity which strike and charm the eye. Their
silence and obscurity affect the imagination
with ameditative awe. They soothe the spirit

“ee

OCTOBER. DAFA

by their grateful seclusion, and delight it by
glimpses of their wild inhabitants, by their novel
cries, and by odours and beautiful phenomena
peculiar to themselves. This may be more par-
ticularly applied to our own woods, woods com-
paratively reclaimed, but in less populous and
cultivated countries they possess a far more
wild and gloomy character. The abodes of ban-
ditti, of wild beasts and deadly reptiles, they
truly merit the epithet of “salvage woods,”
which Spenser has bestowed upon them. In
remote ages their fearful solitudes and ever-
brooding shadows fostered superstition and
peopled them with satyrs, fauns, dryads, hama-
dryads, and innumerable spirits of dubious na-
tures. The same cause consecrated them to
religious rites ; it was from the mighty and an-
cient oak of Dodona that the earliest oracles of
Greece were pronounced. The Syrians had
their groves dedicated to Baal, and Ashtaroth
the queen of Heaven, and infected the Israelites
with their idolatrous customs. In the heart of
woods the Druid cut down the bough of mi-
sletoe, and performed the horrible ceremonies
of his religion. The philosophers of Greece re-
sorted to groves, as schools the most august and
befitting the delivery of their sublime precepts.
In the depths of woods did anchorites seek to
forget the world, and to prepare their hearts for

ALi ye OCTOBER.

the purity of heaven. To lovers and poets they
have ever been favourite haunts; and the poets
by making them the scenes and subjects of
their most beautiful fictions and descriptions,
have added to their native charms a thousand
delightful associations. Ariosto, Tasso, Spenser,
Shakspeare, and Milton, have sanctified them
to the hearts of all generations. What a world
of magnificent creations comes swarming upon
the memory as we wander in woods! The
gallant knights and beautiful dames, the magi-
cal castles and hippogriffs of the Orlando; the
enchanted forest, the Armida and Erminia of
the Gerusalemma Liberata; “ Fair Una with
her milk-white lamb,” and all the satyrs, Archi-
mages, the fair Florimels and false Duessas of
the Faery Queene; Ariel and Caliban, Jaques
and his motley fool in Arden, the fairies of the
Midsummer-Night’s Dream, Oberon, Titania,
and that pleasantest of all mischief-makers,
ineffable Puck,—the noble spirits of the immor-
tal Comus. With such company, woods are to
us any thing but solitudes—they are populous
and inexhaustible worlds, where creatures that
mock the grasp but not the mind, a matchless
phantasmagoria, flit before us; alternately make
us merry with their pleasant follies, delight us
with their romantic grandeur and beauty, and
elevate our hearts with their sublime senti-

OCTOBER. Dees)

ments. What wisdom do we learn in the world
that they do not teach us better? What music
do we hear like that which bursts from the
pipes of the universal Pan, or comes from some
viewless source with the Zolian melodies of
Faery-land? Whatever woods have been to
all ages, to all descriptions of superior mind,
to all the sages and poets of the past world,
they are to us. We have the varied whole of
their sentiments, feelings, and fancies, bequeath-
ed as an immortal legacy, and combined and
concentrated for our gratification and advan-
tage ; besides the innumerable pleasures which
modern art has thrown to the accumulated
wealth of all antiquity. Botany has introduced
us to a more intimate acquaintance with the
names and characters, and with something also
of the physical economy of both “the trees of
the wood” and of the smallest plants which flou-
rish at their feet; so that wherever we cast our
eyes, we behold matter for both admiration and
research.

What can be more beautiful than trees ?
their lofty trunks, august in their simplicity,
asserting to the most inexperienced eye, their
infinite superiority over the imitative pillars of
man’s pride! their graceful play of wide-spread-
ing branches! and all the delicate and glorious
machinery of buds, leaves, flowers and fruit,

T

274 OCTOBER.

that with more than magical effect burst
forth from naked and rigid twigs, with all
the rich and brilliant, and unimaginably varied
colours under heaven; breathing delectable
odours, pure, and fresh, and animating; pour-
ing out spices and medicinal essences; and
making music, from the softest and the most
melancholy undertones to the full organ-peal
of the tempest. I wonder not that trees have
commanded the admiration of men in all nations
and periods of the world. What is the richest
country without trees? What barren and mo-
notonous spot can they not convert into a para-
dise? Xerxes, in the midst of his most ambi-
tious enterprise, stopped his vast army to con-
template the beauty of a tree. Cicero, from the
throng, and exertion, and anxiety of the Forum,
was accustomed, Pliny tells us, to steal forth to
a grove of palm-trees, to refresh and invigorate
his spirit. In the Scaplan Groves, the same
author adds, Thucydides was supposed to have
composed his noble histories. The Greek and
Roman classics, indeed, abound with expres-
sions of admiration of trees and woods, and
with customs which have originated in that ad-
miration ; but above all, as the Bible surpasses,
in the splendour and majesty of its poetry, all
books in the world, so is its sylvan and arborescent
imagery the most bold and beautiful. Beneath

OCTOBER. QD

some spreading tree are the ancient patriarchs
revealed to us sitting in contemplation, or re-
ceiving the visits of angels; and what a calm
and dignified picture of primeval life is pre-
sented to our imagination, at the mention of
Deborah, the wife of Lapidoth, judging the
twelve tribes of Israel, between Ramah and Be-
thel, in Mount Ephraim, beneath the palm-tree
of Deborah. The oaks of Bashan, and the
cedars of Lebanon, are but other and better
names for glory and power. ‘The vine, the
olive, and the fig-tree are made imperishable
symbols of peace, plenty, and festivity. David
in his psalms, Solomon in his songs and _ pro-
verbs, the Prophets in the sublime outpourings
of their awful inspiration, and Christ in his para-
bles, those most beautiful and perfect of all alle-
gories, luxuriate in signs and similes drawn from
the fair trees of the East.

In the earlier ages of Europe, Kings were
crowned, councils were held, and justice dis-
pensed beneath the shade of some noble trees.
From the shadow of an oak was Christianity
first proclaimed in these realms; in a more
recent day of our dear and noble country, the
willows of Pope and Johnson, the mulberry of
Shakspeare, and that of Milton, have associated
those great names with the love of trees and of
planting. Many noble works of our illustrious

276 OCTOBER.

countrymen it would be easy to mention, that
have been written, and more than one of our
most distinguished living authors, who delights
to compose amid the inspiring grace and fresh-
ness and purity of trees. John Evelyn spent a
considerable portion of a valuable life in endea-
vouring to communicate his admiration of trees
and forests, and besides immediately effecting a
great national service, by turning the attention
of government to the importance of planting,
has left a fine monument of his taste and labour.
Well might this venerable and enthusiastic apos-
tle of woods exclaim: “Here then is the true
Parnassus, Castalia and the Muses; and at
every call in a grove of venerable oaks, methinks
I hear the answer of a hundred old Druids, and
the bards of our inspired ancestors. In a word,
so charmed were poets with those natural
shades, that they honoured temples with the
names of groves, though they had not a tree
about them. In walks and shades of trees poets
have composed verses, which have animated
men to heroic and glorious actions. Here ora-
tors have made their panegyrics, historians their
grave relations; and the profound philosophers
have loved to pass their lives in repose and con-
templation.”

Who has walked in woods, that has not felt

OCTOBER. : i

them become to him as superb temples, filling
him with a desire

To contemplate and worship him whose mind

Stirs in the stilly night-like solitude,

Or breathes in whispers, on the gentle wind,

Through vast cathedral groves and leaves a calm behind.

MILLHOUSE.

And what author, ancient or modern, has not
expressed his sense of their beauty by employ-
ing them as figures of whatever is rich, flourish-
ing and pleasant? In spring when they are in
the delicacy of their pride, in summer when
they are shadowy and aromatic, in the last
splendour of autumn, or when winter robs them
of their foliage, but brings to light what summer
has concealed, the under-work and tracery of
their branches; in each and all, are trees and
woods inspiring and delightful.

It is in this month, however, that woods may
be pronounced most beautiful. Towards the
end of it, what is called the fading of the leaf,
but what might more fitly be termed the hin-
dling, or tinting of the leaf, presents a magni-
ficent spectacle. Every species of tree, so beau-
tifully varied in its general character, the sil-
ver-stemmed and pensile-branched birch, the
tall smooth beech, the wide-spreading oak and
chesnut, each developes its own florid hue of

278 OCTOBER.

orange, red, brown, or yellow, which, mingling
with the green of unchanged trees, or the dark-
ness of the pine, presents a tout ensemble rich,
glowing and splendid. Yet, fine as are our
woods at this season, far are they exceeded by
the vast forests of America; the greater variety
of trees, and the greater effect of climate, con-
spiring to render them in decay gorgeous and
beautiful beyond description.
The woods! oh solemn are the boundless woods
Of the great western World in their decline.
HeEMANs.

And solemn too are our own. The dark and
glossy acorns lie scattered in profusion on the
ground, the richly coloured and veined horse-
chesnuts glow in the midst of their rugged and
spiny shells, which have burst open by their fall
among the deep and well-defined circle of
“broad, palmy leaves,” that seem to have been
shed at once. The host of birds enjoy a plenti-
ful feast of beech-nuts in the tree-tops: and
the squirrels beneath them, ruddy as the fallen
leaves amongst which they rustle, and full of
life and archness, are a beautiful sight.

THE GREENWOOD.

The green-wood ! the green-wood ! what bosom but allows
The gladness of the charm that dwells in thy pleasant whis-
pering boughs.

OCTOBER. 279

How often in this weary world, I pine and long to flee,
And lay me down, as | was wont, under the greenwood-tree.

The greenwood! the greenwood! to the bold and happy boy,
Thy realm of shades is a fairy-land of wonder and of joy.

Oh, for that freshness of the heart, that pure and vivid thmll,
As he listens to the woodland cries, and wanders at his will !

The youth delights in thy leafy gloom, and thy winding
walks to rove,

When his simple thought is snared and caught in the subtle
webs of love ;

Manhood, with high and restless hope, a spirit winged with
flame,

Plans in thy bower his path to power, to affluence, and fame.

The old man loves thee, when his soul dreams of the world
no more,

But his heart is full of its gathered wealth, and he counts it
o’er and o'er ;

When his race is run, his prize is won or lost, until the
bound

Of the world unknown is overthrown, and his master-hope
is crown’d.

The greenwood ! the greenwood! oh, be it mine to lie
In the depth of thy mossy solitude, when summer fills the
sky.
With pleasant sound and scents around, a tome of ancient
lore,
And a pleasant friend with me to bend and turn its pages o’er.
Wi...

280 OCTOBER.

The Saxons called this month wyn-monath,
wine-month, and Winter-fulleth.

The great business of Nature, with respect
to the vegetable creation, at this season, is dis-
semination. Plants, having gone through the
successive stages of springing, flowering, and
seeding, have, at length, brought to maturity
the rudiments of a future progeny, which are
now to be committed to the fostering bosom of
the earth. Seeds are scattered by the hand of
Nature in various manners. The winds which
at this time arise, disperse far and wide many
seeds, which are curiously furnished with fea-
thers, or wings, for this purpose. Hence, plants
with such seeds, are, of all others, the most
universally to be met with, as dandelions, rag-
wort, thistles, etc. Other seeds, by means of
hooks, lay hold of passing animals, and are thus
carried to distant places; as the bur. Many
are contained in berries, which are carried about
by birds. The seeds of some trees, as the
maple, sycamore, etc. exactly resemble the
wings of dragon-flies, being placed in pairs.
Thus carefully has Nature provided for the
distribution and propagation of plants.

Trees generally lose their leaves in the follow-
ing succession: walnut, mulberry, horse-ches-
nut, sycamore, lime, ash; then, after an in-
terval, elm; then beech and oak; then apple

OCTOBER. 281

and pear trees, sometimes not till the end of
November ; and lastly, pollard oaks and young
beeches, which retain their withered leaves till
pushed off by the new ones in spring.

RURAL OCCUPATIONS.

The gathering and housing of potatoes, car-
rots, beet-root, and Swedish turnips, find much
employment. There is also considerable plough-
ing done, and sowing of wheat, beans, and win-
ter-dills. | Timber-trees are planted, timber
felled, and fences, gates, drains, and ditches,
put into repair by neat and industrious agricul-
turists. When fuel for winter is not already
laid in, it is now done. Gardens require the
removal of decaying leaves and plants. Plants
in pots are taken to shelter; bulbs planted, etc.

ANGLING.

All fresh-water fish are in season. Grayling
makes good sport. This is reckoned the finest
month in the year for trolling. Baits as in
March.

282 OCTOBER.

MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS.

ARRIVALS.

Anas Crecea, Teal, comes Oct. 20, goes March 6. Haunts, streams
and lakes.

Anser palustris, Grey Lagg— Wild goose, comes Oct. 6, goes Feb. 10.
Heathy lakes and streams.

Corvus Cornix, Royston, or Hooded Crow, comes Oct. 3, goes
March 22. Downs.

Curruca provincialis, Dartford Warbler, goes Feb. About London.

Falco Aisalon, Merlin, goes Feb. Woods.

Podiceps minor, Lesser Guillimot, goes Feb. Sea-shore.

Scolopax Rusticola, Woodcock, comes Oct. Dec. goes March.
Woody streams.

Spathulea clypeata, Common Shoveler, goes April. Fresh-water
lakes.

DEPARTURES.

Falco Subbuteo, Hobby, comes May. Haunts, Woods and fields.

Hirundo urbica, Martin, comes April. Eaves.

Hirundo riparia, Sand Martin, comes April. Sand cliffs near water.

Otus brachyotus, Short-eared Owl, comes April. Woods and hilly
countries.

Ortygometra crex, Land Rail, comes May. Meadows.

Rallus aquaticus, Water Rail, comes April 9. Sedgy waters.

Sylvia Phenicurus, Redstart, comes April. About old walls.

otanus Calidris, Redsbank, goes Oct. 29, comes April 10. Salt

marshes.

Totanus Hypoleucos, Common Sandpiper, comes April. Pebbly
margins of streams.

CALENDAR OF THE FLOWER GARDEN.

Class VY. Order 1. Sideroxylon lycoides, Willow-leaved Iron-
wood. I1.

Plumbago Europeus, European Leadwort.

XIX. 2. Artemisia japonica, Japan Southernwood. 11.

Aster salicifolius, cum aliis. Willow-leaved Aster, with others.

Solidago levigata, Fleshy-leaved Golden-rod. 11.

Solidago lanceolata, Grass-leaved Golden-rod.

SELECT CALENDAR OF BRITISH BOTANY.

Class V. Order 1. Hedera Helix, Common Ivy. Locality, Rocks,
trees, and ruins.

Pobember.

_____—— The mighty roar

That rushes through the forest hoar

When winds are piping loud.
MISS BOWLES

NOVEMBER.

With clouds he covereth the light; and commandeth it not to
shine by the clond that cometh betwixt,
JOB xxxvi, 32.

“ Autumn is dark on the mountains; grey
mist rests on the hills. The whirlwind is heard
on the heath. Dark rolls the river through
the narrow plain. The leaves whirl round with
the wind, and strew the grave of the dead.”
I commence this month with a quotation from
a bard, who, more than all others, abounds in
that wild and sombre imagery congenial to the
season. Ossian is a book to be read amid the
gloomy silence, or the loud, gusty winds of
November. There is an ancient dwelling, in a
sylvan and out-of-the-world part of the country,
which I frequent about as often as there are
months in the year. In the summer it is sur-
rounded by out-of-doors delights, woods, green
fields, sweet songs, and all the pleasantness of
flowers, breezes, and sunshine, which tempt me
to loiter among them; but in the autumnal and

284 NOVEMBER.

wintry months, I habitually cast my eyes upon
a small recess, filled with books, and, amongst
them, upon Ossian; and if I remember any
hours of peculiar enjoyment, I do those thus
occupied. The days and feelings of my boy-
hood are at once brought back again. I con-
nect the scenes and the heroes of the “ Voice
of Cona” in some mysterious manner with the
memory of those’ with whom I was wont to
admire them; and am snatched from a world
of cold calculation and selfishness, in which we
all too willingly participate, to one of glory and
generosity. We are often asked wherein con-
sists the peculiar charm of Ossian. It is in the
graceful delicacy and refined affection of his fe-
male characters ; the reckless bravery, lofty sen-
timent, and generous warmth of his warriors,
and the wildness of the scenery in which they
dwell. We are delighted to find his lovely and
noble beings on their rude heaths, or in their
rude halls, exhibiting a poetical refinement of
mind, far transcending the tone of modern so-
ciety, with all the beautiful set-off of the sim-
plicity of ancient manners. And then, what a
pathos is in their sorrows. The harp of Ossian
is truly a “harp of sorrow.” It breathes per-
petually of melancholy tenderness. It is the
voice of age lamenting over departed glory ;
over beauty and strength cut down in their

NOVEMBER. 285

prime; and it comes to us from the dimness
of antiquity, and from a land of hills and woods,
of mists and meteors.—from the heath of mossy
and grey stones, the roaring of mountain-
streams, the blasted tree, the withered leaves,
and the thistle’s beard, that flies on the wind
of autumn. Am I told that it is merely a plea-
sant, modern fiction? What then? If so, it is
one of the pleasantest fictions that ever were
wrought ; and the man who made it one of the
happiest geniuses. For years did he toil to
acquire the art and the name of a poet; but in
vain. His conceptions were meagre; his style
monotonous and common-place; and through
the multitude of verses which he has left, we
look in vain for aught which might justify the
manufacture of them; but, in a happy hour, he
burst at once into a most original style of poetry
—into a language which shows not symptoms of
feeling, but melts and glows with it into poetic
imagery; which is not scattered sparingly and
painfully, but with a full, a free, and an un-
wearied hand. If this be true, it is wonderful ;
but I shall choose not to believe it true. I
shali choose to think of Ossian as the ancient
and veritable bard, and Macpherson as the for-
tunate fellow, who found his scattered lays, and
who perhaps added links and amendments (to
use the word in a parliamentary sense) of his

286 NOVEMBER.

own. Whatever be the opinion of fickle fashion,
it is a book pre-eminently fitted for the No-
vember fire-side: unrivalled in graphic touches
which bring the character of the season before
you, and serve to touch the heart with an un-
worldly tenderness, a boon of no little conse-
quence in these money-getting and artificial
days. We have not the Alpine glooms and
lonely majesty of Ossian’s hilly land; but we
are now surrounded by precisely the melancholy
images in which he delights. We are in a
month of darkness, storms, and mists; of the
whirling away of the withered leaves, and the
introduction to complete winter. Rain, hail,
and wind, chase each other over the fields
and amongst the woods in rapid alternations.
The flowers are gone; the long grass stands
amongst the woodland thickets withered, bleach-
ed, and sere; the fern is red and shrivelled
amongst the green gorse and broom; the plants,
which waved their broad, white umbels to the
summer breeze, like skeleton-trophies of death,
rattle their dry and hollow kexes to the au-
tumnal winds. The brooks are brimful; the
rivers, turbid and covered with masses of foam,
hurry on in angry strength, or pour their waters
over the champain. Our very gardens are sad,
damp, and desolate. Their floral splendours
are dead; naked stems and decaying leaves

NOVEMBER. 287

have taken the place of verdure. The walks
are unkempt and uninviting: and as these sum-
mer friends of ours are no longer affluent and of
flourishing estate, we, of course, desert them.
The country presents, in its silence and
gloom, a ghastly scene to those accustomed to
towns and dissipation. To them there is some-
thing frightful in its solitude; yet, to the re-
flective mind it is, and has been at all times
grateful. In its sternest moods, it presents
solemn thoughts, and awakens solemn feelings.
Great and philosophic minds have in all ages
borne but one testimony to the charms of its
quietude. In its profound repose the mourner
seeks to indulge the passion of grief; to it the
projector of some great work in art or lite-
rature flies to mature his labour, and, while
hidden from all eyes, to achieve that which
shall make his name familiar to all ears; and
to the poet, what is more affluent of imagina-
tive stimulus and precious suggestions than
strolls through wood-walks, mountain-glens, and
along wild sea-coasts, at this season? The
universal stillness is felt through the whole soul.
Every object is exaggerated, and yet recom-
mended to the eye through the media of gloom
and mist; and while the eye, unseconded by
mind, would discern nothing but dreariness, he
finds something congenial to the loftiest moods

288 NOVEMBER.

of his spirit, and is often led into strains which,
though solemn, are any thing but sad.

Fieldfares and redwings will be generally
seen this month, Sometimes they quit their
northern regions as early as October, if the
season be very severe, but more frequently
they make their first appearance here in this
month. If the weather be mild, they will be
heard, as they sit in flocks upon the’ trees,
warbling in concert very cheerfully in the same
manner as before their departure in spring.
Fine days will occasionally peep out so spring-
like, that the sky-larks attempt their flights, and
sing merrily ; but, perhaps, the very next morn-
ing shows a landscape of frost and snow.

I saw the woods and fields at close of day

A variegated show ; the meadows green,
Though faded, and the lands, where lately waved
The golden harvest, of a mellow brown,
Upturned so lately by the peaceful share.

I saw, far off, the weedy fallow smile

With verdure not unprofitable, grazed

By flocks, fast feeding, and selecting each

His favourite herb ; while all the leafless groves
That skirt the horizon, wore a sable hue,
Scarce noticed in the kindred dusk of eve.
To-morrow brings a change, a total change,
Which even now, though silently performed,
And slowly, and by most unfelt, the face

Of universal nature undergoes.

Fast falls the fleecy shower ; the downy flakes

NOVEMBER. 289

Descending, and with never-ceasing lapse,
Softly alighting upon all below,
Assimilate all objects. Earth receives
Gladly the thickening mantle, and the green
And tender blade, that feared the chilling blast,
Escapes unhurt beneath so warm a veil.
Cowper.

The return of winter is pleasurable even in
its severity. The first snows that come dancing
down; the first frost that rimes the hedges,
variegates the windows, or shoots its fine, long
crystals across the smallest puddle, or the widest
sheet of water, bring with them the remem-
brance of our boyish pleasures, our slidings and
skatings—our snow-ballings and snow-rolling—
our snow-man making—the wonders of hoar-
frosts—of nightly snow-drifts in hollow lanes—
of caves and houses, scooped in the wintry
heaps with much labour and delight: and of
scampering over hedge and ditch on the frozen
snow, that “crunched beneath the tread,” but
broke not.

The dark, wet, and wintry days, and the long
dismal nights of this season, are, however, fa-
vourable to fireside enjoyments and occupations.
Driven from the fields and woods, where we
have found so much delight, so many objects of
interest, or employment, we may now sit within
and hear the storm rage around, conscious that

U

290 NOVEMBER.

the fruits of the earth are secured, and that,
like the bees in their hives, we have not let the
summer escape, but have laid up stores of sweet-
ness for the time of darkness and dearth. In
large farm-houses, many useful avocations may
enliven the evening fireside. In some districts,
the men mend their own clothes and shoes ;
in others, various repairs of smaller implements,
as flails, sieves, etc. are done ; and it is now be-
come a laudable custom in many superior farms,
to encourage reading and other means of mental
improvement, which the continual engagements
of a rural labourer preclude during the summer.
The promotion of this spirit is highly to be
desired; no part of our working population hav-
ing been so lamentably deficient in common
knowledge as that of farmers’ servants. Through
the summer they have toiled from morning till
night, and from day to day incessantly, and
their only intervals of rest, Sundays and winter
nights, have been lost in drowsiness. The cot-
tager may usefully, by his winter fire, construct
bee-hives, nets, mole-traps, bird-cages, etc.;
with any of these employments I have more
sympathy than with the last, however.

Of all men who pursue rural occupations, the
bird-catchers, especially the summer bird-catch-
ers, they who do not capture birds when they
have congregated in winter, when they have

NOVEMBER. 291

no mates or young ones to feel the effects
of their loss, and are ready for the table of the
epicure, but who take only singing’ birds, and
take them too wherever and whenever they can,
without regard to their having young, which
may perish by their absence, or to that harsh
change, from the full enjoyment of summer sun-
shine and pleasures to the captivity of the cage.
When I see their nets spread in the fields,
where linnets, goldfinches, etc. resort to the
seeds of grass, plantain, sow-thistles, etc, I
wish them all manner of villanous ill-luck; and
I never omit a favourable opportunity of de-
ranging or destroying limed twigs when they
fall in my way.

There are none of our customs which more
mark our se/fishness than that of keeping sing-
ing birds in perpetual confinement, making the
pleasure of our ears their misfortune, and that
sweet gift, which God has given them, where-
with to make themselves happy, and the country
delightful, the curse of their lives. If we were
contented, however, with taking and rearing
young ones, which never knew the actual bless-
ing of liberty, or of propagating them in cages
or aviaries, the evil would not be so enormous.
But the practice of seizing singing birds, which
have always enjoyed the freedom of the earth
and air, in summer when they are busy with

292 NOVEMBER.

the pleasant cares of their nests or young
broods, and subjecting them to a close prison,
is detestable—doubly detestable in the case of
migratory birds. They have not merely the
common love of liberty, but the instinct of mi-
gration to struggle with; and it may be safely
asserted, that out of every ten nightingales so
caught, nine pine away and die. Yet the cap-
ture of nightingales is very extensively prac-
tised. The bird-catchers declare them to be
the most easily taken of all birds; and scarcely
can one of these glorious songsters alight in a
copse or a thicket, but these kidnappers are
upon it. Some of these men assure me that the
female birds arrive about ten days later than the
males, whose songs give notice of their retreats,
on hearing which the females alight; therefore,
when nightingales first appear, the bird-catchers
are almost sure of taking only male birds, which,
being the singers, are the only ones they want.
The nightingale, a bird which God has created
to fly from land to land to crown the pleasant-
ness of spring with the most delicious music, or
a lark, which he has made to soar, in the rap-
ture of its heart, up to Heaven’s gates, “ crib-
bed, cabined, and confined” in a narrow cage by
man, is one of the most melancholy objects on
earth. Let those who have hearts for it keep
them, and listen to them with what pleasure

NOVEMBER. 293

they may; for my part, while I am myself
sensible of the charms of freedom, and of the
delights of the summer fields, I shall continue
to prefer the “ wood notes wild” of liberty to a
captive’s wail.

The Anglo-Saxons termed this month, says
Verstegan, wind-monath ; to wit, wind-month,
whereby we may see that our ancestors were
made acquainted with blustering Boreas; and
it was the ancient custom for shipmen then to
shroud themselves at home, and to give over
seafaring (notwithstanding the littleness of their
used voyages) until blustering March had bidden
them well to fare. They likewise, says Dr.
Sayers, called it blot-monath, or blood-month, on
account of the abundance of cattle killed for
the winter store or for sacrifices.

Moles now make their nests where they lodge
during winter, and which are ready to deposit
their young in, the following spring. Salmon
now begin to ascend the rivers to spawn. Bees
require to be removed under shelter, and their
hives to be covered with their winter coat;
pigeons also require feeding.

Many wild creatures now retire to their win-
ter retreats. The frog sinks to the bottom of
ponds and ditches, and buries itself in the mud.

294 NOVEMBER.

The lizard, the badger, the hedgehog, creep
into holes in the earth, and remain torpid till
spring. Bats get into old barns, caves, and de-
serted buildings, where, suspending themselves
by the hind feet, and wrapping themselves in
the membranes of their fore feet, they sleep
winter away, except some unusual interval of
mild weather should awake and call them out
for a little while occasionally. Squirrels, rats,
and field-mice shut themselves up with their
winter stores; and the dormouse betakes itself
to slumber.

When the hedges are bare, numbers of old
birds’-nests become visible ; and when they are
near the dogrose they are found full of the seeds
of the hips; the field-mice being in the habit of
climbing up the hedges for this fruit, and using
the nests as stations where they may sit and
eat.

RURAL OCCUPATIONS.

Thrashing and wintering of cattle are re-
sumed. Many operations of manuring, drain-
ing, levelling ant-hills, and other inequalities,
irrigating, ploughing, and fencing, go on by in-
tervals, as the weather permits. Timber of all
kinds, except those of which the bark is used, is
felled. Gates, crates, flakes, etc. are made;
and fireside occupations, making and mending
baskets. bee-hives, traps for vermin, ete. fill up

NOVEMBER. 295

the long evenings. The business of the garden
this month is principally in preparing manure,
making all clean and neat, and defending plants
from coming frosts.

ANGLING.

Trout not in season. Grayling excellent.
This is rather a rare fish in England. The
principal rivers for it are those of Staffordshire
and Derbyshire, the Dove, the Blithe, the Wye,
the Trent; in Yorkshire, some of the tributary
streams of the Ribble, the Erne, the Wharf, the
Derwent, and its tributary streams, particularly
the Rye, the Humber; the Avon in Hamp-
shire, and its streams in Wiltshire; the upper
part of the Severn and its streams in North
Wales; a few in the Wye and the Dee, and
many in the Lug in Herefordshire.

Flies, as in February; but the enjoyments
of the angler, like those of other out-of-doors
men, may be said to be over, or to be “few and
far between.” They may take their post in the
warm ingle, recount the exploits of the past
year, and prepare their tackle for the next.

296 NOVEMBER.

MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS.

ARRIVALS.

Anas Penelope, Widgeon, comes Nov. goes March. Haunts, Lakes
and streams.

Anas strepera, Gadwell, goes Feb. Coast in hard winters.

Bombycilla Garrula, Silk-tail, Waxen Chatterer, goes Feb. About

ivy and hawthorns.

Charadrius Pluvialis, Golden Plover, comes Nov. 5, goes Feb. 6.
Heathy hills, coast in winter.

Clangula vulgaris, Golden-eyed Pocher, comes Nov. 29, goes Feb.
10. Shore, and fresh waters.

Columba QGinas, Stock Dove, comes Novy. 29, goes Feb. Woods,

caves on sea shore.
Nyroea ferina, Red-headed Pocher, comes Novy. 19, goes March 3.

Fens.
DEPARTURES—NONE.

CALENDAR OF THE FLOWER GARDEN.

Class IV. Order 2. Hamamelis Virginica, Wych Hazel.

December.

if

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I love thee, Winter! well.
SOUTHEY.
With his ice, and snow, and rime,
Let bleak Winter sternly come!
There is not a sunnier clime
Than the love-lit winter-home.
A. A. WATTS,

LAYS OF THE SEASONS.

BY MARY HOWITT.

IV.

WINTER.

There ’s not a flower upon the hill,
There ’s not a leaf upon the tree ;
The summer-bird hath left its bough,
Bright child of sunshine, singing now

In spicy lands beyond the sea.

There ’s silence in the harvest field ;
And blackness in the mountain-glen,
And cloud that will not pass away
From the hill-tops for many a day ;
And stillness round the homes of men.

The old tree hath an older look ;

The lonesome place is yet more dreary ;
They go not now, the young and old,
Slow wandering on by wood and wold ;
The air is damp, the winds are cold ;

And summer-paths are wet and weary.

98

DECEMBER.

The drooping year is in the wane,

No longer floats the thistle-down ;
The crimson heath is wan and sere;
The sedge hangs withering by the mere,

And the broad fern is rent and brown.

The owl sits huddling by himself,

The cold has pierced his body thorough ;
The patient cattle hang their head ;
The deer are ’neath their winter-shed ;
The ruddy squirrel ’s in his bed,

And each small thing within its burrow.

In rich men’s halls the fire is piled,
And ermine robes keep out the weather ;
In poor men’s huts the fire is low,
Through broken panes the keen winds blow,
And old and young are cold together.

Oh, poverty is disconsolate !—

Its pains are many, its foes are strong :
The rich man in his jovial cheer,
Wishes ‘twas winter through the year ;
The poor man ’mid his wants profound,
With all his little children round,

Prays God that winter be not long!

One silent night hath passed, and lo!
How beautiful the earth is now !

All aspect of decay is gone,

The hills have put their vesture on,
And clothed is the forest bough.

DECEMBER.

Say not ’tis an unlovely time !

Turn to the wide, wnite waste thy view ;
Turn to the silent hills that rise
In their cold beauty to the skies ;

And to those skies intensely blue.

Silent, not sad, the scene appeareth ;
And fancy, like a vagrant breeze,

Ready a-wing for flight, doth go

To the cold northern land of snow,
Beyond the icy Orcades.

The land of ice, the land of snow,
The land that hath no summer-flowers,
Where never living creature stood ;
The wild, dim, polar solitude .

How different from this land of ours !

Walk now among the forest trees, —

Said’st thou that they were stripped and bare '

Each heavy bough is bending down
With snowy leaves and flowers—the crown
Which Winter regally doth wear.

Tis well—thy summer-garden ne’er
Was lovelier with its birds and flowers,
Than is this silent place of snow,
With feathery branches drooping low,
Wreathing around thee shadowy bowers!

‘Tis night! Oh now come forth to gaze
Upon the heavens, intense and bright !
Look on yon myriad worlds, and say,
Though beauty dwelleth with the day,
ts not God manifest by night ?

300 DECEMBER.

Thou that created’st all! Thou fountain
Of our sun’s light—who dwellest far
From man, beyond the farthest star,

Yet, ever-present ; who dost heed

Our spirits in their human need,

We bless thee, Father, that we are/

We bless thee for our inward life ;
For its immortal date decreeing 5,
For that which comprehendeth thee,
A spark of thy divinity,
Which is the being of ovr being !

We bless thee for this bounteous earth ;
For its increase—for corn and wine ;

For forest-oaks, for mountain-rills,

For cattle on a thousand hills ;

We bless thee—for all good is thine !

The earth is thine, and it thou keepest,
That man may labour not in vain ;

Thou giv’st the grass, the grain, the tree,

Seed-time and harvest come from thee,
The early and the latter rain!

The earth is thine—the summer-earth ;
Fresh with the dews, with sunshine bright ;

With golden clouds in evening hours,

With singing birds and balmy flowers,
Creatures of beauty and delight.

The earth is thine—the teeming earth ;
In the rich bounteous time of seed,

When man goes forth in joy to reap,

And gathers up his garnered heap,
Against the time of storm and need.

DECEMBER. 301

The earth is thine—when days are dim,
And leafless stands the stately tree ;

When from the north the fierce winds blow,

When falleth fast the mantling snow ;—
The earth pertaineth still to thee !

The earth is thine—thy creature, man !
Thine are all worlds, all suns that shine ;
Darkness and light, and life and death ;
Whate’er all space inhabiteth—
Creator! Father! all are thine!

DECEMBER.

He saith to the snow, be thou on the earth ; likewise to the small
rain, and to the great rain of his strength.

He sealeth up the hand of every man; that all men may know
his work.

The beasts go into dens and remain in their places.

Out of the south cometh the whirlwind; and cold out of the north.

By the breath of God frost is yiven ; and the breadth of the
waters is straitened,

JOB Xxxviil. 6—10.

Gawain Dovuauas, the celebrated Bishop of
Dunkeld, has given the following most excel-
lent sketch of Winter; which Warton has ren-
dered from antiquated Scotch verse into good
modern English prose. “ The fern withered on
the miry fallows, the brown moors assumed a
barren mossy hue; banks, sides of hills, and
bottoms grew white and bare; the cattle looked
hoary from the dank weather ; the wind made
the red reed waver on the dyke. From the
crags, and the foreheads of the yellow rocks,
hung great icicles, in length like a spear. ‘The
soil was dusky and grey, bereft of flowers, herbs,
and grass. In every hold and forest, the woods

304 DECEMBER.

were stripped of their array. Boreas blew his
bugle-horn so loud, that the solitary deer with-
drew to the dales; the small birds flocked to
the thick briars, shunning the tempestuous
blast, and changing their loud notes to chirp-
ing; the cataracts roared, and every linden-tree
whistled and brayed to the sounding of the
wind. The poor labourers, wet and weary,
draggled in the fen. The sheep and shepherds
jurked under the hanging banks, or wild broom.
Warm from the chimney-side, and refreshed
with generous cheer, I stole to my bed, and laid
down to sleep, when I saw the moon shed
through the window her twinkling glances, and
wintry light; I heard the horned bird, the night-
owl, shrieking horribly with crooked bill from
her cavern; I heard the wild geese with scream-
ing cries fly over the city through the silent
night. I was soon lulled to sleep, till the cock,
clapping his wings, crowed thrice, and the day
peeped. I waked, and saw the moon disappear,
and heard the jackdaws cackle on the roof of
the house. The cranes, prognosticating tem-
pests, in a firm phalanx, pierced the air with
voices sounding like a trumpet. The kite,
perched on an old tree, fast by my chamber,
cried lamentably, a sign of the dawning day.
I rose, and half opening my window, perceived
the morning, livid, wan, and hoary; the air

DECEMBER. 305

overwhelmed with vapour and cloud; the
ground stiff, grey, and rough; the branches
rattling; the sides of the hill looking black and
hard with the driving blasts; the dew-drops
congealed on the stubble and rind of trees; the
sharp hailstones, deadly-cold, hopping on the
thatch and the neighbouring causeway.”

We are now placed in the midst of such win-
try scenes as this. Nature is stripped of all her
summer drapery. Her verdure, her foliage, her
flowers have all vanished. The sky is filled
with clouds and gloom, or sparkles only with a
frosty radiance. The earth is spongy with wet,
rigid with frost, or buried in snows. The winds
that in summer breathed gently over nodding
blooms, and undulating grass, swaying the leafy
boughs with a pleasant murmur, and wafting
perfumes ail over the world, now hiss like ser-
pents, or howl like wild beasts of the desert ;
cold, piercing, and cruel. Every thing has
drawn as near as possible to the centre of
warmth and comfort. The farmer has driven
his flocks and cattle into sheltered home inclo-
sures, where they may receive from his provi-
dent care that food which the earth now denies
them; or into the farm-yard itself, where some
honest Giles pies their cratches plentifully with
fodder. The labourer has fled from the field to
the barn, and the measured strokes of his fiail

x

306 DECEMBER.

are heard daily from morn till eve. It amazes
us, as we walk abroad, to conceive where can
have concealed themselves the infinite variety
of creatures that sported through the air, earth,
and waters of summer. Birds, insects, reptiles,
whither are they all gone? The birds that
filled the air with their music, the rich black-
bird, the loud and cheerful thrush, the linnet,
lark, and goldfinch, whither have they crept?
The squirrel that played his antics on the forest
tree; and all the showy and varied tribes of
butterflies, moths, dragonflies, beetles, wasps
and warrior-hornets, bees, and cockchafers, whi-
ther have they fled? Some, no doubt, have
lived out their little term of being, and their
bodies, lately so splendid, active, and alive to a
thousand instincts, feelings, and propensities,
are become part and parcel of the dull and win-
try soil; but the greater portion have shrunk
into the hollows of trees and rocks, and into the
bosom of their mother earth itself, where, with
millions of seeds and roots, and buds, they live
in the great treasury of Nature, ready at the
call of a more auspicious season, to people the
world once more with beauty and delight.

As in the inferior world of creatures, so is
it with man. The wealthy have vacated their
country houses, and congregated in the great
Babylon of pleasure and dissipation; families

DECEMBER. 307

are collected round the social hearth, where
Christmas brings his annual store of frolic and
festivities; and the author, like the bee, with-
drawn to his hive, revels amid the sweets of his
summer gathering. It is amusing to imagine
what a host of pens are at this moment in mo-
tion, in sundry places of this little island! In
splendid libraries, furnished with every bodily
comfort, and every literary and scientific re-
source, where the noble or popular author fills
the sheet which the smile of the bibliopole and
reader awaits, and almost anticipates; in naked
and ghastly garrets where the “ poor-devil-au-
thor” scrawls, with numbed fingers and a shiver-
ing frame, what will be coldly received, and as
quickly forgotten as himself; in pleasant bou-
doirs, at rose-wood desks, where lady-fingers
pen lady-lays; in ten thousand nooks and re-
cesses the pile of books is growing, under which,
shelves, booksellers and readers, shall groan,
ere many months elapse. Another season shall
come round, and all these leaves, like those of
the forest, shall be swept away, leaving only
those of a few hardy laurels untouched. But
let no one lament them, or think that all this
“labour under the sun” has been in vain. Li-
terary tradesmen have been indulged in specu-
lation; critics have been employed; and authors
have enjoyed the excitement of hope, the en-

308 DECEMBER.

thusiasm of composition, the glow of fancied
achievement. And all is not lost ;

The following year another race supplies,

They fall successive, and successive rise.

The heavens present one of the most pro-
minent and splendid beauties of winter. The
long and total absence of the sun’s light, and
the transparent purity of a frosty atmosphere,
give an apparent elevation to the celestial con-
cave, and a rich depth and intensity of azure, in
which the stars burn with resplendent beauty ;
the galaxy stretches its albescent glow athwart
the northern sky, and the moon in her monthly
track sails amongst the glittering constellations
with a more queenly grace; sometimes without
the visitation of a single cloud, and, at others,
seeming to catch from their wind-winged speed
an accelerated motion of her own. It is a spec-
tacle of which the contemplative eye is never
weary; though it is one, of all others, which fills
the mind with feelings of the immensity of the
universe, of the tremendous power of its Creator,
and of the insignificance of self. A breathing
atom, a speck even, upon the surface of a world
which is itself a speck in the wniversal world, we
send our imagination forth amongst innumerable
orbs, all stupendous in magnitude, all swarming
with existence, vainly striving to reach the
boundaries of space, till, astonished and con-

DECEMBER. 309

founded, it recoils from the hopeless task, ach-
ing, dazzled, and humbled to the dust. What
a weary sense attends the attempt of a finite
being to grasp infinity! Space beyond space!
space beyond space still! There is nothing for
the mind to rest its wearied wing upon, and
it shrinks back into its material cell, in adora-
tion and humility. Such are the feelings and
speculations which have attended the human
spirit in all ages, in contemplating this magnifi-
cent spectacle. David has beautifully expressed
their effect upon him; and there is a paper in
the Spectator, Vol. viii. No. 565, which forms
an admirable commentary upon his eloquent
exclamation. The awful vastness of the power
of the Deity, evinced in the scenes which night
reveals, is sure to abase the pride of our intel-
lect, and to shake the overgrowth of our self-
love; but these influences are not without their
benefit; and the beauty and beneficence equally
conspicuous in every object of creation, whether
a world or an atom, come to our aid, to reassure
our confidence, and to animate us with the
proud prospect of an eternity of still perfecting
and ennobling existence.

But the year draws to a close. I see symp-
toms of its speedy exit. I see holly and misle-
toe in the market, in every house that I visit,
in every window that I pass, except in those of

310 DECEMBER.

the Society of Friends, who, though they like
old fashions, pay little regard to old customs,
but treat them as the “beggarly elements” of
worn-out superstitions. They are philosophi-
cally right, but poetically wrong. I see the
apprentice boys going along the streets, from
house to house, distributing those little annual
remembrances called Christmas-bills; and my
imagination follows these tyroes in trade, who
now fill its lowest offices, and would think more
of a slide or a mince-pie than of all the “ wealth
in Lunnun bank,” through a few more years, and
beholds them metamorphosed into grave, im-
portant and well-to-do citizens; or, as it may
chance to them, shrunk into the thin, shrivel-
led, and grasshopper-like beings that care and
disappointment convert men into. And _ this
awakes in me the consciousness of how little we
have thought of man and his toils, and anxieties,
as from day to day, and month to month, we
have gone wandering over the glorious face of
the earth, drinking in its peaceful pleasures ;
and yet what a mighty sum of events has been
consummated !—what a tide of passions and
affections has flowed—what lives and deaths
have alternately arrived—what destinies have
been fixed for ever, while we have loitered on a
violet-path, and watched the passing splendours
of the Seasons. Once more our planet has

DECEMBER. alk

completed one of those journeys in the heavens
which perfect all the fruitful changes of its
peopled surface, and mete out the few stages
of our existence; and every day, every hour of
that progress has, in all her wide lands, in all
her million hearts, left traces that eternity shall
behold.

Yet if we have not been burdened with man’s
cares, we have not forgotten him, but many a
time have we thanked God for his bounties to
him, and rejoiced in the fellowship of our na-
ture. If there be a scene to stir in our souls
all our thankfulness to God, and all our love for
man, it is that of Nature. When we behold the
beautiful progression of the Seasons—when we
see how leaves and flowers burst forth and
spread themselves over the earth by myriads
in spring,—how summer and autumn fill the
world with loveliness and fragrance, with corn
and wine, it is impossible not to feel our hearts
“breathe perpetual benedictions” to the great
Founder and Provider of the world, and warm
with sympathetic affection towards our own
race, for whom he has thought fit to prepare
all this happiness. There is no time in which
I feel these sentiments more strongly than when
I behold the moon rising over a solitary summer
landscape. The repose of all creatures on the
earth makes more sensibly felt the incessant

SEY DECEMBER.

care of him who thus sends up “his great light
to rule the night, and to shine softly and silently
above millions of sleeping creatures, that take
no thought for themselves.

Such are the thoughts which flow into the
spirit of the solitary man as he walks through
the pure retreats of Nature—such have been
mine as I have gone on, from day to day, build-
ing up this “ Book of the Seasons;” and in the
spirit of thankful happiness and “ goodwill to
all,” I thus bring it to an end.

Dairy Wayrarers.—Of all the vast class of
human creatures who are doomed to diurnal
weariness—to know the bitterness of “the la-
bour that is done under the sun,’—there are
none that I can more feelingly sympathise with
than the daily wayfarers. I do not mean the
wealthy, the lazy, and luxurious viatores that, in
carriage, or on steed, traverse the king’s high-
ways, in great bodily comfort, and, after a few
hours’ career, alight in elegant homes or well-
garnished inns, and stretching themselves at
their ease, with every requisite of viand, wine,
and feather-bed at command,

Think themselves great travellers,
Invincible and bold:

DECEMBER. als

but I mean all those who, being of the poor, are
“ never to cease from the land;’ and whom,
whether we be seated at our tables, circling our
fires in social mirth, or quietly laid in our beds,
we may be sure are scattered in a thousand
places on our great roads, be it summer or win-
ter, day or night, as plodding, as full of trouble,
as weary, and as picturesque as ever.

Poor honest souls! their very misery, their
age, their poverty, their ruggedness, their stoop-
ing figures, and ragged array, make pleasant
pictures to the eye; and if not for their suffering
humanity, yet for the variety they give to our
journeyings, we ought to spare them a little
sympathy. - I must confess that when I have
been shut up in a great town for some months,
and again issuing into the country, behold the
same figures, the same groups, come streaming
along our principal roads, that we have encoun-
tered there through all the days of our lives,
and that Bewick has depicted in his living
sketches, I have a most internal satisfaction in
the inexhaustible vagabonds.

There is one class of them that I freely
give up, although the rogues have a spice of
romance about them, the vagabonds par excel-
lence,—those clever, able, and eloquent fellows,
that can lose a limb, or even an eye at will; sai-
lors who never saw the sea; decayed tradesmen

314 DECEMBER.

who never had a groat honestly acquired; men
of fictitious miseries, who are most at home on
the road or in the lodging-house, and who live
upon the pity of the simple ; for them I ask zo pity.

Then there are those little, nomadic mer-
chants, that from every large town diverge in all
directions, and penetrate to every village and
lonely house with their wares. There is the
chair-bottomer, with his great sheaf of rushes on
his back, who, seated on the sunny side of the
farm-door, or under the shade of a tree, as the
season may require, enriches the good people
with news worth more than his work. There is
the wandering milliner, an old woman of the true
picturesque school, short, broad, plentiful in her
own attire of coat, apron, and petticoats, with
her strong staff in her hand, her spacious, wea-
ther-beaten face, and a great cage-like basket of
open wicker-work on her back, large enough to
hold herself; and beside these, sundry bearers
of shallow baskets of tapes, braces, laces, pins,
cotton-balls, and so forth. These, and occa-
sionally the Highland drovers with their plaids
and dogs, and flocks and herds, bringing with
them the wildness of their native moors, are all
very well in their way—they look well; but
they are the casual wayfarers about whom
gathers the deepest interest.

Of all the melancholy spectacles which every-

DECEMBER. 315

day life presents, what is more melancholy than
the marching of a troop of recruits out of the
town where they have been raised. You hear a
single drum beat, a single fife play ; you see a
crowd collected, and another minute discovers
to you some twenty or thirty boys and men of
the lowest class in their common clothes, with
ribands in their hats, and bundles in their hands,
awkwardly commencing that march which leads
to destruction. They have screwed up their
resolutions to the point of the necessary calm-
ness of aspect; they have bid good bye to their
friends, with whom they are ambitious of leaving
the reputation of having gone off stoutly ; some
of their sweethearts, with red eyes, are hovering
about; many of their comrades are going on a
little with them; and, perhaps, some fond and
heart-broken mother still clings tenaciously, but
dejectedly, to the side of her son, who has cost
her nothing but sorrow since he could run from
her door. They proceed a mile or two; the fife
and drum fall back; the last shaking of hands
and shedding of tears arrives, and they are led
away to their distant station. The scene is sad
enough; but if we look forward, what is the
prospect? Loose lives at home, hard marches
and fare abroad, death in some pestilent Indian
swamp, or in the regular wholesale carnage of
battle.

316 DECEMBER.

Yet, probably, some of these self-same youths
shall tread the highways of England in various
characters and stages of their career. One shall
come upon you as the deserter. There he
marches sullenly along between two files of his
fellow-soldiers with shouldered muskets; instant
death his fate if he attempt to escape ; disgrace,
corporal punishment, death itself, perhaps, equally
certain, if he do not. He has found a soldier's
life a weary one. He has cast away his oath
and his service, and sought, in manifold dis-
guises, and in many a strange lurking-place, con-
cealment from pursuit ; but he has been dogged
and detected; and on he goes with a heart full
of sullen wrath and fearful apprehension.

Behold another and a happier! he is marching
homeward on his furlough. He has fought bat-
tles and seen foreign lands since he left home,
and he now goes thither with an honest vanity
to boast of his sights seen and exploits done;
and to set on fire a dozen young heads with a
luckless ambition. Poor fellow! happy as he
thinks himself, he is horribly weary and way-
worn, and longs, with a most earnest longing, for
the far-off town.

A third shall come home some thirty years
hence, the old veteran; the hard, grey-headed,
mutilated remnant of a man, with one arm, one
leg, a body seamed with scars, a crown never

DECEMBER. ait 7

the better for the blows it has borne, and a pen-
sion of a few shillings a-week to get drunk upon-
He goes home to discover that death has been
as-busy there as in the battle-field, in the Wal-
cheren morass, or the plague-haunted garrison ;
and to find it, even with his pension, but weary
work waiting for the grave.

But alas! for the poor creatures I am now
bound to sketch. Had fortune but been tolera-
bly moderate with them they would never have
gone ten miles from the spot in which they were
born; but some sudden distress arouses them
from their regular dream of existence, and they
start across the country to its farthest extremity
with the wildness of comets.

Look at that middle-aged, old-fashioned fel-
low? Do you not see the cause of his journey
at once? He. isa labourer: his eldest daughter,
a girl of seventeen, is gone to live in the family of
some relation of the Squire’s, forty miles off. He
has just heard news that has alarmed him. His
wife and he have sate in speechless grief and
consternation for a space, till the good woman
cried out, “ John, you must up and go! you
must see Mary. You must learn the whole
truth. She was always a good girl, and we
must not have her lost.” For a moment, the
very idea of the journey, and the encountering
of fine folk, and clever folk to boot, as he wisely

318 DECEMBER.

imagines all fine folk to be, overcomes him with
a weakness; but the thought of his daughter’s
danger returns with double power, he gets up
with a groan, and prepares for his great jour-
ney. Look at his long drab coat of a most anti-
quated cut! See how neatly it has been brush-
ed! How clean he is shaven, how nicely his
white cravat is tied, and with what a formal air
he puts his stick to the ground! There has
been a world of preparation to set him out; not
even the great trouble which rests upon his
mind can make him forget that he is in his Sun-
day clothes ; and he walks on his way a creature
of such simplicity that he seems far likelier to
be duped himself than to prevent another being
so.

Observe now this solitary woman. For ten
years she has lived in the closest court of the
closest alley of a great manufacturing town.
Her husband, a clever mechanic, has been earn-
ing plenty of money, and plenty of children have
grown around them. The good creature, in the
abundance of her household affairs, has been so
happy that she has almost forgotten that there
is a world out of her own house. But there has
come a change. Her husband’s employment has
failed, and he has gone forth to seek it elsewhere.
For a time she hears good news; he sends her
money and hopes of prosperity, though in a

DECEMBER. 319

distant place. At length his remittances fail,—
his letters cease ;—she is alarmed;—she mus-
ters all her skill at penmanship and writes, but
gets no reply. Her children want bread; she
is reduced to the utmost distress; but, suddenly
summoning all her energies, she seeks and finds
employment, and manages to live. But of her
husband no tidings ; day and night she lives in
fear and sorrow ;—he must be dead, or he would
certainly write. At length, however, comes the
intelligence that he has chosen a paramour, and
is expending upon her the gains which should
support his family. Stung to the quick, she
rises up in grief and indignation. She finds
some good neighbour to care for her children
for a few days, and she departs—alas! on a
melancholy expedition! She is utterly strange
to the world—no matter; she has little money
—no matter; in the greatness of her vexation
she defies all other troubles and difficulties.
See with what closeness and self-reservation she
moves on! She greets no one,—she shuns all
greetings by the way, or if she answers them, it
is only by a short, sharp nod, and she involunta-
rily quickens her pace. Rest, food, she seems
not to require; her heart is filled with black
and eager jealousies, and she shrinks even from
the kindest eye, lest it look into the secret of
her soul. Poor, unhappy woman! her task is a

320 DECEMBER.

fruitless one. She may find her faithless hus-
band, and may weep, and expostulate, and up-
braid; but the heart that is once led from its
home by strange charms there is faint hope of
reclaiming.

How far more enviable is the woman that I
have now in my eye. I see her crossing the
heath,—a little, broad-built woman, in an old
grey cloak, beneath which she carries in her
arms an infant, and a troop of others, one
scarcely appearing older than another, trot after
her. She has lost her husband by death, and
suddenly finds herself alone, far from friends.
She has spirit enough to scorn the assistance of
the parish; she sets out, and trusts to Provi-
dence. Grief certainly has made but little im-
pression on her countenance; and her children
know nothing of it. They know not what it
means to be orphans; they know not that they
are poor; they follow their slowly-progressing
mother from place to place, like playful kids;
and when she sits down in some solitary nook,
they gambol before her. They enjoy the sun
and air; they are plump and ruddy ; and though
they ask for nothing, their looks beg for them,
and scarcely a carriage passes but money flies
for them out of the window.

Not so with the last being whom I shall no-
tice. This is a widow, old and poor. For years

DECEMBER. 321

she has lived alone, with not a tie to the world
but her anxiety for a prodigal son, whose life
has long threatened to prove her death. And
now that she is become thin and feeble, and
expects no journey except the short one to the
neighbouring churchyard, comes an epistle from
her son, written by a stranger-hand, to say that
he is dying in a far-distant place, and implores
her pardon and blessing. Oh, maternal love!
how strong art thou, even in the very weakness
of nature and the extremity of old age! It is
seventy miles off where her son now lies, but
she thinks of nothing less than going to him.
Not go!—not try to see him, and to comfort
him, and to know exactly how his mind is at the
last! By the help of God she will, though !—
and early on the following morning her little,
solitary house is shut up—door and window-
shutter carefully closed; and, with her key in
her pocket, and with her red cloak and black
bonnet on, she is setting out. The neighbours
come out in wondering kindness to bid her
good-bye; but there is more offence to her in
their remarks on her son than comfort in the
expression of their pity, and she moves quietly
away. And that poor old creature is bound on
a journey of seventy miles across the country,
and without the expectation of an hour's car-
riage. She takes no stick in her hand, for she
Y

322 DECEMBER.

never used one; but, with her arms crossed
under her cloak, she proceeds at the same feeble
pace that she has been accustomed to move
about her cottage. It seems impossible that she
should ever accomplish her undertaking. My
imagination beholds her as she crosses a vast
moor. On and on she goes with such an almost
imperceptible motion, that the very width of the
moor appears itself a day’s labour for her. Yet
she shall go forward, day by day, and, unlike
the deserted wife, she shuns no salutations ; nay,
to such accommodating persons as are willing to
slacken their speed and lend a patient ear, she
can find many things in her mother’s heart to
say. Her troubles, like the fire-damp, are only
dangerous when they are confined,—give them
air, and they will dilute themselves till they
become almost innocuous. Life has long ceased
to appear desirable in her eyes; and, if that her
son but find acceptance with God, it is all that
she desires. Nay, if she be permitted to reach
him while alive, and to know that he departs
with “a sure and joyful hope,” she will tread
back her weary way with a comparatively happy
heart, and sit down again, for a little time, by
her cottage-fire in peace and thankfulness.
God be with her!

When to these we add the weary wanderers
the world over ;—the shipwrecked crew, mak-

DECEMBER. 323

ing their way through some strange land; the
solitary travellers in the savage deserts of the
earth ; the worn-down remnants of discomfited
armies; the captive driven in fetters to the
distant mart, or, escaped from thraldom, flying by
night, and lurking by day, from the fury of his
pursuers, filled with fears, and faint with famine,
we have summoned up images of earthly woe
so immense, that we are constrained, with a
feeling of agonized energy, to cast the care of
them upon Heaven, and to grasp eagerly at the
only comfortable thought, that they are all in
the hand of God.

The evergreen trees with their beautiful cones,
such as firs and pines, are now particularly ob-
served and valued; the different species of ever-
lasting flowers, so pleasing an ornament to our
parlours in winter, and indeed during the whole
year, also attract our attention. The oak, the
beech, and the hornbeam, in part retain their
leaves, while all other trees are entirely de-
nuded. The scarlet berries of the holly, and
the fiery bunches of Pyracantha on its dark
green, thorny sprays, are brightly conspicuous,
and the mosses are in their pride.

December, says Verstegan, had his due ap-
pellation given him by our ancestors, in the

324 DECEMBER.

name of winter-monath, to wit, winter-month ;
but after the Saxons received Christianity, they
then, out of devotion to the birth-time of Christ,
termed it heligh-monath, that is to say, holy-
month. Sayers adds, they also called it mid-
winier-monath, guil-erra, which means the for-
mer, or first guil. Guil, now corrupted, yule,
was the feast of Thor, celebrated at. the winter
solstice, and so called from zo/ or ol, which sig-
nified all.

RURAL OCCUPATIONS.

Except in clear, frosty weather, when manure
can be carted out, all operations have concen-
trated themselves round home: tending and
feeding sheep in their sheltered pastures, young
cattle and colts in their sheds, and all the col-
lected family of the farm-yard, horses, cows,
pigs, poultry ; cutting hay, chopping straw ;
pulling, bringing home, and slicing turnips for
them, and seeing that they are well cleaned and
bedded ; fattening for market, and killing for
store, find abundant employment. And to all
these are to be added the many operations of
getting in stacks, thrashing, winnowing, sack-
ing, and carrying the corn to market.

The business of the garden this month con-
sists, principally, in matting and defending trees
and plants against the cold, and preparing the
earth for spring.

DECEMBER. 325

ANGLING.

They who can angle at this season deserve
the name of sportsmen. The excellence of the
grayling at this time, is, however, a temptation.

CALENDAR OF THE FLOWER GARDEN.

Class V. Order 3. Viburnum Tinnus, Laurtstinus. 2.
Viburnum vy. fol. variegat., Striped-leaved Laurustinus.
Viburnum y. ducidum, Shining-leaved Laurustinus.
Viburnum vy, strictum, Upright Laurustinus.

MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS.

ARRIVALSe

Anas acuta, Pintailed Duck, comes Dec. goes Feb. Haunts, Lakes
and shores,

Anser Brenta, Brent Wildgoose, comes Dec. 18, goes Feb. 3. Lakes
and marshes.

Anser Erythropus, Laughing Goose, goes Feb. Northern and western
coasts.

Clangula glacialis, Long-tailed Pocher, comes Dec. 20, goes Jan. 14.
Shores and fresh meres.

Coccothraustes vulgaris, Gross-beak, goes Jan. Rare.

Colymbus arcticus, Black-throated Diver, goes Feb. Sea-shore.

Colymbus septentrionalis, Red-throated Diver, goes Feb. Sea-shore.

Cygnus ferus, Wild Swan, goes Feb. Northern lakes, Trent.

Emberiza nivalis, Snow-flake, goes Jan. Mountafns.

Mergus Merganser, Grey-headed Goosander, comes Dec. 18, goes
Feb. 14. Pools and Fens.

Mergus Serrator, Orange-breasted Goosander, comes Dec. 23, goes
Jan. 20. Pools and Fens.

Meryus albellus, White-Nun, goes Feb. Sea-shore.

Nyroca Fuligula, Tufted Pocher, comes Dec. 15, goes Jan. 19.
Shores and fresh meres.

Nyroca Marila, Scanp Duck, goes Feb. Coast in hard winters.

Oidemia nigra, Black Duck, or Diver, goes Feb. Coast in bard
winters.

Oidemia fusca, Velvet Duck, goes Feb. Sea-shore.

Somateria mollissima, Eider Duck, goes Feb. Tarn Island, Nor-
thumberland.

DEPARTURE.

Squatarola cinerea, Grey Plover, goes Dec. 1, comes Aug. 26.
Haunt, Beach.

326 DECEMBER.

ALL SEASONS WELCOME.

Who does not welcome Spring’s sweet gentleness,

That, like a friend long waited for in vain,

Comes laughing in and wafts away distress,

Sending its joy through spirit and through plain.

Welcome is Summer in its ardent reign :

Nor Autumn less, with his resplendent skies,

And drooping fruits, and wealth of golden grain,

And mists and storms, and that last pomp of dyes,
That beauty o’er the woods flings ever as she flies.

And welcome art thou, melancholy time,

That now surround’st my dwelling—with the sound

Of winds that rush in darkness—the sublime

Roar of drear woods—hail that doth lightly bound,

Of rains that dash, or snows that spread the ground

With purity and stillness ;—at their call

Bright flings the fire its fairy summer round,

And the lamp lights the volume-trophied wall ;
Thought is once more enthroned—the Spirit in her hall.

Welcome ! right welcome feelings warm and rich !
Welcome ! right welcome, ye rejoicing crowd
Of fancies each unto its winter niche
That homeward flee from frost and storm-wind loud.
Oh! be it mine amid your circle proud
To sit, as sits the watchman at his ease
Within the Beacon-tower—like him allowed
Not myself only with your glow to please,
But spread your guiding beams o’er life’s tempestuous seas.
W... Hi

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