Israel Pest,

or <fc Stati
88 Bowery, N. I

NEW WORKS

PUBLISHED BY

CAREY & HART, PHILADELPHIA.

THE

RURAL LIFE OF ENGLAND.

BY WILLIAM HOWITT.

AUTHOR OF " VISITS TO REMARKABLE PLACES."

FROM THE SECOND LONDON EDITION.

In one vol. 8vo.

Beautifully printed on superfine paper, with a finely engraved Frontispiece.

Life of the Aristocracy.— Pre-eminence of England as a place of Country
residence. — The delightfulness of its country residences — with its Parks,
Lawns, Woods and Gardens. — Pursuits and Pleasures afforded by Country
Life to Ladies.— Routine of Country Sports.— Scientific Farming; its state,
implements, and admirers. — Planting; its pleasures. — Gardens; pleasures of
them. — The Roman Style of Gardens.— Gardens of Hampton Court.— Coun-
try Excitements.

Life of the Agricultural Population.— The English Farmer ; his Character
and Mode of Life.— Enviable Aspect of the Farmer's Abode.— The Intellec-
tual Grade of the Farmer.— Farm Servants and their Modes of Life.— The
Plodding Farmer and his Wife.— The Bondage System of the North of
England. — Bondage Farms and Farm Yards. — Midsummer in the Fields. —
True Wisdom of Izaak Walton.— Delicious Haunts of the Angler at this
Season. — Summer Birds.

Picturesque and Moral Features of the Country.— Gipsies ; their History
and Present State.— Gipsy Adventure of Sir Roger de Cover ley .—Gipsy
Sketches, by Wordsworth, Cowper, Crabbe, and others. — Mrs. Sou they 's
Account of the New Forest Gipsies. — Nooks of the World, or a Peep into the
Back Settlements of England.— Beauty and Repose of such Places to the
Eye.— Sketch of a Country Proprietor and his Family. — Dinner Scene at the
Squire's. — Life in the Dales of Yorkshire and Lancashire. — Primitive Sim-
plicity of the People.— Formerly much visited by George Fox.— A Friends'
Meeting. — Rural Occupation and Vehicles. — Knitting Parties. — Old English
Houses. — A Delightful Record of such Houses might be Written. — Harrt-
wicke Flail.— Mary, Queen of Scots, imprisoned there.— Annesley Hall and
Hucknell.— Abode of Mary Chaworth.— Fine Old Terrace.— Newstead Ab-
bey.—Picturesque approach to it.— Characteristics of Park Scenery.

Love of the Sublime and Beautiful.— Developement of the Love of Coun-
try greater in English than Continental Literature.— The Influence of the
Writings of John Wilson in Blackwood's Magazine, &c. &c. &c.

The Forests of England. — Our Forests among our most Interesting Ob-
jects.—Scenery of England in the Feudal Ages.— Antiquity of our Fo-

A

rests.— New Forest.— Picturesque Style of the Cottages and Small Enclo-
sures in its neighbourhood. — Gilpin Parsonage and School.— Sherwood Fo
rest— Celebrated as the Scene of Robin Hood's Exploits— Present extent
of the Forest. — Forest Enclosures. — Wild English Cattle. — The Author's
Visit to Chillingham Park.

Habits, Amusements, and Condition of the People. — Cottage Life. — A High-
land Hut. — The Beauty of English Cottages in some parts of England.— Popu-
lar Festivals and Festivities.— May-Day Festivities.— Formerly celebrated
with more Gaiety than any others. — Easter Festivities.— Easter at Moscow,
Jerusalem, Rome, and other places. — Whitsuntide Festivities.— Sole Reli-
gious Festival that continues a Popular One.— This Partly Owing to Friend-
ly Societies. — Joyous Aspect of this Village Fete. — Christmas Festivities —
The Festival of the Fireside. — Christmas Visiting and Country Games. —
Christmas Customs still kept up.— The Fairy Superstitions.— The Village
Inn. — Its old Tree. — Popular Places of Resort. — Wakes, Statutes and Fairs. —
The Rural Watering Place. — Sports and Pastimes of the People. — Wrest-
ling.—Favourite Pursuit of English Cottagers and Workmen.— Pigeon Fan-
ciers.— Lovers of Music.— Singing. — Sunday in the Country — Trip to Rich-
mond by the Steamer.— Social Pleasures of Sunday Evening.— Millions who
Enjoy the Blessings of a Day of Rest.— Holy Influence of Sunday.— Evening
Walk. — Cheap Pleasures of Country Life. — Splendid Picture presented by
Nature.— Lingering Customs.— Rapid Disappearance of Old English Cus-
toms.— Education of the Rural Population. — Schools of Industry established
by the Earl of Lovelace and Lady Noel Byron, &c., &c., &.c.

" Admirable,— and to English readers indispensable volumes;— not merely
a charming, but an ennobling work." — Atlas.

" It is no mean praise to say, that but one man in Great Britain could have
treated the subject more amply and eloquently than Mr. Howitt ; need we
say that man is — or was — Professor Wilson." — Metropolitan Conservative
Journal.

" It must, as it. deserves to do, become very popular."— Literary Oazette.

" One of the most beautiful, vigorous, fresh, and English-spirited of Mr.
Hewitt's productions. It is a work for all classes, rich and poor. It is writ-
ten with good sense and good feeling."— Court Journal.

" We know not in what part of the works of Washington Irvine, or even
of the ever-praised Charles Lamb, to look for pictures like these. They
are just such as Goldsmith would have described, had he written of such
places and their associations, in prose."— Unit cd Service Journal.

" The work contains many pleasant papers and sketches of scenerv, of
mountain and moorland, dingle and bushy dell, and bosky bourne, that are
eqHal to Copley Fielding, and only inferior to Nature herself. English
farmers, too, farm-servants, life in the dales of Lancashire and Yorkshire,
scenes of wild and lonely cottage life in the Highlands/and the country
pleasures and pursuits of our mechanics are all drawn and descanted on with
singular happiness; in fact, every paper is good where Mr. Howitt describes
what he has seen and felt." — Qthcnaum.

THE WORKS

OF

LORD BACON.

WITH A MEMOIR AND A TRANSLATION OF HIS LATIN WRITINGS.

BY BASIL MONTAGU, ESQ.

In three vols. 8vo.

3
LORD BYRON.

tr aSfiiron's poettcal

SPLENDID EDITION,

In 8 vols. 12mo, beautifully printed on fine paper.
"With, a Portrait of the Author.

" This is the best edition of Lord Byron's works which has
been published in this country. We do not wish our readers
to credit the assertion without proof, and we, therefore, assign
the following reasons :

" Imprimis. It is printed in eight large duodecimo volumes
of nearly 500 pages, in large type, on beautiful paper, with
neat and strong binding.

" Secondly. It comprises all his works in their most finished
state, with the author's latest corrections.

" Thirdly. It is enriched with copious notes drawn from his
memoirs, and his personal history, as otherwise disclosed, and
with critical annotations of various able writers, many of which
serve to trace the sources from which Lord Byron derived the
materials of his compositions, and embody no small portion of
the literary history of his times. We are not aware that these
rich and invalable notes are to be found in any other American
edition of the works of the noble bard.

" Fourthly. The illustrative matter of this edition is evi-
dently collated by the able, but unknown editor, in a spirit of
perfect candour, without any overweening admiration of the
author's genius, but with a full appreciation of his powers, and
a clear understanding of his peculiar faults and foibles — in
short, with a determination to do him ample justice as a poet
and as a man." — Messenger.

" The edition reflects the highest credit upon the publishers,
and is admirably suited, either for a public or a private library —
we commend it cordially." — Inquirer.

" The style in which these eight volumes have been printed
and bound, reflect credit upon the liberal publishers, who have
made a liberal contribution to the public or private library." —
U. S. Gazette.

THE MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS

OF

T. BABINGTON MACAULAY.

A new edition, complete in three volumes.

Purchasers of the former edition in Two Volumes are

informed that an additional number of the

Third Volume have been printed

to complete their copies.

" These charming volumes are made up of contributions of
Mr. Macaulay to the ' Edinburgh Review' between the years
1825 and 1837,* with an appendix containing two beautiful
specimens of his poetical powers. The subjects of the present
essays are Milton, Machiavelli, Dryden, History and Histo-
rians, Hallam's Constitutional History, Southey's Colloquies
on Society, Lord Byron, the Pilgrim's Progress, Johnson and
Bosvvell, Hampden, Lord Burghley, Mirabeau and the French
Revolution, the War of the Succession in Spain, Walpole's
Letters to Sir Horace Mann, the Earl of Chatham and his
Times, and the Life, Character, and Philosophy of Lord Bacon.

" Many of these subjects, it is obvious, have wider relations :
all are treated with extraordinary sense, learning, force, wit,
and eloquence. — Indeed we could not name the recent work,
in which, within the same compass, is to be found an equal
amount of entertainment and instruction. We remember,
soon after the publication of the article upon Milton, upon
reading it in a retired part of Europe, where we had no means
of becoming acquainted with its authorship, to have remarked
that the Edinburgh Review had obtained some new contri-
butor, capable of sustaining, if not of increasing the fame of
its palmiest days." — North American Review for October.

" Here are three volumes of as valuable matter as are to
be found in the English language. Mr. Macaulay has long
been a contributor to the best English Reviews, and his papers
are remarkable for their vigour and beauty of style, their deep
erudition, and their completeness." — New World.

" Mr. Macaulay is without doubt the most brilliant writer at
present enlisted in English criticism; and his numerous con-
tributions to the prominent periodicals of Great Britain have
attained a popularity far greater than is usually vouchsafed
to this class of literary productions. His style is classic, re-
markably vigorous, and at times dignified." — New Yorker.

* The third volume contains all Mr. Macuulay's writings since
that time.

TEN THOUSAND A-YEAR.

BY THE AUTHOR OF

« DIARY OF A LATE PHYSICIAN."
Complete in 1 vol. 8vo.

" We have more than once alluded to this remarkable story since the
commencement of its publication in Black wood's Magazine, as one of the
most interesting and powerfully written fictions in the English language.
It is by Samuef Warren, LL.D. author of ' Passages from the Diary of a late
Physician,1 and portions of it equal the best scenes in those celebrated
sketches. The object of the writer is, apparently, to exhibit in the strongest
possible light, the inherent superiority of the aristocrat to the plebeian ; and
for this purpose he translates his hero, Tittlebat Titmouse, from behind the
counter of Dowlas, Tagrag &, Co., shopkeepers in London, into the proprie-
torship of an estate, yielding ' ten thousand a-year,' where he enacts such
extravagances as might be expected from an ignorant and base-born mil-
lionaire. Contrasted with Tittlebat Titmouse, is Mr. Aubrey, a man of ho-
nour, education, and refinement, who, in yielding to his successful adver-
sary all his property, and the influence thereto pertaining, preserves his
high character, and remains the ' perfect pattern of a true gentleman.' The
characters are admirably drawn, and well supported, though some of them
are doubtless caricatures of the classes they are said to represent,"— JVew
Yorker.

" The grandest story of the age."

a Whoever has within him a sympathy for the pure and good— whoever
would feel his better nature elevated, and his belief in the generous and
noble feelings of the human heart strengthened, let him read ' Ten Thou-
sand a- Year.' "

THE AMERICAN
FLOWER-GARDEN DIRECTORY:

CONTAINING

PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS FOR THE CULTURE OF PLANTS IN THE
FLOWER-GARDEN, HOT-HOUSE, GREEN-HOUSE, ROOMS, OR PAR-
LOUR WINDOWS, FOR EVERY MONTH THROUGHOUT THE YEAR,
WITH A DESCRIPTION OF THE PLANTS MOST DESIRABLE IN
EACH, THE NATURE OF THE SOIL, &C.
TO WHICH ARE ADDED

Full Directions for the Culture of the Grape Vine, with a De-
scriptive List of the most choice Varieties, and those best
adapted for culture in the open air.

SECOND EDITION, ENLARGED AND IMPROVED.
BY ROBERT BUIST,

NURSERYMAN AND FLORIST.

In 1 vol. 8vo.

" This differs from most of the American works on gardening, in being an
original composition from beginning to end. It is most judiciously adapted
to the country in which it is published ; and the author, R. Cuist, of Phila-
delphia, ia one of the best cultivators in the United States. There is no
American work that we know of, at all to be compared with it in point of
usefulness."— London's Gardener's Magazine.
A*

6
THE HISTORY

OF

THE ANGLO-SAXONS;

FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST.

BY SHARON TURNER.

SACRED HISTOR1

In 2 vols. 8vo.

From the Preface to the Sixth Edition.

The increasing prosperity of the British nation, and the
expansion of its empire by the new colonies which arc issuing
from it, and are forming, as they settle and enlarge, new
branches of dominion to it in the distant regions of our globe,
make its first rudiments and humble beginnings more interest-
ing to us. To represent these faithfully, and to collect from
the perishing or neglected memorials of former times every
circumstance that could exhibit them, before it became im-
possible to do so from the disappearance of the ancient docu-
ments, and from the overwhelming flow of modern events,
revolutions, and diversified knowledge, which have made the
last fifty years so memorable, was the favourite object of the
author, when in his youthful days he conceived the idea, and
attempted to execute it in the following work.

That he should have lived to revise its sixth edition, was
more than he expected ; for it is now thirty-seven years since
he published its first volume. This is pleasing : but it is a
still greater gratification to observe, that so much of the atten-
tion of the public continues to he directed to the transac-
tions, remains, and language of their Anglo-Saxon ancestors,
and that so many able men still apply themselves to illustrate
this truly national subject by various and valuable publica-
tions. It was one of his earnest wishes that men of talent and
industry should be induced to do so, that what he could not
but learn imperfectly on several points might be completed
by subsequent research. This has been creditable to them-

selves, and just to our forefathers; and will now rescue our
most importnnt antiquities from future oblivion.

The Anglo-Saxons were deficient in the surprising im-
provement which their present descendants have attained ;
hut unless they had acquired and exercised the valuable qua-
lities, both mental and intellectual, which they progressively
advanced to before their dynasty ceased, England would not
have become that distinguished nation which, after the Nor-
man graft on its original Saxon stock, it has since been gra-
dually led to be.

"This splendid historical work is issued by the publishers
in a typographical style befitting its importance. * * * *
In a word, this work is a treasure in literature, and will most
assuredly find a place in every well-selected library; as it
dwells at length upon passages in the history of England,
which it has been the custom of the general historian to slur
over. The History of the Anglo-Saxons will form henceforth
a necessary companion to the best volumes on English his-
tory."— Brother Jonathan.

" It is from the press of Carey & Hart, and affords another
evidence, from the excellent style in which it is reprinted,
that in the opinion of the publishers the American public will
sustain their efforts in presenting works more valuable than
the almost worthless fictions of the day. Mr. Turner begins
with the history of the various nations which became possessed
of Britain in the earliest ages, explains their manners and
customs, religion and warfare, and shows the effect produced
upon the Saxons by their intermixture with their predeces-
sors. The government, laws, superstitions, and literature of
the Heptarchy, are fully discussed in an able manner ; and the
appendix contains many interesting as well as instructive
notices of other matters relating to the Saxons, as for instance,
the strength and beauty of their language, and comparisons
between the greatest English writers respecting their use
of real Saxon words. It will be found that perhaps the most
English work extant is the translation of the Bible now in
use, and certainly no work could furnish a stronger argument
of the capabilities of our vernacular. We commend this work
as a valuable addition to popular knowledge.

" This edition is an exact reprint of the London edition,
and contains all the Saxon language, the type of which was
cast expressly for it. The French edition, of which a con-
siderable number have been imported into this country, does
not contain a single word of Saxon" — Boston Morning Post.

8
THE WORKS

OF

LORD BOLINGBROKE.

COMPLETE.

With a Life, prepared expressly for this Edition.

CONTAINING

RECENT INFORMATION RELATIVE TO HIS PER-
SONAL AND POLITICAL CHARACTER,

SELECTED FROM THE BEST AUTHORITIES.

In Four Volumes 8vo., printed on large type and fine paper.

Lord Brougham's Remarks.

"Few men whose public life was so short, have filled a
greater space in the eyes of the world during his own times,
than Lord Bolingbroke, or left behind them a more brilliant
reputation. Not more than fifteen years elapsed between his
first coming into parliament and his attainder; during not
more than ten of these years was he brought before the public
in the course of its proceedings; and yet, as a statesman and
an orator, his name ranks among the most famous in our his-
tory, independently of the brilliant literary reputation which
places him among the best classics of our Augustan Age."

" Of all the public characters who have acted a prominent
part in English history during the last two hundred years,
there is probably no statesman who takes a stronger hold
upon the imagination than Henry St. John, Lord Boling-
broke. To those altogether ignorant of English politics, his
name is still familiar by its connexion with English litera-
ture. The friend and correspondent of Pope and Swift — the
writer of some of the finest essays in the English language —
his name continually presents itself in the literature and lite-
rary history of Queen Anne's reign. * * * * With Bo-
lingbroke as a writer, this age has principally to do. To the
rare excellence of his style, there is abundant testimony from
critics of all tastes. It is adorned and elegant, and rhetori-
cally correct; — but this is its least merit. It is nervous and
masculine, and flows onward like a river. There is a living
and life-giving energy, which imparts interest to even old
and uninteresting topics, and carries the reader majestically
along the rushing tide of the author's thoughts. * * * *
Messrs. Carey & Hart deserve the thanks of all lovers of
good standard literature for their beautiful editions of Boling-
broke."— Boston Notion.

9

LIFE OF PETRARCH.

BY THOMAS CAMPBELL.

AUTHOR OF THE " PLEASURES OF HOPE."

Handsomely printed in 1 vol. 8vo.

" It may be asserted with confidence, that there are very
few, even among well-informed persons, who know any thing
more of Petrarch than as a poet and as the adorer of Laura.
They are not aware that this poet of love for all times and all
nations was also a statesman, who lived and corresponded
with the greatest men of his age, and who was intrusted with
important diplomatic missions; and that literature owes him
infinite obligations for the pains which he took to preserve
the ancient classic writers, and to encourage a taste for the
study of their works. Those who would wish to make them-
selves acquainted with Petrarch's history and merits will
learn with interest that the celebrated author of * The Plea-
sures of Hope' has just completed a life of him in which,
with the feelings of a genuine poet, he has done full justice
to the character of this eminent man in all its bearings. The
fruit of mature reflection, for it has occupied the author some
years, this work discusses the history and character of its
celebrated subject, poetical, literary and moral, without par-
tiality or prejudice, and in a tone of liberality that pervades
all the works of his not less celebrated biographer."

atuval

BY THOMAS MILLER.

" We have never met with any thing of a similar character
to * Home Revisited,' the opening paper, which has touched
and delighted us so much." — London Literary Gazette.

"This volume is in its style 'as fresh as hawthorn buds.'
It is a pleasant book, sans apology or qualification." — Atlie-
n (Bum.

10

A COMPLETE EDITION

OF
THE WORKS

OF

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

COMPRISING

The Waverley Novels, complete — Poetical Works, including
the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border — Lives of Swift and
Dryden — Lives of the Novelists — History of Scotland —
Tales of my Grandfather, four series — Life of Napoleon —
Essays on Chivalry, Romance, &c. — Demonology and
Witchcraft— Paul's Letters to his Kinsfolk— Sermons, &c.

THE WHOLE REVISED AND CORRECTED BY HIMSELF.
TO WHICH IS ADDED

HIS LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE,

EDITED BY

J. G. LOCKHART.

Forming ike only complete and uniform edition of the
toritings of the " Magician of the North" ever pub-
lished in America.

The whole comprised in 10 vols. 8vo.
EMBELLISHED WITH TEN FINE ENGRAVINGS.

PRICE, ELEGANTLY BOUND IN EMBOSSED CLOTH, TWENTY
DOLLARS.

11

THE COMPLETE WORKS

OF

CAPTAIN MARRY AT.

In one vol. 8vo.

THE COMPLETE WORKS

OF

LADY BLESSINGTON.

In one vol. 8vo.

THE COMPLETE WORKS

OF

MISS LANDON.

Romance and Reality. The Troubadour.

Francesca Carrara. Venetian Bracelet.

Traits and Stories. Voice of the Peacock.

The Improvisatrice. Easter Gift.
The Golden Violet. &c. &c.

In one vol. 8vo.

"The praise of Miss Landon has been in all the literary circle?, since the
publication of the 'Improvisatrice,' in 1824. Her Poems placed her in the
first rank of her contemporaries, and her Novels have fully sustained this
enviable reputation. The publishers have done her fulF justice in this ele-
gant edition of her works, which adds one more volume to their series of
complete works of popular authors, making fifteen volumes in all; and
comprehending the works of Bulwer, Marryat, D'Israeli, Lady Blessington,
and Sir Walter Scott; — the last in ten volumes, royal octavo, to correspond
with the others. What a library of light and solid reading ! What au ever-
lasting fund of entertainment for one who ives on his plantation, and has
much spare time."— Messenger.

" One of the handsomest books of the day is that embracing the complete
works of L. E. L., which has just been published by Carey and Hart. The
admirers of that gifted lady— and she has them by thousands— will be pleased
to possess this most various volume."— Philad. Qazctte.

12
A TREATISE

ON THE

MANAGEMENT OF INFANCY.

BY ANDREW COMBE, M.D.

AUTHOR OF "A TREATISE ON PHYSIOLOGY."

WITH NOTES AND ADDITIONS BY JOHN BELL, M. D.
In one vol. 12mo.

" This work ought to be in the hands not only of every physician, but
should also find a conspicuous place in every family library, and its pages be
carefully studied by every one who is or who anticipates to be a parent.
Were the precepts and principles it inculcates to be fully carried out by every
mother, in the management of her offspring, not merely would their health
and comfort be more effectually insured, during infancy, but even in after
life they would escape the many infirmities, sufferings, and diseases, the
seeds of which are sown in the nursery, when the system there pursued is,
as too generally happens, one in direct opposition to the physiological laws
of the infantile organism." — American Medical Journal.

A PHRENOLOGICAL TOUR

IN

THE UNITED STATES.
BY GEORGE COMBE, ESQ.

AUTHOR OF " A TREATISE ON PHRENOLOGY," &C.

VISITS

TO

REMARKABLE PLACES,

AND

SCENES ILLUSTRATIVE OF STRIKING PASSAGES IN
ENGLISH POETRY AND HISTORY.

BY WILLIAM HOWITT.

AUTHOR OF " THE RURAL LIFE OF ENGLAND."

2 vols. 12mo.

THE

BOOK OF THE SEASONS;

OR, THE

CALENDAR OF NATURE.

BY WILLIAM HO WITT.

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
a Supreme Intelligent Author. PALEY.

FROM THE SIXTH LONDON EDITION.

PHILADELPHIA:

CAREY AND HART.

1842.

18*42.

MAIN Ll«**A«Y-AGmCUCTUI«C

C. SHERMAN AND CO. PRINTERS,

19 St. James Street.

TO

MARY HOWITT,

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.

€67785

VI ADVERTISEMENT.

My plan has been to furnish an original article on the
general appearances of Nature in each month, drawn en-
tirely from my own regular 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 Entomo-
logical Calendars, I am indebted to my brother, Dr. Godfrey
Howitt.

Nottingham, December 15th, 1830.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER xiii

JANUARY. — Characteristics of the Season. Prevalence of Darkness.
Snows. Intense Frost. Snow-storms in the Mountains. Plea-
sures of the British Fireside. Miseries of the Poor. Continued
Frost. Immense destruction of Vermin, Birds, etc. at this sea-
son. Taking Larks at Dunstable. 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. Remarkable change of the Winter
Season. January, why so called by the Latins; its Saxon
name. Physical defence of Plants from frost. The Throstle,
the Nuthatch. Reappearance of Worms and Slugs. Hedge-
sparrows, Thrush, and Blackbird sing. Hens lay. Early
Lambs. Habits of various Birds. Rural Occupations. An-
gling. Migration of Birds. The Garden. Calendar of Garden
Flowers. Entomological Calendar. . » * •„• . 25

FEBRUARY. — Characteristics. Wet. Great Thaw. Damps. Winds.
Storm on the Coast. Symptoms of Spring. February, its name.
Habits of Birds, etc. Budding of Trees. Dissected Leaves.
Moles, and Mole-catchers. Rural Occupations. Angling. Mi-
gration of Birds. Calendar of Garden Flowers. Botanical and
Entomological Calendars. . . . . •••._ -^ 58

LAYS OF THE SEASONS, No. 1, Spring. . . . ' . v • 72

Vlll CONTENTS.

MARCH. — Characteristics. Winds. Progress of Vernal appear-
ances. Vernal sensations. Mornings in March. Rural objects.
Snail-shells. Young Herbs. Rhubarb. March, its name.
Awakening of dormant animals. Various appearances of ani-
mals and vegetables. The Primrose. Starlings. Rural Occu-
pations. Angling. Migration of Birds. Calendar of Garden
Flowers. Botanical and Entomological Calendars. . 74

APRIL. — Characteristics. Progress of Vegetation. Vernal Cro-
cuses. Trees in blossom. Return of migratory Birds. Bird's
nests and eggs. Their beauty and picturesque 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 Ento-
mological Calendars i ..^ ^ . 90

MAY. — Characteristics. Flowers of woods, waters, and heaths.
Beautiful appearance of Woods. Pleasant prospects at the end
of the month. Fulness of Foliage. Depth and richness of
Grass. Cottage Gardens. Hawthorns. The Nightingale.
Flowers. The love of them natural to Children. Moral em-
blems 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.
Present taste for the cultivation of Flowers. May, its name.
The Wayfaring Tree. Bcnting-time of Pigeons. Leafing of
Trees completed. Bees, their swarms. Popular customs re-
garding them. Rural Occupations. Angling. Migration of
Birds. Calendar of Garden Flowers. Botanical and Entomo-
logical Calendars, •--•x. ';•:..'; . .r « . . . 125

LAYS OF THE SEASONS, No. 2, Summer ] 57

JUNE. — Darkening hues of Foliage. Variety and beauty of
Foliage. The Horse-chestnut. Beauty of June weather.

CONTENTS. ix

Universal life, greenness and vigour. Cruel and wanton havoc
made amongst young birds at this season. Gardens in their
prime. Summer pleasures. Delicious evenings. Mowing.
Green Fruits. Grasses in Flower. Hay -harvest commencing
Summer Floods. Sheep-shearing, its ancient festivities. Wild
Flowers and their old names. Holy Flowers. June, its name.
Midsummer Flowers. Fern Owl. Rural Occupations. Angling.
Migration of Birds. Calendar of Garden Flowers. Botanical
and Entomological Calendars. f^ ;•"*•• '.ji'H u*(. . 160

JULY. — Characteristics. Hay-harvest. Remarks on old sports.
Progress of knowledge. Silence of Birds. Boys taking
Wasps'-nests. Hornets. Twining Plants. Summer Flowers.
The pleasantness and beauty, and the curious productions of
Heaths. Woods. The Birdboy. 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. Angling. Migration of Birds. Calendar of
Garden Flowers. Botanical and Entomological Calendars. 199

AUGUST. — Characteristics. Corn-harvest. Pleasant scenes in the
harvest-field. Picturesque features of Harvest as given in the
Bible. Harvesters. Harvest-home. Harvest-moon. Second
budding of Trees. Refreshed verdure and flowers of the Fields*
Singular preservation of Seeds in the earth. Aquatic vegeta-
tion. Habits of the Water-rat. The Land-rail. Combat be-
tween a Rabbit and Weasel. Young Frogs. Mushrooms.
Hedge-fruit. White Fogs. Sea-side Rambles. Field Sports.
Remarkable appearance of clouds, August, 1827. August, its
name. Periodical appearances in the month. Hop-gathering.
Tusser's rules for Hop Grounds. Origin of Fairy Rings.

X CONTENTS.

Rural Occupations. Angling-. Migration of Birds. Calendar
of Garden Flowers. Botanical and Entomological Calen-
dars. . . .- ••^'V'. . - . . . . 235

LAYS OF THE SEASONS, No. 3, Autumn. .... 261

SEPTEMBER. — Sportsman's preparations, his pleasures, his uncon-
scious 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 magnificence 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. Villeggiatura. Description of a
Nutting excursion. Fungi, their beauty and variety. Septem-
ber, its name. Saffron. Apple-gathering. Sea-side. Beauty
of submarine productions. Rural Occupations. Angling. Mi-
gration of Birds. Calendar of Garden Flowers. Botanical and
Entomological Calendars 265

OCTOBER. — Characteristics. Autumnal glooms. Orchards cleared
of fruit. Splendour of wood scenery. Delights of the Woods.
Estimation of Woods among the Ancients. Poetical associa-
tions of Woods. Beauty of Trees, their effect upon the mind
of certain great men. Trees, as mentioned in the Bible. Cele-
brated Trees of modern times. Devotional influence of Woods.
Gorgeous appearance of Woods previous to the fall of the leaf.
The Greenwood, a poem. October, its name. Dissemination
of Plants, curious contrivances in seeds for that purpose.
Rural Occupations. Angling. Migration of Birds. Calendar
of Garden Flowers. Botanical Calendar. . . .291

NOVEMBER. — Gloom of November. Ossian. Storms and Mists..
Introduction to complete Winter. Desolate aspect of Gardens.
Influence of the Season on different minds. Arrival of Field-

CONTENTS. XI

fares and Redwings. Occasional fine days. First appearance
of Winter. Frost and Snow. Amusements in Snow. Fireside
employments in farm-houses and cottages. Bird-catching.
Singing Birds in cages, selfishness of the practice. Daily
Wayfarers. 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. . . 304

LAYS OF THE SEASONS, No. 4, Winter 326

DECEMBER. — Description of Winter by Gawain Douglas. Deso-
late aspect of Nature. Disappearance of many varieties of
living things. Men resort to towns and to their houses. Fami-
lies collected. The Author and his literary labours. Beauty
of Winter. Moonlight and starry skies, they inspire solemn
feelings and ideas. Concluding remarks. December, its name.
Evergreens. Winter Fruit. Rural Occupations. Angling.
Calendar of Garden Flowers. Migration of Birds. All Sea-
sons welcome. ........ 330

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

IT 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 country 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 refinement 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 thankfulness of heart, unseconded by deeds of
beneficence and the virtuous exercise of an enlight-
ened intellect, pays nothing, but leaves unsatisfied
the highest claims of our nature, and that natural
longing after the enjoyment and the diffusion of
happiness which fills every healthful bosom.

Such a desire, I do not hesitate to confess, has
2

XIV INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

long haunted me ; has mingled itself with my cogi-
tations, 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 en-
lightened mind to look round him and consider in
what way he can best promote the national welfare.
For my own part, reflecting how many are effec-
tively making known the sublime truths of our reli-
gion, 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 subserving religion
and literature also. In truth, there is no spirit
which it is more important to cherish in a com-
mercial people, as we are, than a spirit of attach-
ment 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 national heart those lofty sentiments which have
borne it proudly in the eyes of an admiring world
above all contamination ; and that we should have
sunk into that sordid narrowness of soul which has
regularly marked commercial states. It is a spirit
which, however, as commerce advances, becomes
more and more endangered by the very circum-
stance of our population being engulfed in great
towns. Books can and do penetrate into every
nook of our most extended and crowded cities;

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER XV

but every day these cities and towns enlarge their
boundaries, and the sweet face of Nature is hidden
from the inhabitants. We should, therefore, not
only make our books breathe into the depth of
every street, court, and alley, the natural aliment
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 undoubt-
edly 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
miserable specimens of plants in pots, in the little
nooks of dreary and smoke-blighted gardens in the
centre of the densest cities, and in the lowest habi-
tations of poverty and ignorance. But it is a prin-
ciple which requires, like all others, cultivation.
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
spirits pure and lofty sentiments, liberal opinions,
warm and generous emotions, that their writings
being eminently imbued with those qualities may

XVi INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

diffuse them through society in counteraction of
the deadening spirit of the world,) are found inva-
riably 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 pic-
turesque and Arcadian Spenser, to the universal
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,

As one who long- in populous cities 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. Speaking
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,

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XV11

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.

PARADISE LOST, b. iii.

Thomson and Cowper powerfully promoted this
spirit amongst their contemporaries ; but our own
times furnish, perhaps, a more remarkable instance
in Lord Byron. Unlike theirs, his soul had not
been soothed into wisdom and nourished into power
in the silence of retirement, and by the beam of the
academic lamp, — but had been hurried through the
agitating splendours of rank and fashion, the intoxi-
cation 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 devotion! He may be
said to have been her pilgrim into all lands in
which she displays the sovereignty of her beauty
and grandeur.

2*

XV111 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

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 hilled 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,
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, there 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.

CHILDE HAROLD, Canto iii.

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 enume-
rate all who are by any means distinguished ; but
Scott, Southey, Coleridge, Campbell, and Rogers,

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XIX

who were amongst the first to call back our poetry
from Art to Nature, must not be passed in silence ;
— Shelley, Keats, Leigh Hunt, three noble poets,
classed in the same school, yet each widely differ-
ing from the other, have greatly promoted her
influence, the last in much beautiful prose; — Bloom-
field and Clare, Burns and Elliot, all strong and
true sons of Nature, — and the last of whom is
never more inspired and inspiring than when he
climbs Stanedge, and rejoices in its dark majesty,
amid the winds, and crags, and dashing streams of
mountain moorlands, must each have his own
appropriate niche; the names of Mrs. Hemans,
Miss Bowles, and Miss Mitford, amongst our
female writers, claim in this, as in other respects,
the highest honours ; and Wordsworth has so
gazed upon Nature, not only with the eyes of love,
but of philosophy — he has so completely retired to
the perpetual contemplation of her charms and the
communion with her spirit, and has so fully ex-
pressed 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,

XX INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb

Our cheerful faith that all that we behold

Is 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 ecstasies shall be matured

Into a sober pleasure — when the 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 good-
ness, and of the excellency of virtue, but has so
constructed the world, that the same saving, puri-
fying, 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 sympathize and communicate with us from
the utmost nearness to which their natures will

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XXI

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 greatest
names in our philosophy ; Newton, Bacon, Locke,
and a host of others ; nor less with a multitude of
authors throughout every department of our litera-
ture, who have with one accord turned us for
wisdom to the great book of Nature. Not a little
has honest Izaak Walton contributed to spread his
own love of quiet haunts and streams, his own
tranquil and benevolent piety. And to our Natu-
ralists, 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 cataloguer
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, attracting thousands to
the objects of their admiration, must be classed
amongst the greatest benefactors of the human
race.

It is with unspeakable delight that I behold every

XX11 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

branch of Natural History now prosecuted 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 per-
sonal delight they afford; that they invigorate
both mind and body, tranquillize the passions, and
elevate the heart above all worldliness. The pre-
sent tone of such works is admirable and ani-
mating.

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 beautiful
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 fail-
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

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XX111

which often visits mine, when I behold little chil-
dren 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 ; wandering with bare heads and unshod
feet perhaps, but singing a " childish wordless me-
lody," through vernal lanes, or prying into a thou-
sand 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 sympathetic feel-
ing 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 influence, not
only as a most fertile source of pure and substan-
tial pleasures, — pleasures which, unlike many others,
produce, instead of satiety, desire ; 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,

XXIV INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

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 Nature ;

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 judgment.

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 grasshoppers.

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 bloweth, and the water is congealed into
ice, it abideth upon every gathering together of water, and clotheth
the water as with a breastplate.

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

ECCLESIASTICUS, xliii. 13-21.

THE 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 sea-
son 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 seve-
3

26 JANUARY.

rest, and February the most cheerless month of the
year. In December the days become shorter and
shorter; a dense mass of vapour floats above us,
wrapping the world in a constant and depressing
gloomy ;

,<Z7 f r

- Murky night soon follows hazy noon.

BLOOMFIELD.

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 tne
intensity of frost. Yet winter, even in its severest
forms, brings so many scenes and circumstances
with it to interest the heart of the lover of Nature
and of his fellow-creatures, that it never ceases to
be a subject of delightful observation ; and mono-
tonous 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, — or, what
is worse, the northeast, — sweeps the descending

JANUARY. 27

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 shuffle 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 levelling 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 cattle, and
many of the inhabitants, have perished beneath
the snow-drifts. At the moment in which I am
writing, accounts from Scotland appear in the
newspapers of a most tremendous snow-storm,
which, leaving the country southward of Alnwick
and Gretna-Green nearly free, has buried all north-

28 JANUARY.

ward 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 splendid
specimens of the peasant-poet, has given in his
" Shepherd's Calendar" some exceedingly interest-
ing details of such events.

The delights of the social hearth on such even-
ings 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 enjoyment, are combined in the
picture they draw of the winter fireside. How
often have those lines of Cowper been quoted,
commencing,

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 FIRESIDE ! and we love to
hear our writers speaking of its pleasures in strains

JANUARY. 29

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 phi-
lanthropic sentiment which will signally heighten
its pleasures, and enlarge its power of improving
the heart. How delightful, whilst 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 coun-
try are at the same moment thus blessedly collected
round the social flame. What hearths are lit up
with all the charms of kindred affection; 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 broad veil of wintry darkness, —
the lover's evening 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 elegances and amenities of life cast not
their glow,

But frosty winds blaw in the drift
Ben to the chimla lug,
3*

30 JANUARY.

upon shivering groups who have but little defence
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,

111 satisfied keen nature's clamorous call,

Stretch'd 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.

Where the mother sees not her rosy and laughing
children snugly consigned to their warm soft beds ;
but contemplates with a heart deadened with the
miseries of to-day, and the fears of to-morrow, a
sad little squalid crew around 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 languors, to a poverty which renders the com-
forts 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 arousing us to a
course of active benevolence.

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

THE CONTINUED FROST — a frost that, day after
day, and week after week, makes a steady abode

JANUARY. 31

with us, till the beaten roads become dusty as in
summer. 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 fish in ponds,
reservoirs, and shallow waters, now suffer from
their being frozen over, and great numbers perish.
In many places you may see them moving under
the ice, seeking some access to air or food; in
others, firmly embedded in the ice, their bright
and silvery sides shining through it. In dikes and
small streams, or pools, boys have great sport in
breaking the ice and drawing out these poor frozen
creatures. I have seen, on such occasions, eels
and other fish of a considerable size taken out ;
and I have seen, too, fishes frozen up in solid ice,
and apparently dead, on being gradually thawed
recover their animation. 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 the smaller
animals, in a continued frost, is immense, particu-
larly 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,

32 JANUARY.

the other vermin ; and thousands of polecats, wea-
sels, 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-pigeons are killed in great
numbers on cabbage and turnip-fields by day ; in
the neighbourhood of large woods, where they
abound, the farmers' boys set steel-traps for them
in the snow, laying a cabbage-leaf on each trap, to
which they fly eagerly, and are abundantly cap-
tured ; and by moonlight they are shot in the trees
where they roost. Larks frequent stubbles in vast
flocks, and are destroyed by gun or net. Immense
numbers of these delightful songsters are sent,
during the winter months, from the neighbourhood
of Dunstable to London, and may be seen by
basketsfull at the poulterers'. When they have
congregated in flocks on the approach of winter,
they arrive in that neighbourhood lean and feeble ;
but they soon become strong and in good condition,
being supposed to pick up fine particles of chalk
with their food. They are in season from Michael-
mas to February ; and are not only served up at the
inns in that town, by a secret process of cookery,
in such a manner as to be regarded by travellers as
a peculiar luxury, but are thence sent, by a particu-

JANUARY.

lar contrivance of package, ready dressed to all
parts of England. 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.

In France they use what is called a miroir, or
twirler. This is a piece of mahogany highly po-
lished, or a piece of common wood with bits of
looking-glass fixed in it. It is fixed on an upright
spindle, and twirled by pulling a string ; and the
larks, as they fly over, seeing the glitter of it, are
irresistibly attracted by it, hover over it, and are
shot in abundance. However frequently shot at,
the survivors still are attracted by the twirler.
Hone's correspondent says that a friend of his shot
six dozen before breakfast, without a boy, as is the
common plan, to pull the twirler for him ; and that
it is not only the great amusement of the gentlemen
in France in winter, but that ladies on fine, dry,
frosty mornings go out in numbers to watch this
sport ; and as many as ten or a dozen parties are,
at one time, firing about five hundred yards apart,
and yet the larks continue coming.

In England the Dunstable people have a similar
invention, which is called a larking-glass, which is
fixed on a pole and twirled, and the larks corne
darting down to it in great numbers, and a net is
drawn over them. Besides great quantities being
thus taken, and also morning and evening with
trammelling nets, others in severe weather are

34 JANUARY.

taken by laying a train of corn and chaff in the
snow, and placing along it a line to which is fas-
tened, at certain intervals, nooses of horse-hair, in
which their feet are entangled.

As if the feathered race did not suffer enough
from famine and the severity of the weather, every
body seems now tip in arms against them. The
law, with a spirit of humanity honourable to 4he
nation, is opposed to tracking game in a snow; yet
this is a time of peculiar -enjoyment to the sports-
man. Waterfowl are driven from their secluded
haunts in meres and marshes to open streams;
snipes and woodcocks to springs and small run-
nels ; where they become accessible, and easily
found. In towns and villages, every mechanic and
raw lad is seen marching forth with his gun to slay
his quota of redwings, fieldfares, etc. which now
become passive from cold and hunger. Let all
good people, 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-redbreast ; no-
thing 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, he
will not. In farm-yards, trains of corn are laid,
and scores of sparrows, finches, etc. are slaugh-
tered at a shot. Even the schoolboy is bent upon
their destruction. His trap, made of four bricks

JANUARY. 35

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 keyhole, he is
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 slum-
bers 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 instinctively 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, blackbirds,
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 delightful
glow to the blood, and the mind is held in pleasing
attention to the phenomena and features of the sea-
son. Every sound comes to the ear with a novel
and surprising distinctness — the low of cattle ; the
rattle of far-off wheels; the hollow tread of ap-
proaching feet ; and the merry voices, of sliders and
skaters, who are pursuing their healthful amusement
upon every sheet of unruffled ice. In towns, how-
ever, walking is none of the safest. From time
immemorial boys have used it as an especial privi-

36 JANUARY.

lege of theirs to make slides upon every causeway,
maugre the curses and menacing canes of old gen-
tlemen, 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 winter, none equals in
beauty

THE HOAR FROST. A dense haze most commonly
sets in over-night, which has vanished the next morn-
ing, and left a clear atmosphere, and a lofty arch of
sky of the deepest and most diaphanous blue, beam-
ing above a scene of enchanting 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 ; the dark boles here and
there contrasting strongly with the white and spark-
ling drapery of the boughs above, amongst which
the wandering birds fly, scattering the rime around
them in snowy showers. There is not a thicket but
has assumed a momentary aspect of strange loveli-
ness ; and the mind is more affected by it from its

JANUARY. 37

suddenness of creation, and the consciousness 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 presented with momentary
smiles and isolated instances 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, expands
its handsome white chalices, undaunted by the
sharpest frosts, and blooms amidst overwhelming
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 fore-
boding eye, denominating them weather-breeders.
Whilst they are present, however, whatever conse-
quences they may be chargeable with, they are
extremely grateful. Gnats will even be seen to
issue from their secret dormitories, to dance in the
long withheld rays of the sun. I have seen the
leaves of the primrose shooting up vigorously be-
neath 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.

It is well that I said that I do not attempt to
4

38 JAXUABY.

describe any particular season, but speak of them
generally; for it is a subject of universal wonder
that our old-fashioned winters, such as I have here
depicted, are quite gone. With the exception of
1829 and 1830, we have not had a severe winter
for many years. For the last twenty years the
winters have been progressively getting milder and
more open. We have not had those long-conti-
nued frosts — deep, lane-filling, hedge-burying snows,
which we had formerly. Skates have almost be-
come obsolete ; snow-balling is quite traditional ;
and the stopping of the mails by the drifts, a won-
derful occurrence. Old Mother Shipton's prophecy,
that summer shall only be distinguished from winter
by the leaves on the trees, seems fast coming upon
us. Many are the speculations of the weather-wise
on the causes of this : with one, it is the breaking-
up of the ice in the polar regions — with another, the
decrease of the American forests — with a third, the
increased population and cultivation of Europe —
with others, the approach of a comet ; though John
Evelyn tells us that a comet and the great frost in
his time, when the Thames was frozen over and a
fair held on it, came together. The fact is, the
knowing ones are completely thrown out— they
cannot tell how it happens ; and ere long, we may
probably find ourselves, with as little apparent rea-
son, in the midst of the old winters again. Even
while I am now writing, (January 7th, 1835,) the
frost which set in on New-year's Day has continued
with a rigour and an aspect that promises a tole-

JANUARY. 39

rable continuance. So far in the last edition ; and
the winters of 1836-7 and 1837-8 amply fulfilled
the rigorous promises then given. The chill which
is said to follow the appearance of a comet, cer-
tainly has followed the appearance of that of Halley
in 1835. The winter of 1836-7, with its truly old-
fashioned snows, will long be remembered by those
who witnessed it. The stoppage of mails, and the
burial of numbers of them for many days in differ-
ent parts of the kingdom, excited too much interest
to be readily forgotten. It was curious to see them
coming into London, covered with frozen snow, and
bearing every evidence of having been dug out of
the drifts ; and to see the running of the eager
crowds to learn the particulars. But if the winter
of 1836-7 was excessively snowy, that of 1837-8
was fiercely cold and miserably long. The Thames,
and the other principal rivers of England, once more
presented the phenomenon of being frozen over. A
wilder scene cannot be imagined than was shown
on the Thames at the breaking up of this long frost,
immense blocks of ice being driven one upon an-
other above the bridges, and exhibiting a desolate
and frozen chaos more consonant to our ideas of
the polar regions than of the English climate. The
suddenness of the setting in of this great frost, also,
was as startling to our fancies and destructive to
vegetable life. From Christmas to the opening of
January, 1838, the weather was deliciously mild.
It was like the opening of May rather than the depth
of winter. The birds were singing ; the bees at

40 JANUARY.

work ; many flowers were blowing in the gardens,
as anemones, wall-flowers, primroses ; and the
monthly roses thickly crimsoned the walls of our
cottages. Birds' nests were found in various places,
not only with eggs but with young ones, as that of
a thrush at Cobham in Surrey. In one savage night
(the 7th of January), all this delusive and unseason-
able pride of nature was demolished by a tremen-
dous frost. Every thing which the day before had
worn a blossoming aspect, now hung down its head
in death and ruin. The flowers stood dismal objects
of blackness and deformity. When, after six weeks
of unmitigated fury of frost, spring began to give
tardy and timid intimations of return, it was only
to discover the extent of vegetable devastation which
had taken place. Never, perhaps, had so extensive
a destruction of evergreens occurred. The warmth
of the weather up to the very night of the frost
setting in, by occasioning a free flow of sap, had
made this destruction inevitable ; and in low and
warm situations scarcely a laurel or a bay was left
alive above ground. In higher and colder situations
many escaped ; but for the most part it was neces-
sary to cut down and clear away the whole ever-
green growth of the last forty years. In our own
shrubbery, bays, laurels, and arbutuses of that age
were destroyed ; thus bearing testimony that for this
period they had not experienced the same excessive
and sudden change. What appeared singular at the
time was, that branches of evergreen shrubs, which
were cut off and lay under the snow, were not appa-

JANUARY. 41

rently injured, while those on the trees themselves
were killed. The same was the case with a quantity
of rose-trees which were left by accident out of the
ground in our own garden all that frost ; they were
not killed, but on being planted at spring grew again
freely, while their fellows in the ground were utterly
destroyed. The reason was, that in one case the
flow of the sap had been gradually checked by their
being taken up, while in the other it was in full
activity at the moment of seizure by the frost. The
fact of the branches of evergreens cut off and lying
under the snow not being injured, while the trees
themselves in the ground perished, would seem to
contradict a statement in the succeeding page ; but
their preservation was owing to the covering of
snow.

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 pre-
sent name is derived from the Latin, Janus, door-
keeper of heaven, and god of peace ; — the name,
therefore, indicates that it is the gate of the year,
and probably 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 Provi-
dence displayed in the provision made for the preser-
vation of all vegetable productions. Seeds are
4*

42 JANUARY.

secure in the earth, or in the care of man ; herba-
ceous plants have died down to 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 vitce 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 completely 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 pre-
served, cannot be sufficiently admired.

Towards the end of the month, the throstle is
seen under sunny hedges and southern walls in pur-
suit of snails, which he destroys in abundance, par-
ticularly in hard winters ; he delights also in chrys-
alids and worms. Other birds now quit their retreats
in search of food. The nuthatch is heard, and larks

JANUARY. 43

congregate and fly to the warm stubble for shelter.
Sparrows, yellowhammers, and chaffinches crowd
in 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 enabled 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 destroying them — they are the under-
gardeners that loosen the sub-soil, and have their
uses in conveying away superfluous moisture, and
admitting 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 solitary habits,
is not often noticed, and may be easily overlooked ;
but it is very abundant where there are plantations
of spruce-trees, to which 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 many even 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

44 JANUARY.

dropped now in southern counties, but the more
common time of lambing is in March. The field-
fares, redwings, skylarks, and titlarks resort to
watered meadows for food, and are, in part, sup-
ported 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 dependent 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 dis-
tricts, as in the neighbourhood of London, housing
and carefully feeding young lambs and calves for
the market. Bee-hives require to be examined, and,
if necessary, food supplied. This may be done by
cutting a shoot of the elder-tree of about ten inches
long, and of the thickness of a finger, slicing off
one side of it, and taking out the pith, so as to form
a trough, the joints of the shoot being left to form
each end. This must be filled with honey, or, in
want of that, with sugar and beer, or sugar and
water, of the same consistency as honey, and gently
thrust into the mouth of the hive. The bees will

JANUARY. 45

come down, and take it up ; and from time to time
the trough must be filled afresh. Many persons are
in the habit of laying honey in a plate near the
mouth of the hive, that the bees, in some occasional
hour of sunshine, coming out, may take it ; but this
is not only a very inferior, but a very dangerous
practice. The bees, feeble with winter cold, and
voracious with abstinence, greedily rush into the
plate, are easily entangled in the liquid, or upset by
the slightest puff of air, and suffocated. If a plate
of honey, or liquefied sugar, be ever placed by the
hive, it should be covered with a piece of writing-
paper snipped full of small holes, through which the
bees may suck the honey without danger ; but the
elder troughs are the safest and most effectual
things.

In frosts, fish-ponds must have holes broken in the
ice, to allow the fish the necessary air. It will re-
quire, too, some watchfulness in those whose ponds
are well stocked, to prevent their being robbed ; for
the fish will come up to the holes for air, and are
easily taken in their benumbed state with the hand.
This the race of poachers know to good purpose.
I have seen a few grains thrown into these holes,
and the fish come in such quantities crowding to
them, that any number of the finest might be selected
and taken in a very short time. 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

46 JANUARY.

woods, as it bears very well the shade of trees, and
is stacked in the ridings for game. In other places,
corn and hempseed are given them in seasons of
great severity. Thrashing is now a regular employ-
ment in some parts of the country, going on even
by candle-light. Farming implements are repaired ;
drains, ditches, etc. kept open ; manure is led out ;
and in particular situations in favourable 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, except-
ing trout ; but being withdrawn to the 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.

JANUARY. 47

MIGRATION OF BIRDS.

The Stork in the heavens knoweth her appointed times ; and the
Crane, and the Turtle, and the Swallow, observe the time of their
coming.

JEREMIAH viii. 7.

No living creatures which enliven our landscape
by their presence, excite a stronger sympathy 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
besides this, they interest the imagination by that
peculiar instinct which is to them chart and com-
pass, 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 safely on their passage ;
that degree of mystery, which yet hangs over their
motions, notwithstanding the 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 travellers toil, in vain, to
penetrate, — that they will anon affix their nests to
the Chinese pagoda, the Indian temple, or, beneath

48 JANUARY.

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 av ant- courier, the
wryneck, over the warm regions beyond the pillars
of Hercules, and the wilds of the Levant, of Greece
and Syria ; the nightingale will be serenading 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 Scan-
dinavia ; 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 and Shetlands, where others congregate
in myriads ; or the wild-swan, which sometimes
pays a visit to our largest and most secluded waters,
re-winging its way through the lofty regions of the
air to Iceland, and other arctic lands, — we cannot
avoid feeling how much poetry is connected with
these wanderers of the earth and air.

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

No migratory birds arrive this month, if we ex-
cept 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

JANUARY. 49

Gilbert White, large flocks of hen-chaffinches like-
wise appear in winter, which are supposed to come
from the continent. This singular circumstance
seems difficult of solution.

DEPARTURES.

Clangula glacialis, Long-tailed Pocher, goes Jan. 14, comes Dec. 20.

Haunts, lakes and shores.
JNycora fuligula, Tufted Pocher, goes Jan. 19, comes Dec. 15. Shores

and fresh meres.
Mergus Serrator, Gray Goosander, goes Jan. 20, comes Dec. 28th.

Pools and fens.
Coccothraustes vulgaris, Grosbeak, goes Jan. 20. comes Dec. 28. Hilly

fields — rare.
Emberiza nivalis, Snowflake, goes Jan. 20, comes Dec. 28. Mountains

and downs.

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 constructed 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 im-
pediments of time and space — the severities of win-
5

50 JANUARY.

ter, 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 enterprise, 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 witnessed; her
sweetest odours are poured out ; her most impres-
sive 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 garden, and behold all the calm
pageantry of the glittering host of stars, of moon-
light 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 enjoyment. A
garden, with all its accompaniments of bowers,
secluded seats, shrubberies, and hidden walks, is a
concentration of a thousand pleasant objects, and
the field of a multitude of animating pursuits. The
rarest beauties of the vegetable world are not only
there congregated, heightened in the richness and
splendour 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,

JANUARY. 51

on heath and mountain, the enchantments 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 lover of all
bright hues and graceful forms, of all delicate and
spicy aromas, of curious processes 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 gardens, as places peculiarly
accordant with the grace and gentle nature of wo-
man. How beautiful 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 ;

52 JANUARY.

A riband did the braided tresses bind,
The rest was loose and wanton'd in the wind.
Aurora had but newly chased the night,
And purpled o'er the sky with blushing light,
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 picture 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 return' d at shut of evening flowers :

or, in the midst of that anguish, when hearing pro-
nounced her banishment from Eden, she exclaimed
" with audible lament,"

Oh, unexpected stroke, worse than of death !
Must I thus leave thee, Paradise ? thus leave

JANUARY. 53

Thee, native soil ! these happy walks and shades,
Fit haunt of Gods ? where I had hoped to spend,
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 last
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 unrivalled
in his painting of garden scenery. One cannot but
remark, how in that, as in every thing else, he out-
went his own times. In those days of tortured trees,
and stiff formal fences and garden-plots, what a
magnificent but free, and naturally beautiful wilder-
ness he has sketched in the 4th Book of Paradise
Lost ! From him, and Lord Bacon, whose taste,
however, was far inferior, we may date the regene-
ration of English pleasure-gardens ; and now such
delightful spots have we scattered through the coun-
try, that the East from which we borrowed them
can scarcely rival them. The imaginative mind
cannot contemplate the assemblage, which, from all
far-off lands, is there brought together, without
being carried by them into their own fair regions ;
nor the reflective one, without being struck with the
innumerable benefits we have derived from art and
commerce.

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 de-
5*

54 JANUARY.

gree, after us into the town. We have them at our
doors; we contemplate them at our quietest win-
dows ; in some happier instances, they surround, on
all sides, our habitations, 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 Seasons present,
ready arrayed to our view. For this purpose I have
given, each month, under the head of " The Calen-
dar of the Flower Garden," 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 Linnsean
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.

CALENDAR OF THE FLOWER GARDEN.

Cyclamen Coum, 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.

Kranthus hyemalis. Winter Aconite. 4.

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

JANUARY. 55

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 him-
self, 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 esti-
mable and important things in the world, and that
man himself is comparatively of little moment.
These reasonings, therefore, which at one time fur-
nished the witling with much merriment at the ex-
pense of the naturalist, have vanished, as they were
sure to do : but, much as Entomology is now es-
teemed, it requires no prophet to see that it must
become more and more so. To say nothing of the
benefits or inconveniences we experience from in-
sects ; there are in their minute shapes such won-
derful instincts, powers, and I may add, passions,
comprised ; their habits are so curious, extraordi-
nary, and varied — their forms so splendid and beau-
tiful— some in their silken robes, some in their blue
and burnished armour, some with their glowing and
gorgeous wings, transparent as crystal, or feathered.

36 JANUARY.

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 intel-
ligent minds.

I regret that out of upwards of ten thousand
indigenous insects, my catalogue must be confined
to a very few — the most splendid, the most con-
spicuous, 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.

SELECT CALENDAR OF BRITISH INSECTS.

NOTE. — 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 or heaths.
Carabus cancellatus. Rotten willows in the winter; under stones and

in pathways in summer.
Helobia brevicollis. Very common.
Sphodrus leucophthalmus. Cellars, etc.
Calathus cisteloides. Common in damp situations-
Colymbetes bipunctatus.
Colymbetes bipustulatue
Acilius sulcatus.

Dyticus marginalis. ^ Ponds and ditches.
Dyticus circumflexus.
Dyticus punctulatus.
Hydrous piceus.
Ptinus Fur. In museums, etc.

JANUARY. 57

Coccinella 7-punctata, Seven-spotted \ TT , . T .

T . .. , § Under bark in winter; on

.Lady bird. f , , .

„ . ; „ _, , > plants in summer, devouring

Coccmella 2-punctata, Two Spotted C

i Aphides.
Lady-bird.

Acheta domestica, House Cricket.

Notonecta furcata, Furcate mark'd Boat-fly. > pondg and ditcheg

Notonecta glauca, Common Boat-fly. >

Cheimatobia vulgaris, The Winter Moth. Hedges.

Cheimatobia rupicapraria, Early Moth. Pales and houses.

Peronea spadiceana, The Bay-shouldered Button. Woods.

Most of the insects included in the list for this
month, may be found the greater part of the year.
They hibernate copiously beneath moss and the bark
of trees. Aquatic beetles, being less subject to at-
mospheric 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 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 mate-
rially to keep in check a myriad of noxious insects,
and to purify our ditches and stagnant pools, which
would otherwise become unfit for cattle.

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.

PSALM cxlvii. 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 fre-
quently is, much more agreeable than the commence-
ment ; but, as a whole, it is as I have characterized
it. It is at once damp and foggy. Besides the earth
being saturated with a whole winter's moisture, there
is generally abundance of rain during this month, so
much so as to have acquired for it the cognomen 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

A GREAT THAW ? There is a lack of comfort
felt every where. In real winter weather the clear
frosty air sharply saluted the face by day, and
revealed to the eye at night a scene of pure and
sublime splendour of the lofty and intensely blue sky

FEBRUARY. 59

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 hidden in impenetrable vapour ; the
earth is sodden and splashy with wet ; and even the
very fireside does not escape the comfortless sense
of humidity. Every thing presents to the eye, accus-
tomed 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 cham-
bers ; and you are surprised at the unusual damp-
ness of your clothes, linen, books, and papers ; and,
in short, almost every thing you have occasion to
examine. Brick and stone floors are now dan-
gerous 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 attributed not a few of the colds, coughs,
and consumptions so prevalent in England. Pave-
ments are frequently so much elevated by the ex-
pansion of the moisture beneath, as to obstruct the
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 in a moment. The
houses, and all objects whatever, have a dirty and
disconsolate aspect ; and clouds of dim and smoky

60

FEBRUARY.

haze hover over the whole dispiriting scene. In
the country, the prospect is not much better: the
roads are full of mire. In the woods and copses
you hear a continual dripping and pattering of wet;
while the fieldfares, instead of flying across the
country with a pleasant chattering, sit solitarily
amongst the comfortless trees, uttering their plain-
tive cry of 4< cock-shute, cock-shute ;" and the
very rooks peer about after worms in the fields
with a drooping air. Instead of the enchantments
of hoar frost, you have naked hedges, sallow and
decaying weeds beneath them, brown and wet pas-
tures, and sheets of ice, but recently affording so
much fine exercise to skaters and sliders, half sub-
mersed 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 ani-
mating 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, and expanding it to the deli-
cious hope of future delights. So precious a boon,
however, is not exclusively permitted to March:
February is often allowed to be a liberal partaker

FEBRUARY. 61

ere its close, and we have known the winds lift up
their voices this month with all their triumphant 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
creaking of signs, the clatter of falling shutters in
the street ! Then for the crash of chimneys, the
down-topling of crazy gables, the showering of tiles
upon the pavement, as if the bomb-shells of a be-
sieging army were demolishing the roofs, and ren-
dering it even death to walk the streets ! Then for
a scene of awful grandeur upon the glorious ocean !
That which, but an hour before, was calm and sun-
bright, a variety of vessels 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, 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 bil-
lows as for life, and tugging at their cables as if
6

62 FEBRUARY.

mad for their escape. Many a beautiful, many a
wild, many an animating spectacle is to be wit-
nessed 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 liveli-
hood !

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 gro-
tesque. Wherever you go, the people, perhaps sud-
denly aroused from the tranquil fireside of a Sunday
afternoon, are swarming upon the roofs of their
houses, like bees startled from their cells by the un-
expected 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
ladders, a bustling, anxious laying-on of logs, rails,
harrows, or whatsoever may come to hand to keep
down the mutinous roof. Old wives, with spectacled
noses, and kerchiefs incontinently tied over their
mob-caps, are seen reconnoitring 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 tempestuous seas ! What poetical spirit can hear

FEBRUARY.

it without being influenced by incommunicable ideas
of power, majesty, and the stupendous 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 gladdened
with symptoms of approaching spring. On warm
banks the commencement of vegetation is per-
ceptible ; the sap is stirring in the trees, swelling
and feeding the buds : in gardens a variety of green
things are peeping from the earth, and snowdrops,
hepaticas, etc. are actually 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 snowdrops
flowering in pots ; and in those of wealthier dwell-
ings, hyacinths, narcissi, etc. in glasses, displaying
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

64 FEERUAKV.

in accordance with our ideas of home-comfort and
elegance. If we are to believe 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 refreshing 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.

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-monath, or pancake-
month, because cakes were offered to the sun.

Various signs of returning spring occur at dif-
ferent 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

FEBRUARY. 65

be mild, the hedge-sparrow renews its chirping
note. Turkey-cocks now strut and gobble ; par-
tridges 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 February, 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 dis-
closes its flower-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 attempt imitations of them by the
application of vinegar or other acids to leaves yet
undecomposed.

Moles go to work in throwing up their hillocks
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 gardens, by loosening and devour-
6*

66 FEBRUARY.

ing flower-roots ; but in the fields they seem to do
no other harm than rendering the surface of the
ground unequal 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. 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 mois-
ture 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

FEBRUARY. 67

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. 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 diameter, 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. Ploughing
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. Timber is felled, and
tree-seeds are sown. Copsewood is cut, and plan-
tations are thinned. In the garden, various opera-
tions of pruning, digging, sowing, etc. are going on.

ANGLING.

Almost every fresh-water fish is in season, ex-
cepting 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

68 FEBRUARY.

gravelly bottoms ; dace, particularly amongst weeds,
and under the foam caused by eddies. The best
baits for them now are paste, gentles, or larvae 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, Gray Lagg, goes Feb. 10, comes Oct. 6.

Fens.
Anser Erythropus, Laughing Goose, comes Dec. Northern and

Western coasts.
Anser Bernicia, Bernacle Goose, comes Dec. Northern and Western

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 (Enas, Stock Dove, comes Nov. 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 London.
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.

FEBRUARY. 69

Limosa aegocephala, Godwit, comes Aug. Marshes.

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

Mergus Merganser, Goosander, goes Feb. 4, comes Dec. 18. Pools
and fens.

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

Nurnenius 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.

Oidemia 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, North-
umberland,

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

Tringa Canutis, 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 prepare for the cares and
enjoyments of the summer in the Orkneys, Shet-
lands, Iceland, Greenland, and about Hudson's Bay,
etc. Several of them, however, only partially mi-
grate, as the godwit, purre, sanderling, sea-curlew,
etc. ; resorting 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, IV. 1. Cornelian Cherry. 3.

Bulbocodium vernum. Spring Bulbocodium. 3.

Andromeda angustifolia, X. 1. Narrow-leaved Andromeda. 4.

Cydonia Japonica (Pyrus Japonica), XII. 2. Japan Quince. 10.

Helleborus lividus, XIII 7. Spot-leaved Hellebore.

Tussilago fragrans, XIX. 2. Fragrant Coltsfoot. 3

70 FEBRUARY.

SELECT CALENDAR OF BRITISH BOTANY.

Galanthus nivalis, Class VI. Order 1. Snowdrop. Locality, about

ruins. Duration, 3.

Helleborus fcetidus, XIII. 3. Stinking Bearsfoot. Waste grounds. 3.
Lamiura amplexicaule, XIV. 1. Great Henbit. 8.
Draba verna, XV. 1. Common Whitlow grass. Old walls and sandy

places. 4.

Ulex Europaeus, XVII. 3. Gorse or Whin. Heaths, etc. 12.
Senecio vulgaris, XIX. 2. Groundsel. Gardens. 12.
Taxus baccata, 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, Mealworm 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 coesiata, The February Carpet. Skirts of woods.

Pristonychus Terricola. I have in this instance
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 leucophthalmus by its smaller size and the
absence of wings.

Hydrophilus caraboides. This species, which is
so common in the south of England, (particularly
near London,) is rarely met with in the north. In
Nottinghamshire I have never heard of its being

FEBRUARY. 71

taken : the Nottingham district, including Sher-
wood Forest, is however very productive, although
some species are extremely local. The first British
specimens of Saperda ferrea were taken by myself
in the county.

Berosus luridus. The insects of this beautiful
genus are frequently confounded. I would, there-
fore, advise the young entomologist to examine
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 sometimes
taken in the vicinity of Nottingham, in this and the
two following months.

Coccinella septem-punctata, or Lady-bird, is as-
sociated 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, and thy children will burn ! etc.

It is an insect that deserves the protection of every
gardener and lover of plants ; its food being the
various species of aphides, those destroyers and
disfigurers of our hothouses and gardens. The
whole genus is subject to great variation ; so much
so, that it is impossible to determine the species
without carefully collecting couples.

Tenebrio molitor. The larvae (commonly called
meal-worms) of this domestic beetle form the fa-
vourite food of the nightingale when in confine-
ment.

LAYS OF THE SEASONS.

BY MARY HOWITT.

SPRING.

THE 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 wither'd leaves among,
To find the earliest, fragrant thing,
That dares from the cold earth to spring,
Or catch the earliest wild-bird's song.

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.

SPRING. 73

The aged man is in the field ;

The maiden 'mong her garden flowers ;
The sons of sorrow and distfess
Are wandering in fbrgetfulness

Of wants that fret and care that lours.

She comes with more than present good —

With joys to store for future years,
From which in striving crowds apart,
The bow'd 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 open'd to the bee,

And health, and love, and peace are there !

MARCH.

And now men see not the bright light which is in the clouds, bat
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 circumstance 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
weather, 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 weather 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 day of the month, there is a
dry chill air, with breaks of sunshine stealing here
and there over the landscape. The clouds above
fly about with a brisker motion, and the paths under

MARCH. 75

our feet, which yesterday were intolerably miry,
become at once solid and dry. The change is sur-
prising. 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 ransom," says the old proverb,
which we may suppose means, that the drying pro-
perty of March is invaluable, removing the super-
abundant humidity, and enabling the husbandman
to get in his seeds — the hope of summer produce.
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 conspicuous 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 months, for it gives
us the first announcement and taste of spring.
What can equal the delight 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 arid luxury of feeling, possesses us : and
let fifty springs have broken upon us, this joy, unlike

76 MARCH.

many joys of the time, is not an atom impaired.
Are we not young 1 Are we not boys 1 Do we
not break, by the power of awakened thoughts, into
all the rapturous scenes of 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 con-
trary, contributing towards that cheering and pecu-
liar feeling which we experience only in spring.
The sky is clear ; the sun flings 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 green-
ness— 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 glaucous
leaves and burnished flowers of the pilewrort,

The first gilt thing
That wears the trembling pearls of spring ;

and many other fresh and early bursts of greenery.

MARCH. 77

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, clustering leaves. The lark is
carolling in the blue fields of air ; the wood-lark
sings rejoicingly ; the blackbird and thrush are
again shouting and replying to each other, from the
tops of the highest trees. As you pass the cottages,
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 snowdrops and
rows of bright yellow crocuses, which every where
abound ; and the children, ten to one, are peeping
into the first birds' nest of the season — the hedge-
sparrow's with its four sea-green eggs, 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 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
7*

78 MARCH.

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 excite-
ment of the season overcoming their habitual timi-
dity. The bees are revelling in the yellow catkins
of the sallow. The harmless English snake is seen
again curling up like a little coil of rope, with its
head in the centre, on sunny green banks. The
woods, though yet unadorned with their leafy garni-
ture, 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 solitudes, there are symptoms
of revivification under your feet — the springing mer-
cury and green blades of the blue-bells — and per-
haps 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 neglected by the lover
of Nature, and if not neglected, 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 win'er-frosts, and

MARCH. 79

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,
wherever there is a stone, the throstles digging 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 tender-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
substitute 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 in-
creased ; 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 delightful acidulous material
for pies and puddings, till gooseberries are ready, it
is invaluable, and seems destined to acquire universal
estimation.

March, which was the first month in antiquity,
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 Lenct-monath, because the days now began

80 MARCH.

in length to exceed the nights. Lend also means
spring; therefore it was their spring month. It
was called, too, by them Rhed-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 under-
taken 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 sunshine 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 goldfinch, the golden-
crested wren, and the greenfinch are in song ; the
blackbird and the turkey lay ; house-pigeons sit ;
and the viper uncoils itself from its winter sleep.
The wheatear, or English ortolan, (saxicola O3nan-

MARCH. 81

the,) again pays its annual visit, leaving England in
September. The gannets, 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,
starlings may be seen in the fields, in large dense
flocks, circling about in their remarkable wheeling
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-winged 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 blos-
soms of the yew-tree expand and discharge their
farina. Besides the catkins of the hazel and the
sallow, the alder-trees are now covered with a kind
of black bunches, which are male and female
flowers. The leaves of honeysuckles are nearly
expanded, violets white and blue appear, and daf-
fodils,

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

82 MARCH.

RURAL OCCUPATIONS.

Cattle still require feeding in the yard. Plough-
ing and sowing are now going on vigorously,
while the dry March air favours the operation ;
and spring-wheat, rye, barley, beans, peas, etc.
are got in. The principal fall of larnbs 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 wrarm
milk, to restore others that appear dead by admi-
nistering a little spirit ; to counteract the unnatural
disposition of some mothers that refuse their off-
spring ; 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
consigned. 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 northern
counties, where the cold is greater, and the grass
not so early, lambs are later also, even till far in
May. On the contrary, in the southern counties,
especially wherever the Southdown breed of sheep
prevails, the fall of lambs is much earlier, many
of them appearing in December, and in February
lamb is pretty common on the table in London.
Many of these lambs are house-lambs. All require
great attention. The shepherds of large flocks

MAHCII. 83

have a house built in a quadrangle, round which
there are sheds where the ewes and their lambs
can be sheltered and fed ; and a fire is kept up day
and night in the shepherd's lodge, to which any
perishing or weakly lambs may be brought. Their
contrivances also in the fields are various and in-
teresting. The sheep are kept upon turnips, so as
to maintain their strength, and afford sufficient
nourishment to the lambs; screens of hurdles, or
straw, or fern, are raised to keep off the wind, and
troughs with corn, and linseed-cake, are placed
here and there in the fields where they feed, also
furnished with screens of wood, hurdle, or other
material, at once to protect the sheep as they feed
and prevent the corn being blown out by the winds.
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 Feb-
ruary. 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.

84 MARCH.

ANGLING.

The fresh-water fish which are about spawning,
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
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 con-
fined to bottom-fishing, principally with the wrorm,
the warmth not having yet sufficiently 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 Schceniclus, Reed Sparrow, goes Sept, Marshes, reedy
streams.

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

Oidicnemus Bellonii, Stone Curlew, goes Sept. Upland fields, sheep-
walks.

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

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

MARCH. 85

DEPARTURES,

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

streams.

Anas Penelope, Widgeon, comes Nov. Lakes and streams. '

Corvus Comix, Roystan, or Hooded Crow, goes March 22, comes Oct.

3. Downs.

Falco ^Esalon, 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.
Scolopax Rusticola, Woodcock, comes Oct. Dec. North of Europe,

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, comes 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 con-
siderable number.

CALENDAR OF THE FLOWER-GARDEN.

Class III. Order 1. Iris Susiana, Chalcedonian 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.
8

86 MARCH.

Borago orientalis, Perennial Borage. 5.

Allium 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 Amoena, 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.

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, Rough-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.

MARCH. 87

SELECT CALENDAR OF BRITISH BOTANY.

Class III. Order 1. Crocus vernus, Purple Spring Crocus. Locality,

Meadows. Duration, 4.

Crocus reticulatus, Net-rooted Crocus. Pastures — Suffolk. 4.
Triconema Bulbocodium, Channel-leaved Triconema. Guernsey. 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 Fragariastrum, Barren Strawberry. Banks. 6.

XIII. 3. Anemone Pulsatilla, Pasque Flower. Chalky pastures. 5.
Ranunculus Ficaria, Lesser Celindine. Banks. 5.

Caltha palustris, Marsh Marigold. Wet places. 5.

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

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. To 9.

88 MARCH.

PoGcilus dymidiatus. Dry banks, basking in the sunshine. To 5.

Poecilus cupreus. Pathways. To 7.

Pfficilus rufifemoratus. Pathways in the north. To 7.

Stomis pumicatus. Moist places. To 7.

Gyrinus natator. Surface of the water. To 10.

Gyrinus aeneus Surface of the water. To 9.

Necrophorus Mortuorum. Dead animals in woods. To 10.

Byrrhus pilula. Pathways in sandy places. To 8.

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

Dorcus parallelipipedus, Lesser Stag Beetle. Rotten Ash-trees. To 8.

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.

Proscarabaeus vulgaris. Sunny banks. To 5.

Corixa Geoffroyi. Ponds and ditches. To 10.

Macroglossa Stellatarum, 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 vEscularia, March Moth. Willow blossoms. York. To

3, 6, and 9.

Mr. Stephens has mentioned, on the authority of
several Continental entomologists, some of the pecu-
liarities of the larva? 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 larvas more than thirty holes, inhabited by the
Cicindela 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 pecu-
liar in this respect.

MARCH. 89

Poecilus rufifemoratus. This insect, which ap-
pears to be not uncommon in the north, is sparingly
taken in the sand district of Nottinghamshire. 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, informs me that Necrophorus Mortuorum
is frequently found on the Phajlus impudicus.

Necrophorus Vespillo. Most writers on ento-
mology have noticed the fact that this species is in
the habit of burying moles or birds a considerable
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 I should imagine most of our large
Necrophaga do the same.

APRIL.

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

Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly ; thou settlest the fur-
rows 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.

PSALMS Ixv. 9-13.

THE month of April is proverbial for its fickle-
ness; 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, flying 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 forward, to anticipate,
with a delightful enthusiasm, the progress of the
season. It is one of the excellent laws of Provi-
dence, that our minds shall be insensibly moulded
to a sympathy with that season which is passing,

APRIL. 91

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 disgusted with the deadness of the wintry
landscape, 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 de-
lights. Symptoms of spring now crowd thickly
upon us : however regular may be our walks, we
are daily surprised at the rapid march of vegetation,
at the sudden increase of freshness, greenness, and
beauty ; one old friend after another starts up be-
fore us in the shape of a flower. The violets
which came out in March in little delicate groups,
now spread in myriads along the hedge-rows, and
fill secluded lanes with their fragrance. In some
springs, however, though most abundant, yet, per-
haps owing to the dryness 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
thickets ; so that, whoever sees them in their per-
fection> will cease to wonder at the admiration
which Wordsworth has poured out upon them in
two or three separate pieces of poetry. Anemones
blush and tremble in copses and pastures ; the wild
cherry enlivens the woods ; and in the neighbour-
hood of Nottingham the vernal crocus presents a
unique and most beautiful appearance, covering

92 APRIL.

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 profusion of
plum-bloom; and the blackthorn and wild plum
wreathe their sprays with such pure 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 blossom of apples and the wilding fill up
the succession, harmonizing delightfully with the
tender green of the expanding leaves, and continu-
ing 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 the roman-
tic 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 un-
folding leaves diffuse a fine aromatic odour. The
ash-trees are quite black with their large conglome-
rated buds, which gradually unfold themselves into
tufts of fibres, whence the keys afterwards depend.
The alder too is covered, as in the end of last
month, with its dark bunches ; and the elm is per-

APRIL. 93

fectly 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 referring 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 migratory birds, and
the commencement of building their nests. Not
only the swallow tribe, the cuckoo, and the night-
ingale, whose arrival is noticed by almost every
body, but scores of other old acquaintances suddenly
salute you in your walks with their well-remembered
aspects and notes. White-throats, whinchats, reed-
sparrows, etc. perched on their old haunts, and fol-
lowing their diversified habits, seem as little fatigued,
or strange, as if they had worn invisible jackets all
winter, and had never left the spot. The sweet
voice of the turtle-dove is again heard in the woods
of the southern counties. There is something truly
delightful to the naturalist in the beauty of birds'
nests, and the endless variety of colours, spots, and
hieroglyphic scrolls, on their eggs ; the picturesque
places in which they are fixed, from the lapwing's

94

Al'KiL.

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 exquisite little
dome of the golden-crested wren, or the long-tailed
titmouse (parus caudatus), a perfect oval stuck
between the branches of a tree, having a small hole
on one side for entrance ; 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 in their admiration
of birds' nests. In vain do parents scold about torn
clothes, scratched hands, shoes spoiled with dew ;
every field and wood is traversed, every bush ex-
plored : no tree is too high, no 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 pic-
turesque situations in which they are placed ; there
are few people of taste residing in the country who
do not see them with a lively pleasure. Let us take
a survey of these interesting objects. Let us sup-
pose that we are in an old farm-house. The
chimney is inhabited by the swallow, and the eaves

APRIL. 95

by the martin, who have there fixed there mud
nests, lined them with feathers, and laid in them
their five or six white eggs spotted with red ; and
so strongly are these little creatures attached to the
places of their birth, that it is well known that they
return to them after flight across the ocean and
abode in some distant land. A lady of my ac-
quaintance had a nest of martins above her chamber
window, which, by some accident, fell when the
young were about half-fledged. She had them, four
in number, laid in a basket lined with feathers in the
chamber window, where the old birds fed them till
they were able to fly. The following spring four
martins flew in at this window, which happened to
stand open, flew round and round the room uttering
the most joyful warblings imaginable, then flew out
again and proceeded to build their nests just over
the window. There can be little doubt that these
were the four identical birds of the basket, the old
ones either having probably perished, or having taken
a disgust to the spot where they had been alarmed by
the fall of their nest.

The sparrows have found a crevice in the eaves,
or the roof, or, if it be of thatch, have scooped
themselves 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

96 APRIL.

brave roof and defence against rain for them. In
windy weather, however, the rook-nests are fre-
quently 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-
spotted eggs are deposited. If it be a half-timbered
house, it is ten to one but that the redstart has found
a hole too, in one of the upright timbers, in which
its nest and sea-green eggs are deposited ; or the
little tomtit has occupied that post. This active
slittle bird, which we see in the shrubbery swinging
about at the ends of slender boughs in pursuit of
caterpillars, etc. will sometimes become so tenacious
of its dwelling, 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 these curious
motley fabrics. I have, indeed, a blackbird's nest
which I found in the meadows very near Notting-
ham. It was built in a hedge just by a water-course,
from which a great quantity of flags had been cut ;

APRIL. 97

and of these dried flags it had constructed the base
and exterior of its nest of such a size, owing to this
bulky material, and so interwoven it with large
pieces of paper with which its vicinity to the town
had supplied it, as to form one of the strangest sights
imaginable. The same departure from the uni-
formity of material may be observed in situations
where the article commonly used is not to be found ;
otherwise, in selection of materials, in the degree of
ingenuity 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 waving locks, in the pear-tree. Its
eggs, like those of the w7ater-hen and the crake, are
marked with large pink spots. The wren has in-
serted 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 sensitive is
this little creature, that if her nest be only touched
with a finger, she will very seldom 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

9

98 APRIL.

very topmost 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 exceeding in
size the hollow half of a hen's egg. Its eggs, five
in number, are of a delicate bluish-gray, brown
spotted.

In the orchard hedge too is commonly found the
nest of the hedge-sparrow, — called often too the
foolish sparrow, because it, perhaps more than any
other bird, has the trouble of hatching the cuckoo's
egg, and rearing its young at the expense of its own,
imposed upon it. Whether the cuckoo is guilty of
sucking the eggs of small birds, at least to the extent
commonly supposed, is to me doubtful. That vast
quantities are sucked, is certain. I have found
abundance of nests with the shells in them newly
emptied ; but it is probable that snakes, mice, and
more especially weasels, are more frequently the
delinquents. I have myself seen snakes climbing
in the hedges in a very suspicious manner ; and
weasels and stoats, we know, will visit the farm-yard,
and make vast havoc with the eggs of all sorts of
tame fowl. The principal food of the cuckoo con-
sists certainly of caterpillars ; having, to ascertain
this point, shot one while uttering its note, and found
its crop distended with caterpillars of various kinds.
But for some, no doubt very sufficient reason, the
small birds do consider the cuckoo their enemy, and

APRIL. 99

pursue it with angry cries. Some naturalists ima-
gine that they mistake it for a hawk ; but I take
them to be better judges, and to know a cuckoo
from a hawk rather better than the acutest natu-
ralist of them all. They have doubtless good reasons
for their enmity, if we could hear them ; and for
these reasons they pursue them often in a crowd,
and mob them till they sometimes completely con-
found them. In this situation I saw one, one sum-
mer day, on Bulwell Common in Nottinghamshire,
and ran up to it, and clapped my hat upon it ; its
little enemies sitting round it so blinded by their rage,
that, had i had another hat, I verily believe I could
have caught some of them too. However, when
they flew away, I liberated the poor cuckoo, who
flew upon a neighbouring tree, and soon recovered
sufficient composure to resume his favourite cry. I
say, favourite cry ; for they have another strange,
quaint, bubbling cry, very little noticed by natu-
ralists.— But again to our eggs.

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 whinchat's,
with its eggs of sea-green; and the partridge's,
with perhaps fifteen eggs of a deep cream colour.
So closely does the partridge sit during incubation,
that the mower often unawares cuts off its head
with his scythe. In the banks, now luxuriant with
green herbs, the yellow-hammer builds a nest of
grass, and lines it with fine fibrous roots and horse-
hair ; and lays five eggs of a palish purple, orna-

100 APRIL.

mented with deep purple flourishes of a hiero-
glyphic-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 defence. None but the
most hardened and graceless 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 amongst the fresh-growing nettles, and
lays five eggs of a tawny colour, brown spotted.
Very similar to these are the nest and eggs of the
black-cap, or common warbler, as the bird itself, ex-
cepting its black head, is similar to the white-throat
in shape, colour, and habit. Its nest, however, is more

APRIL. 101

densely built, and is often placed in a shrub or bush
in the garden, and its eggs are larger and more
strongly coloured. Under hollow banks, amongst
the " old fantastic roots" of trees, especially over-
hanging a brook, the blackbird deMghts'to baild its
nest of dry bents, daubed internally with mud, and
lined with soft dry grass. Its eggs,,iii eomiiicfa wfcTr
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 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 beautiful.

In the woods the nest of the jay may be found,
in the lower trees, particularly the wilding, — 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
9*

102 APRIL.

mimicry. 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 pebbles, and with much solem-
'riity and a 'Studied air dropping them into a hole
about eighteen inches deep, made to receive a line-
'jpOsti ' Affer dropping each stone, it cried "carack!"
triumphantly, and set off for another. Making him-
self sure that he had found the objects of his search,
the gentleman 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 lapwing.
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 strata-
gems to decoy you from their nests, or young ones,
neither of which are readily found, interest you
strongly in their favour. The instinct of their
young is wonderful. Like those of the partridge,
they have scarcely emerged from the shell when
they begin to run from the nest, and by squandering
themselves in the fallow, or the turf of the pasture,
are not so readily observed as if they lay in a
group. The moment they hear the cry of alarm of
their parents in the air, they lie close to the ground,
and may easily be mistaken for little brown lumps

APRIL. 103

of earth. If you discover and take them up, they
continue motionless. If you lay them down, they
retain the posture you may happen to place them
in ; and although you hide yourself from their view,
they will rigidly maintain the same inanimate atti-
tude while the old birds continue their soaring aloft,
and their cries, though it were for a day. The mo-
ment the parent birds alight, they lift up their heads
and run cheerfully about.

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 constructed so wonderfully the whole world, and
to all the myriads of living creatures has given so
peculiar a difference of figure, habits, and disposi-
tion.

April is so called from the Latin Aprilis, which
is derived from Aperire, to open. The allusion is
obvious. The Saxons called it Osier or Easter-
monalh, 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

104 APRIL.

her saffron bed and ivory house, She was clothed
in a robe of crimson and violet colour; the cape
vermillion, 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 firmament, 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, beamed
on the small pebbles on the sides of rivers, and on
the strands, \vhich looked like beryl, while the re-
flection 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 shadowy 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 variegated
vesture of the valley clothed the cloven furrow, and
the barley-lands were diversified with flowery weeds.
The meadow was besprinkled with rivulets, and the

APRIL. 105

fresh moisture of the dewy night restored the herbage
which the cattle had cropped in the day. The blos-
soms 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 tendrils from the trellises. The germs of
the trees 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 em-
battled with banewort ; the seeded down flew from
the dandelion. Young weeds appeared among the
leaves of the strawberries 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
gray 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

106 APRIL.

path, and attended by his wives, Toppa and Partlet.
The painted peacock with gaudy plumes unfolded
his tail like a bright wheel, enshrouded in his silver
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
wandered through the thick wood shaws, and the
young fawns followed the dappled does. Kids
slipped through the briers 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 sparrow 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."

LEAFING OF TREES. In Sweden the budding and
leafing of the birch-tree is considered as a directory
for sowing barley; and as there is something ex-
tremely sublime and harmonious in that idea, I
flatter myself an account of it will be acceptable.

Mr. Harold Barck, in his ingenious dissertation
upon the foliation of trees, published in the Amoen.
Acad, vol. iiL, informs us that the illustrious Linnaeus

APRIL. 107

had, in the most earnest manner, exhorted his coun-
trymen to observe, with all care and diligence, at
what time each tree unfolds its buds and expands
its leaves ; imagining, 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 advises
the prudent husbandman to watch, with the greatest
care, the proper time for sowing ; because this, with
Divine assistance, produces plenty of provision, and
lays the foundation of the public welfare of the state,
and of the private happiness of the people. The
ignorant farmer, tenacious of the ways and customs
of his ancestors, fixes his sowing-season generally
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 ap-
proaches, and experience supports us in the conclu-
sion ; but nobody 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 vege-

108 APRIL.

tate; nor can any one assert that a premature
sowing will always, and in every place, accelerate
a ripe harvest. Perhaps, therefore, we cannot pro-
mise ourselves a happy success by any means so
likely, as by taking our rule for sowing from the
leafing of the trees. We must, for that end, observe
in what order every tree puts forth its leaves. To
these most ingenious remarks Mr. Barck has added
the order of the leafing of trees in Sweden. Mr.
Stillingfleet 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 19. Marsh Elder . . . April 11

2. Gooseberry . . . Mar. 11 20. Wych Elm ..." 12

3. Currant "11 21. Quicken Tree . . " 13

4. Elder . , -. . . . " 11 22. Hornbeam ..." 13

5. Birch April 1 23. Apple Tree ..." 14

6. Weeping Willow . . " 1 24. Abele " 16

7. Raspberry . ..." 3 25. Chestnut . . . . " 16

8. Bramble "3 26. Willow " 17

9. Brier "4 27. Oak "18

10. Plum "6 28. Lime " 19

11. Apricot "6 29. Maple " 21

12. Peach "6 30. Walnut " 2l

13. Filbert "7 31. Plane " 21

14. Sallow "7 32. Black Poplar . . " 21

15. Alder "7 33. Beach " 21

16. Sycamore . ..." 9 34. Acacia Robinia . . " 21

17. Elm "10 35. Ash " 22

18. Quince "10 36. Carolina Poplar . . " 22

In different years, and in different soils and expo-
sitions, these trees and shrubs vary as to their leaf-
ing, but they are invariable as to their succession.

APRIL. 109

being bound down to it by Nature herself: a farmer,
therefore, who would use this sublime idea of Lin-
naeus, 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 number of years, he will be enabled to
form an exact calendar for his spring corn. An
attention 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 com-
pared to the writing on the wall, which was seen
by many but understood by few. They seem to
constitute a kind of harmonious intercourse 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 determine for the next. The hints
of Linnaeus constitute an universal rule for the whole
10

110 APRIL.

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 vil-
lages in search of food and materials to construct
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, (vanellus cristatus,) lays her
eggs and sits, for she makes no rest. The beech,
the larch, and the elm are now in full leaf. The
larch also exhibits 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.

There is a singular appearance often observed in
spring, which has excited many a superstitious ter-
ror in the minds of the simple country people, and
in reality is very striking. It is the print of foot-
steps across the grass of the fields, as though they
had been footsteps of fire. The grass is burnt black
in the footprints, presenting a startling contrast
with the vivid green of that around. The common
people have consequently 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 tender,
and is as effectually destroyed by the pressure of a

APRIL. Ill

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 draining, 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, flax, hemp,
mustard, rape, poppy, rhubarb, and other medicinal
plants ; at the end of the month planting mangel-
wurzel, carrots, and Swedish turnips. Early pota-
toes are planted. Hops are poled, and the ground
between the rows dressed. Evergreens are planted,
as holly, yew, and the fir tribes. Poultry broods
are now numerously hatched, and demand much of
the good housewife's care. The anxieties attending
the raising of young poultry are far from incon-
siderable. 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 ; sprinkling them with
water as they approach the time of hatching ; sup-
plying the sitting fowls daily with food and water ;

112 APRIL.

assisting the chicks occasionally 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
chickens, ducklings, goslings, etc. and see a basket
set near the fire, covered with a flannel ; or a wor-
sted 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 the hen till
they are strong enough to follow her, and are fed
with those various compounds which good house-
wives prepare. It is a common practice to give
each young turkey a peppercorn the first thing ; but
good judges disapprove of it, and prefer to feed them
with chopped docks and oatmeal. It is also very
requisite that young turkeys should be supplied with
good sharp gravel. Soft or friable sand will not
do. The most successful rearers of turkey broods
assure me that they found it impossible to keep them
from dying in great numbers till they gave them
pounded glass, or what is better, pounded pebbles,
since which they seldom lose any. Many broods
of young poultry, and especially turkeys, which, as
they are the hardiest of birds when grown, are cer-
tainly 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, or tread upon them,
which she is very apt to do ; that they are not over-
taken by rain, or get into other dangers, not the
least of which is being carried off by weasels, or

APRIL. 113

polecats, which often lurk about farm-yards for the
purpose of seizing eggs and young poultry. A
white terrier of mine, on one occasion, drew from
its burrow, which it had made under some wood in
a stable, a large polecat, and fifteen young ducklings
which it had carried off from the adjoining farm-
yard within the course of a day or two, to the great
marvel of the farmer's wife, who missed the duck-
lings one after another, but could not perceive how
they went — 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 lobworm, minnow, or other small fish. The
tench is a lively prey this month, bating with a good
worm. Cotton says the grayling is never out of
season, and reckons him yet a winter fish. Walton
declares him to be " a pleasant fish and a 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.

10*

114 APRIL.

MIGRATION OF BIRDS.
ARRIVALS.

Charadrius Hiaticula, Ring Dottrel, comes April, goes August.

Haunts, Sea-shore.
Columba Turtur, Turtle Dove, goes Sept. Woods in Kent, Surrey,

etc.

Coturnix vulgaris, Quail, goes Aug. Sept. Grassy fields.
Cuculus canorus, Cuckoo, comes early in April, goes July, Aug.

Frelds, generally.
Curruca luscinia, Nightingale, comes April 15, goes Aug. 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 September.

Gardens.

Curruca locustella, Grasshopper Lark, goes Sept. Brakes and bushes.
Curruca hortensis, Pettychaps, goes Sept. Shrubberies in Southern

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 rustics, Swallow, comes April 13, goes Sept. Nov. Chimneys.
Hirundo riparia, Sand Martin, goes Oct. SandclifTs 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.
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 PJwenicurus, Redstart, goes Oct. Orchards and old walls.

APRIL. 115

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

marshes.
Totanus Hypoleucos, Common Sandpiper, goes Oct. Pebbly margins

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 noevius, Grey Gull, goes April 10, comes Aug. 4. Haunts,

Beach.
iLarus argentatus, Blue, or Herring Gull, goes April 10, comes Aug.

Beach.

Loxia curvirostra, Crossbill, comes Aug. Orchards.
•Otus brachyotus, Short-eared Owl, comes Oct. Woods and hilly

tracts.
;Spathulea clypeata, Common Shoveller, 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.

MIGRATION OF SWALLOWS.

The subject of the migration of the swallow tribe
has been agitated by naturalists from remote anti-
quity. Many foolish notions upon it have been ad-
vanced, which are now very properly abandoned ;
and the inquiry may be said to be set at rest. One
would wonder, indeed, when we consider that, by
the lightness of their bodies, and their length and
speed of wing, they are, of all birds, the best calcu-
lated for migration, how a doubt could have arisen

116 APRIL.

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 de-
parted, on the breaking out of a few fine days;
and a few, which in spring appear first, as sud-
denly disappear on the return of cold. Can this be
any wonder in birds of such velocity ? Some how-
ever 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 departure, 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 the 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 let the poor birds
go, as Nature has given them power, to the
southern lands of summer.

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, stay-
ing a few days in some particular spots. In the

APRIL. 117

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.

III. 1. Iris pumilla, Dwarf Iris.

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

V. 1. Lonicera Tartarica, Tartarian Honeysuckle. 5.

Rhamnus Alaternus, cum var. Common Alaternus, with varieties. 6.

Pulmonaria angustifolia, Narrow-leaved Lungwort.

Polemonium reptans, Creeping Greek Valerian. 5.

Primula villosa, Hairy Primula. 5.

Primula uivea, 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, Alpine Soldanella.

Cyclamen Europaeum, European Cyclamen.

Phlox subulata, Awl-leaved Lychnidea. 5.

Phlox setacea, Bristly Lychnidea. 5.

Nemophila insignis, Blue Nemophila. 8.

Violae, mult. Violets, various. 5.

Vinca major, Greater Periwinkle. 7.

Vinca minor, Lesser Periwinkle. 7.

V. 2. Gentiana acaulis, Gentianella. 5.

Genliana verna, Spring Gentian.

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

VI. 1. Fritillaria Meleagris, Chequered Fritillary.
Fritillaria latifolia, Broad-leaved Fritillary.
Fritillaria Persica, Persian Fritillary.
Berberes, mult. Barberries, various.
Narcissus majalis, Large-flowered Narcissus. 5.
Narciseus incomparabilis, Peerless Daffodil. 5.
Narcissus Jonquilla, Jonquil. 5.

Narcissus Hispanicus, cum aliis. Spanish White Narcissus, with

others. 5.

Tulipa sylvestris, Italian yellow Tulip. 5.
Tulipa Gesneriana, Common Garden Tulip. 5.
Ornithogalum nutans, Nodding Star of Bethlehem. 5.
Ornithogalum umbellatum, Umbellate Star of Bethlehem. 5.

118 APRIL.

Scilla Italica, Italian Squill. 7.

Hyacinthus muscari, Musk Hyacinth. 5.

VI. I. 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, Glaucus Kalmia.
Ledum palustre, Marsh Rosemary. 5.

Ledum v. decumbens, Dwarf Marsh Kusemary. 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. jlnre pleno, Double-flowered Laurel.

Prunus Cerasus, v. flore plena, Double flowered Cherry.

XII. 2. Crataegus coccinea, American Hawthorn. 3.

XII. 4. Spiraea Hypericifolia, Hypericum-leaved Spiraea. 5.

Spiraea crenata, Crenated Spiraea. 5.

Spiraea sorbifolia, Mountain-ash-leaved Spiraea.

XII. 5. Rosa cinnamomea, flore 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. fore pleno, Double Virgin's Bower.
Ranunculus amplexicaulis, Plaintain-leaved Ranunculus.
Anemone coronaria, Common Garden Anemone. 5.
Anemone nemoralis, flore 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.

XV. 2. Cheiranthus fruticulosis. Wallflower. 11.

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

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

XXI. 7. Arum tenifolium, Slender-leaved Arurn. 6.

Arum Arisarum, Friar's Cowl Arum. 6.

XXI. 8, Cupressus Thyoides, Arbor-vitae-leaved Cypress. 5.

APRIL. 119

SELECT CALENDAR OF BRITISH BOTANY,

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

II. 1. Fraxinus excelsior, Common Ash Tree. Woods and hedges. 5.
Veronica verna, cum aliis. Vernal Speedwell, with others. Barren

sand.

III. 1. Fedia olitoria, Lamb's Lettuce. Corn-fields. 6.
Eriophorum angustifolium, Common Cotton Grass. In bogs.

V. 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.
Ribes petrseum, Wild Currant

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

VI. 1. Narcissus biflorus, Pale Narcissus. Sandy fields. 5.
Fritillaria Meleagris, Fritillary. Meadows. 5.

Tulipa sylvestris, Wild. 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 trydactylites, Rue-leaved Saxifrage. Walls and ruins.

X. 4. Oxalis Acetosella, Wood Sorrel. Damp Woods. 5.

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

XIII. 3. Anemone nemorosa, Wood Anemone. Woods. 5.
Anemone Apennina, Blue Mountain Anemone. Groves, rare. 5.

120 APRIL.

Anemone ranunculoides, Yellow Wood Anemone. Groves, rare.

Ranunculus auricomus, Goldilocks. Woods. 6.

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

XIV. 2. Lathrsea 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.
Barbarea vulgaris, Common Cress Rocket. Banks and streams. 8.
Cheiranthus fruticulosus, Wild Wallflower. 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. 6.
Equisetum fluviatile. Great Water Horsetail. Moist Woods. 6.

SELECT CALENDAR OF BRITISH INSECTS.

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

APRIL. 121

Blethisa multipunctata. Moist banks in the south. And 5.
Helophorus aquaticus. Weeds in ponds. And 10.
Hydrobius picipes. ) T
Hydrobius fuscipes. ^" ^gnant 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.

Copris lunaris.

Onthophagus Tauris.

Onthophagus Coenobita.

Onthophagus nuchicornis. ? Under danS in

Onthophagus nutans.

Onthophagus ovatus.

Typhoeus vulgaris, the Bull-comber. Under dung on heaths.

Geotrupes vernalis, Vernal Dor-beetle. Under dung on hearths.

And 9.
Anobium tesselialum, 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, etc. To 8.
Opatrum sabulosum. Sandy places. To 8.
Melandrya caraboides. Decayed trees. To 6.
Proscarabasus violaceus. Sunny banks. To 6.
Staphylinus aeneocephalus. Pathways. To 6.
Gryllotalpa vulgaris, Mole-cricket. Moist ground. To 5.
Pontia Chariclea, the early White Butterfly. Gardens, etc. And 6.
Pontia Rapoe, Small White Butterfly. Gardens, etc. And 7 to 8.
Pontia Metra, Mr. Howard's White Butterfly. Hertford and Ripley.

And 6 to 7.

Pontia Daplidice, Green-chequered White Butterfly. South of Eng-
land. And 5 to 8.
Hipparchia ^Egeria, Speckled Wood White Butterfly. Woods. And

to 9.
Hipparchia Megsera. The Wall Butterfly. Woods and lanes. And

6 to 7.
Lycsena Phlaeas, 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.
11

122 APRIL.

Phlogophora meticulosa, Angleshades. Heaths and Woods. And 8.
Plusia Gamma, Silver Y-Moth. Gardens and fields, And 6 & 9.
Alucita hexadactyla, Six-cleft Plume Moth. Houses, etc. And 5 & 9.

Clivina fossor is, in the early spring and summer
months, extremely abundant in the vale of Trent, and
subject to great variation in colour, from the common
piceous, to brunneous and light testaceous. I men-
tion this because the light varieties are generally
considered scarce, or might be confounded with
collaris ; but, on examination, they are readily dis-
tinguished 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 likewise throw much light on
their habits and peculiarities.

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 country ; the stercorarius, the lasvis,
the vernalis, and one which I suspect to be the syl-
vaticus. The laevis and vernalis, are very nearly
allied ; they agree in the colour of the antennae, in

APRIL. 123

the minutely and entirely punctured thorax, and the
smoothness of the elytra, but differ in size and
colour. The Isevis is inferior in size, generally of a
deep black on the upper surface, but sometimes
tinged with green, or olivaceous; 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, abdomen,
and legs are splendidly tinged with violet, puce,
and blue. Mr. Curtis, in his description of the
laevis, in a recent number of his excellent work on
" British Entomology," mentions, 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 pe-
culiar noise which this little beetle makes by beat-
ing its head in rapid succession against the wood it
inhabits, has been regarded amongst the supersti-
tious as an omen of death. It is generally in April
and May when its knockings are most frequent ;
and it is now generally understood to be a signal
by which they are enabled 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 each other for a considerable

1*24 APRIL.

time. They infest houses where there is much old
timber, and trees in a state of decay, and are ex-
ceedingly destructive.

Gryllotalpa vulgaris. The mole-cricket, an in-
sect of very peculiar construction, is an inhabitant
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 seldom comes abroad ex-
cept in evenings during the spring, when, as
Gilbert White, in his "Natural History of Sel-
borne," says, " They begin to solace themselves
with a low, dull, jarring note, continued for a long
time without interruption." It appears to be con-
fined 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.

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.

SONG OF SOLOMON, ii. 11, 12.

HOWEVER the festivities with which our ancestors
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 garniture, and the bursts of unop-
pressive sunshine ; for, though we moderns may
abandon the customs 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 May is a gladsome month withal.
Vegetation has made a proud progress, it has be-
come deep, lavish, and luxuriant ; and nothing can
be more delightful than the tender green of the
young hawthorn leaves. Primroses still scatter
their million of pale stars over shady banks, and
among the mossy roots of hazels; and, once more,
11*

126 MAY.

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 agreeable objects
than when they have only half assumed their green
array. Beautiful and refreshing is the sight of the
young leaves bursting forth from the gray boughs,
some trees at one degree of advance, some at ano-
ther. The assemblage of the giants of the wood is
seen, each in its own character and figure ; neither
disguised nor hidden in the dense mass of foliage
which obscures them in summer; — you behold the
scattered and majestic trunks; the branches stretch-
ing 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 gray and mossy branches, and of the

MAY. 127

delicate richness 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, — another is
mottled with gray and green, struggling as it were
which should have the predominance, 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 albescent 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 recognise the speech
of many a little creature who, since we last heard
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
chaffinch, or the winkle-winkle of the blackbird 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 morn-
ings by three or four o'clock the fields are filled with

128 MAY.

a perfect clamour of bird-voices, but at noon the
wood is their oratory. There the woodpecker'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, tempt-
ing us to continue our stroll till after sunset. We
see around us fields golden with crowfoot, 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, sunshine, 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. There is the cheerful hum of bees amongst
the flowers; and the cockchafer, which has delighted
us all in our boyhood, is hovering about the green
leaves of the sycamore. Sheep-washing is begun in

MAY. 129

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 animation. The massy foliage of
trees swings heavily, the boughs of the hawthorn
wave with all their loads of fragrant bloom, and
snowy umbelliferous 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 besnowcd
With the blossoms' gorgeous load,
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,
Kingcup which in deep gold shines ;
Dandelion with globe of down,
The schoolboy'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 wayfaring feet,
As I have, ere now, descried
By the thundrous 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,

130 MAY.

after gazing on their sunny quietude, their lilachs,
peonies,wall-flowers, tulips, anemones and corco-
ruses with their yellow tufts of flowers, now be-
coming 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 addition to a tolerable remuneration for
the labour of his hands, enjoy a clean cottage and
a garden amidst the common but precious offerings
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 " Forest
Scenery," a passage proving the poets to be very
foolish for their admiration of so insignificant and
inelegant a bush. We, however, shall take part with
Burns, only we would conjure a nightingale into his
hawthorn, and the hawthorn into a forest; for of all
May delights, listening to the nightingale is the

MAY. 131

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 quietly resting
in their thickest shadows ; and the night-breeze, ever
and anon, wafting through the air "Sabean odours;"
then, if you feel neither 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 substi-
tute, as a friend of ours convinced us on such an
occasion, making the woods echo with the " Pibroch
of Dormel Dhu."

FLOWERS. The return of May again brings
over us a living sense of the loveliness and delight-
fulness of flowers. Of all the minor creations of
God they seem to be most completely the effusions
of his love of beauty, grace, and joy. Of all the
natural objects which surround us they are the least
connected with our absolute necessities. Vegetation
might proceed, the earth might be clothed with a
sober green ; all the processes of fructification might
be perfected 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 evidences 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

132 MAY.

what eagerness do very 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.

WORDSWORTH.

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 charac-
ters and beauties. 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 loveliness and purity.

The ancient Greeks, whose souls pre-eminently
sympathized with the spirit of grace and beauty in
every thing, were enthusiastic in their love, and

MAY. 133

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 wherever
they wished to throw beauty, and to express glad-
ness, like sunshine, they cast flowers.

Something of the same spirit seems to have pre-
vailed 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 rosebuds before they be
withered." But amongst that solemn and poetical
people they were commonly regarded in another
12

134 MAY.

and higher sense, they were the favourite symbols
of the beauty and the fragility of life. Man is com-
pared to the flower of the field ; and if 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 imbued 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-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much
more clothe you, O ye of little faith ?" The senti-
ment built upon this, entire dependence on the good-
ness of the Creator, is one of the lights of our exist-
ence, and could only have been uttered by Christ; but
we have here also the expression 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 ;
on the wilderness where there is no 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 ;

MAY. 135

why beauty, and flowers, and fruit, should be
scattered so exuberantly where there are none to
enjoy them. But the thoughts of the Almighty 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 traveller!
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 verdant 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 Omnipo-
tence creation costs not an effort ; but to the
desolate and the weary, how immense is the happi-
ness thus prepared in the wilderness ! Who does
not recollect the exultation of Vaillant over a flower
in the torrid wastes of Africa 1 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 respected by all the animals
of the district, and seemed defended even by its

136 MAY.

beauty. The affecting mention of the influence of
a flower upon his mind in a time of suffering and
despondency, in the heart of the same savage con-
tinent, 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 coun-
tries 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 potevanto avere, piena:" and at the
table of the narrators of the Decameron stories, as
" Ogni cosa di fiori di ginestra coperta." In Eng-
land they are much less used than on the Continent,
and much less than they were by our ancestors.
On May-day, at Whitsuntide, and on other holiday
occasions, 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 some-
thing so pure and beautiful in the plentiful use of
flowers, that I cannot but lament 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 expres-
sive 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

MAY. 137

in his celebrated piece of sculpture — the two Chil-
dren at Lichfield. 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 unsullied 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 insects, 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, per-
haps, less love of showy festivity than our ances-
tors ; 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
daedal season of the year. The Saxons termed it
Trimilki, because they began to milk their cows
three times a-day in this month.
12*

138 MAY.

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 honeysuckle, 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 haw-
thorn-flower, the mountain-ash, the laburnum, the
guelder-rose, the alder, the elm and the wayfaring
tree.

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 dreary 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 lovest to show
Thy coronals of fragrant snow,
Like life's spontaneous joys that flow

In paths by thousands beat ?
Whatever 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 pour'd their lays
In the lone list'ner's ear,

MAY. 139

Like songs of an enchanted land,
Sung sweetly to some fairy band,
Listening with dofTd helms in each hand
In some green hollow near.

W. H.

Rye is in ear at the end of the month. This too
is the benting 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 pick up so bare a
living as to have occasioned an old couplet, often
quoted in the country,

The pigeon never knoweth wo,
Until a-benting it doth go.

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

BEES. 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 to his own use,
provides them with a more secure dwelling, and

140 MAY.

repays himself with their honey. There is some-
thing very picturesque in the manner of reclaim-
ing the swarms of bees. Their departure 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 ring-
ing is commenced upon a pan or a fire-shovel,
which, as country people say, charms them down.
They alight, or rather the queen-bee alights, upon
the end of a bough ; and the rest of the bees clus-
tering, 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 inverted
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 dwelling. They will frequently fix them-
selves 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 un-
lucky 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.

MAY. 141

RURAL OCCUPATIONS.

Cattle are turned out to pasture as soon as there
is a sufficiency of grass, which is not till towards
the end of the month. The spring crops being
sown, the great business of the farmer is now on
his fallows. The farmyard is cleared of manure ;
turf is pared and burnt. Cow-cabbage and pota-
toes are planted, water-meadows are irrigated to en-
courage the growth of the hay-crop ; young quick-
set hedges are cleared of weeds ; hop plantations
require cleaning, 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
woodmen at work at alt times : and although I re-
gret to see the destruction of timber, yet a large
tree with all its branches prostrate on the ground is
a fine sight ; the clear, golden-coloured chips scat-
tered about, and a fresh sylvan odour breathing
from the wounded boughs, and the brown cylindri-
cal shells of bark ranged in pyramidal rows to dry.
It is a 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 housewife
into all the cares and nice clean processes of the
dairy, skimming, churning, and cheese-making. The

142 MAY.

farmhouse is now an affluent place, abounding in
all the good things which may be made from milk ;
rich cream, sweet butter, curds, curds and cream,
syllabubs, custards, 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, training, and putting
in flower seeds. The children of the poor have an
easy and pleasant occupation 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 mode-
rately 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
forenoon, and from two to seven in the afternoon :
but Isaac Walton says they will bite at all seasons,
and at all hours; "being like the wicked of this
world, not afraid, though their companions perish in

MAY. 143

their sight." Worms, minnows, boiled horsebeans,
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, however, is 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 Hampshire, as
salmon are in Scotland, striking them down with a
spear.

Flies. The oakfly to be found from the begin-
ning of this month to the end of August, on the bole
of an oak or ash, always standing head downwards :
the hawthornfly, a small black fly : the Turkeyfly,
red and yellow; alderfly, and the great hackle.
These are chiefly stone flies, or phryganese.

144 MAY.

MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS.
ARRIVALS.

Alca Torda, Razor-bill, comes May, goes August. Haunts, Rocky

isles.

Anthus trivialis, Field Titlark, goes Aug. Grassy fields.
Caprimulgas Europoeus, 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. Phillyreee, mult. Phillyreas, various.

Syringa Persica, Persian Lilach. 6.

Syringa v. latifolia, Broad-leaved Lilach.

Veronica aphyllia, Naked-stalked Speedwell. 7.

Veronica bellidoides, Broad-leaved Speedwell.

Calceolaria Fothergilli, Fothergill's Slipperwort. 8.

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

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

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

Azalea nudiflora, Red Azalea, 6.

MAY. 145

Azalea v. coccinea, Scarlet Azalea.

Azalea v. cornea, Flesh-coloured Azalea.

Azalea v. alba, Early white Azalea.

Azalea v. papilionacca, cum mult, aliis. Variegated Azalea, with many

others.

Lonicera sempervirens, Trumpet Honeysuckle. 8.
Lonicera Pyrenaica, Pyrenean Honeysuckle.
Lonicera Diervilla, Yellow Honeysuckle. 7.
Lonicera caprifolium, Italian White Honeysuckle. 6.
Lonicera v. rubra, Early Red Honeysuckle.
Lycium barbarum, Willow-leaved Boxthorn. 8.
Lycium Europaeum, European Boxthorn. 8.
Anthusa angustifolia, Narrow-leaved Buglos. 8.
Symphytum Orientale, Eastern Comfrey. 7.
Phlox glaberrima, Smooth-stalked Lychnidea. 6.
Phlox pilosa, Hairy Lychnidea. 6.
Phlox ovata, Oval-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.
Echium Orientale, Eastern Viper's Buglos. 8.
Echium violaceum, Violet Viper's Buglos.
V. 1. Echium v.flore plena, Double Viper's Buglos.
V. 3. Viburnum opulus Amer : American Guelder-rose.
Viburnum v. rosea, Snowball Guelder-rose.
Staphyllea trifolia, Three-leaved Bladder-nut. 6.
Rhus aromaticum, Aromatic Sumach.

V. 5. Statice Cephalotes, Large single-leaved Thrift.
Statice cordata, Heart-leaved Thrift. 7.

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

13

146 MAY.

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 coerulea, Blue Day-Lily. 7.

VIII. 1. (Enothera rosea, Rose-flowered Tree Primrose.

CEnothera primula, Dwarf-yellow Tree Primrose. 9.

(Enothera Romanzovii, Romanzow's (Enothera. 8.

CEnothera bifrons, Lindley's CEnothera. 11.

Clarkia pulchella, Pretty Clarkia. 7.

Clarkia pulchella, v. alba, White Clarkia. 7.

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

Daphne Cneorum, Sweet-scented Daphne.

Erica viridipurpurea, Green and Purple Heath.

X. 1. Ledum latifolium, Labrador Tree.

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

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

X. 2. Saxifraga Pensylvatica, cum mult, aliis. Pennsylvanian Saxi-
frage, with many others. 6.

Saponaria ocymoides, Basil-leaved Soapwort. 7.

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

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

others. 6.

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

Reseda alba, Upright Reseda. 10.

XII. 1. Philadelphus coronarius, Common Syringa. 6.
Philadelphia nanus, Dwarf Syringa. 6.

XII. 1. Amygdalus, pumila, Dwarf Almond. 6.

Prunus Virginiana, cum mult, aliis. Virginian Bird's cherry, with

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

many others. 6.
Pyrus Pyracantha, cum mult, aliis. Evergreen Thorn, with many

others.

Cydonia communis, Common Quince. 6.
Spiraea tri-lobata, Three-lobed Spiraea. 6.

MAY. 147

Mesembryanthemum crystallinum, Crystalline Fig-Marigold. 8.
Mesembryanthemum glaciate, Ice-plant. 8.
Mesembryanthemum pinnatifidum, Wing-cleft Fig-Marigold. 10.
XII. 3. Rosa spinosissima, cum mult, aliis. Striped Scotch Rose,
with many others.

XII. 5. Calycanthus floridus, Carolina Allspice. 7.
Calycanthus v. oblongus, Long-leaved Allspice.
Geum strictum, Upright Avens. 6.

XIII. 1. Cistus populifolius, Poplar-leaved Cistus. 6.
Cistus v. minor, Small Cistus.

Cistus marifolius, Marum-leaved Cistus. 6.

Actea racemosa, American Herb Christopher. 6.

Papaver Orientale, Oriental Poppy. 6.

XIII. 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 acontifolius, cum mult, aliis. Fair Maids of France,

with many others. 6.
Thalictrum aquilegifolium, cum mult, aliis. Feathered Columbine,

with many others. 7.

Collinsia grandiflora, Great-flowered Collinsia. 7.
Collinsia bicolor, Two-coloured Collinsia. 7.
XV. 1. Lunaria rediviva, Perennial Honesty. 6.
XV. 2. Hesperis matronalis, Single Rocket. 8.
Matthiola annua, Ten-week Stock. 11.
Matthiola incana, Brompton Ten- week Stock. 11.
Cheiranthus Alpinus, Alpine Stock. 11.
XVII. 2. Corydalis nobilis, Great-flowered Fumitory.
Corydalis spectabilis, Scarlet Fumitory.
XVII. 4. Spartium multiflorum, cum aliis. White Broom, with

others. 6.

Ononis rotundifolia, Round Rest-harrow. 7.
Ononis fruticosa, Shrubby Rest-harrow. 7.
Cytisus Laburnum, Common Laburnum.
Cytisus v. latifolia, Scotch Laburnum.
Robinia pseudo-acacia, Common Acacia. 6.
Robinia hispida, Rose Acacia. 9.
XVII. 4. Lupinus perennis, Perennial Lupine. 7.

148 MAY.

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

XIX. 1. Leontodum aureum, Golden Dandelion.
Tragopogon vilosus, Villous Goat's-beard. 6.
Tragopogon porrifolius, Purple-flowered Goat's-beard. 6.
Calendula arvensis, Field Marigold. 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 Orientalis, Eastern Hornbeam.
Thuja Occidentalis, American Arbor- vitas.
Thuja Orientalis, Chinese Arbor-vitae.
Cupressus sempervircns, Upright Cypress.

XXII. 2. Salix incubacea, Spreading Willow.
XXII. 9. Coriara myrtifblia, 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 II. Order 1. Veronica chamaedrys, cum aliis. Germander
Speedwell, with others. locality, woods and hedges. Dura-
tion, 10.

Pinguicula vulgaris, Yorkshire Sanicle. Bogs. 6.

II. 2. Anthoxanthum odoratum, Sweet-Scented Vernal Grass. Pas-

tures. 6.

III. 2. Alopccurus pratensis, Common Foxtail Grass. Meadows. 8.
Aira pnecox, Early Hair Grass. Heaths. 6.

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 Plaintain. Road-sides. 10.

Epimedium alpinum, Barren Wort. Yorkshire, Scotland, on moun-
tains. 10

IV. 3. Ilex aquifolium, Common Holly. Hedges. 10.
Maenchia erecta, Upright Pearlwort. Heaths. 6.

V. 1. Myosotis csepitosa, Tufted Water Scorpion-Grass. Watery

places. 6.

Myosotis sylvatica, Wood Scorpion-Grass. Woods. 7.
Anchusa sempervirens, Evergreen Alkanet. Amongst rubbish. 7.

MAY. 149

Symphytum officinalis, Common Comfrey. Banks of rivers. 6.
Viola tricolor, Pansy, Heartsease. Gardens and fields. 9.
Viola lutea, Yellow Mountain Violet. Mountains. 9.
Rhamnus catharticus, Common Buckthorn. Hedges. 9.
Rhamnus Frangula, Berry-bearing Alder. Moist woods. 9.
Euonymus Europaeus, Spindle Tree. Hedges. 9.
V. 1. Vinca minor, Lesser Periwinkle. Banks. 6.
Vinca major, Greater Periwinkle. Moist woods. 6.
V. 2. Chenopodium Bonus Henricus, Mercury Goosefoot. Way-
sides. 6.

Myrrhis odorata, Sweet Cicely. Mountainous Pastures. 7.
Sanicula Europaea, 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 sestivum, 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.

VI. 1. 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 Europe, Winter Green. Pine Woods. 6.

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

Acer pseudo-platanus, Sycamore. ) ,,T , , , , ,.
J > 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 csespitosa, 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-sorrel. Waste ground. 10.
Lychnis dioca, Red and White Campions. Fields and gardens. 10.
XII. 1. Prunus Padus, Bird's Cherry. )
Prunus Cerasus, Wild Cherry Tree. $
XII. 2. Mespilus Oxycantha, — Hawthorn — May. ?
Pyrus malus, Crab Tree. \ Hedges. 6.

Pyrus torminalis, Wild Service Tree. Hedges and Woods. 6.
Pyrus aucuparia, Mountain Ash. Mountainous woods. 6.

13*

150 MAY.

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

XII. 3. Rubus idaeus, 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. 6.
Trollius Europoeus, Globe Flower. Mountainous woods. G.

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 Cymbalaria, Ivy-leaved Snap-dragon. Banks and walls. 1 1 .
Linnaea borealis, Two-flowered Linnaea. Pine-woods, Scotland. 6.

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

XV. 2. Cardamine impatiens, Impatient Cardamine. Moist places. 6.
Erysimum Alliaria, Jack-by-the-hedge. Banks and Hedges. G.
Hesperis matronalis, Dame's Violet. Hilly pastures. 6.

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

XVI. 2. Geranium phaeum, Dusky Crane's-bill. Mountainous
thickets. 6.

Geranium Robertianum, Herb Robert. Hedges and banks. 10.
Geranium lucidum, Shining Crane's bill. Moist rocks. 8.
XVI. 2. Geranium dissectum, Jagged-leaved Crane's-bill. Waste
ground. 7.

XVI. 3. Malva sylvestris, Common Mallow. Roadsides. 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 JNissolia, Crimson Grass- Vetch. Bushy places. 6.
Vicia sepium, Common Blush-Vetch. Corn-fields. 6.
Ornithopus purpusillus, Birds'-foot. Sandy places. 9.
Trifolium pratense, Common Red Clover. Pastures. 9.

XIX. 1. Hieraceum Pilosella, Mouse-ear Hawkweed. Waysides. 7.

XX. 1. Orchis morio, Meadow Orchis. Meadows. 6.
Orchis fusca, Great Brown-winged Orchis. ^

Orchis militaris, Military Orchis. C Chalky Hills, Kent. 6.

Orchis tephrosanthos, Monkey Orchis. J

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

MAY.

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

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

Epipactis ensifolia, Narrow-leaved White Helleborine. Mountainous

woods. 6.

Corallorrhiza innata, Spurless Coral Wort. Mossy bogs, Scotland. 6.
XXI. 2. Carex dioica, cum mult, aliis. Diocious 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. J .y , g

Carpinus Betulus, Common Hornbeam. $

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

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

XXII. 2. Empetrum nigrum, Crowberry. Mountainous heaths. 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, Tunbridge Filmy Fern. Moist, shady,

and stony places. G.
Ophioglossum vulgatum, Adder's Tongue. Meadows and pastures. 7.

SELECT CALENDAR OF BRITISH INSECTS.

Cicindela hybrida. Locality, coast of Norfolk, Suffolk, etc. 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.

To 7.

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.

152 MAV.

Omaceus nigrita. Moist situations. To 7.

Harpalus ruficornis. Under stones and pathways. To 10,

Colymbetes abbreviates. 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. ^ung and dead ammals. To 7.

Geotrupes laevis, Smooth Dor-beetle. Dung on heaths. To 10.

Melolontha vulgaris, Common Cockchaffer. Trees and hedges

To 6.

Anomala Horticola. Skirts of woods. To 7.

Cetonia aurata, Rose May-chaffer. Flowers of the Dog rose. To 7.
Telephorus fuscus.

Telephorus lividus. ' T° 7"

Necrobia violacea. Dead animals. To 9.

Scolytus Destructor. Bark of the Elm. To 7.

Phyllobius argentatus. Woods and hedges. To 6.

Deporans Betulse. Birch-tree. To 6.

Brachy tarsus scabrosus. White Thorn. To 6.

Donacia dentipes. > A TQ g

Donacia simplex. >

Cassidanobilis. ? Weedy banks. To 6.

Cassida splendidula. >

Helops caraboides. Sandy places. To 7.

Mordella aculeata. Umbellate plants. To 6.

Notoxus Monoceros, Unicorn Beetle. 1 ( To 8.

Staphylinus pubescens. > Sandy places. < To 6.

Staphylinus erythropterus. ) ( To 7.

Papilio Machaon, Swallow-tail Butterfly. In the fenny countries.

To 7.
Papilio Podalirius, Scarce Swallow-tailed Butterfly. Woods, Bedford-

shire. To 8.
Pontia Brassicse, Common Cabbage Butterfly. Gardens, etc. And

7 to 9.
Pontia Napi, Green-veined White Butterfly.

_
Pontia Nap**. Gardens, etc. And 7.

MAY. 158

Pontia Daplidice, Green chequered White Butterfly. South of Eng-
Pont?anCardtnl8eS, Orange-lip White Butterfly. Woods and meadows.
Leuclphtia Sinapis, Wood White Butterfly. Woods in the south.
Nemltus Lucina, Duke of Burgundy's Fritillary. Woods in the south.

Meltolihalia, Pearl-bordered Likeness. Devonshire And 6.
Melitceatessellata, Straw May Fritillary. Middlesex And 6
Melifcea Artemis, Greasy, or Marsh Fritillary. H^^^twl.
Melifcea Selane, Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary. Woods and 1

MeltoEuphrosyne, Pearl-bordered Fritillary. Woods and heaths.
Argynni! Lathonia, Queen of Spain's Fritillary. Woods in the south.

ThecfanRubi, Green Hair-streak. Hedges and brambles. And 8
Polyommatus Agriolus, Azure-blue Butterfly. South of England.

Polyommls Alsus, Bedford blue Butterfly. Woods and meadows.
Polyomtls Acis, Mazarine blue Butterfly. Chalky districts.
Polyomlatus Adonis, Clifden blue Butterfly. Downs in the south.
Polyomlatus Alexis, Common blue Butterfly. Heaths and commons.

And ®' C And 8

Thymele Alveolus, Grizzled Skipper. ) Wooda and COmmons. j And ?'

ons:

PamphSyvanus, Large Skipper. Woods and lanes. And 7
Anthrocera Trefolii, Trefoil Burnet-Moth. Moist woods and bogs.

Woods and commons

ds and lanes. And 7

h. Moist woods and bogs.

Smerinttus ocellatus, Eyed Hawk Moth. Willow, Apple, and Poplar.

^^^^ - -

, Broad-bordered Bee-Hawk Mo.h. Wood.

And 6.

154 MAY.

Hepialus Humuli, Ghost Moth. Fields, etc. And 6.

Cossus ligniperdi, Goat Moth, Willow-trees. And 6.

Cerura Vinula, Puss Moth. Osier 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 Jacobaeae, Cinnabar Moth. Woods on the Ragwort.

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

The Gyrinus villosus, one of the rarest species 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 together as the natator, although not
so common or so frequently observed. The gentle-
man 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 animals : the
latter has been extremely abundant this spring,
(1830,) in the usual haunts of the Histeridae and
Aphodiidse.

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

Scolytus Destructor. No one from a casual sur-

MAY. 155

vey of this little creature would deem it capable of
such extensive devastation : its ravages are con-
fined to the elm (Ulmus campestris), the mid-bark
of which it perforates in a circular direction, in
some instances completing the circumference of the
tree and depositing eggs during its progress. The
larvae which are produced from these eggs perfo-
rate the bark at right angles with the perforation of
the mother insect, both upwards and downwards.
The female 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 situations ; with us on
the banks of the Trent, in one spot, it is found in
great abundance, at the roots of the tansy (Tanace-
tum vulgare), and the silver-weed (Potentilla anse-
rina). 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
observed it to take wing.

Of the twenty-five species of Papiliones enume-
rated in the list of this month, eight only are known
to inhabit this county ; of which the Polyommatus
Alexis, and the Pontia Brassicag, Napi, and Carda-
mines, are common, and the Melitsea Euphrosyne,
the Polyommatus Alsus, and the Pamphila Sylvanus

156 MAY.

are less frequent: the Papilio 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 uncommon
towards the end of this and the beginning of the
next month ; the larvae 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 destructive, as may easily be ima-
gined from their duration and size ; the length of
the full-grown larvae being four inches, and their
period of existence in that state three years. They
remain in the state of pupa or chrysalis about three
weeks.

LAYS OF THE SEASONS.

BY MARY HOW1TT.
II,

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.

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.
14

158 SUMMER.

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.

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 gray -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.

SUMMER. 159

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 heaj.

JUNE.

Come on, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that are present ;
and let us speedily use the creatures like as in youth.

Let us fill ourselves 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.
THE WISDOM 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 elements ; — snowdrops, primroses, violets,
and then a thousand beautiful and short-lived blooms.

JUNE. 161

They are gone ! The light tints of young foliage,
so pure, so tender, so spiritual, are vanished. What
the poet applied to the end of summer, 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 admiration
of the foliage of trees would rise much higher, did
we give it a more particular attention. I have
frequently in autumn gathered under the trees,
leaves of the Spanish, or sweet chestnut, more than
a foot in length. The leaves of the horse-chestnut
too 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 natural handscreen of
unrivalled elegance of shape. It is now too that
14*

162 JUNE.

many of the forest trees put forth their blossoms.
The chestnut, in the earliest period of the month, is
a glorious object, 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 horn-
beam 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 honeyed sweetness, 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 happiest
seasons, is fine, clear, and glowing, without reaching
the intense heats of July. Its commencement 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 beautiful succes-
sors, that we have scarcely been sensible of their
departure. Every thing is full of 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,

JUNE. 163

and are feeding their vociferous young in every pas-
ture, 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 havoc that is made amongst the broods of
young birds at this season all over this kingdom, but
especially in the neighbourhood of populous towns, is
truly melancholy. The mere taking of birds' eggs
may possibly find some excuse in the plea of keeping
down the number of birds ; but the wanton destruc-
tion of the helpless and innocent young ones, is an
evil feature in our youthful population, and a most
striking evidence of that want of culture of the
moral sensibilities in the working class, which is a
disgrace to this nation. No one is accustomed to
walk the fields at this time of the year, whose feel-
ings are not tortured by the cruelty that is every
where going on. Troops of boys and young men
are traversing the fields in all directions, on Sundays
and holidays, dragging out every nest they can find,
from no motive but the indulgence of an idle and
brutal recklessness. You meet them with nests full
of littte downy, half-fledged creatures, that are gaping
and uttering continuous chirpings, or rather sobs and
sighs, full of a sense of their misery, and which you
know will cease only with their lives. Many are
carried home, and stuffed with improper food till

164 JUNE.

they perish ; many are flung heedlessly away, are
dashed on the ground, or are set upon a stone or a
post to be thrown at : and all this outraging of Na-
ture in her sweetest season and solitudes, all this
infliction of agonies on those young, tender things,
just awoke to existence, and that would have filled
field and forest with music and rejoicing, are done
with the most callous and thorough ignorance of
wrong. It proceeds from the want of better teach-
ing ; from the want of that moral training which the
children of our working class so much need ; that
necessary education, which consists not so much in
reading and writing, as in the awakening of the
moral sense, the exercise of the moral principles,
and the humane sympathies, the inculcation of that
religion which consists not in cant, but in " doing
justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly before
God." It is the duty of every man who loves the
holy beauty of Nature, and his fellow man, to con-
sider seriously by what means this better tone of
popular feeling may be produced.

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 cottage garden, —
lilies, jasmins, speedwells, rockets, stocks, lupines,
geraniums, pinks, poppies, valerians, red and blue ;
mignonette, etc., and the glowing rhododendron
abound.

It is the very carnival of Nature, and she is pro-
digal of her luxuries. It is luxury to walk abroad,
indulging every sense with sweetness, loveliness, and

JUNE. 165

harmony. It is luxury to stand beneath the forest
side, when all is still and basking at noon ; and to
see the landscape suddenly darken, the black and
tumultuous clouds assemble as at a signal ; to hear
the awful thunder 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.

It is luxury to haunt the gardens of old-fashioned
houses in the morning, when the bees are flitting
forth with a rejoicing hum; or at eve, when the
honeysuckle and sweetbriar mingle their spirit with
the breeze. It is luxury 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
winding stream, buried, completely buried, in fresh
grass ; the foamlike flowrers of the meadow-sweet,
the crimson loose-strife, and the large blue geranium
nodding beside us ; the dragonfly, the ephemera,
the kingfisher glancing to and fro ; the trees above
casting their flickering shadows on the stream ; and
one of our ten thousand volumes of delightful litera-
ture 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 supe-
rior to laying on a sofa, and reading novels ; but it
is in the flowery lap of June that we can best climb

Up to the sunshine of uncumbered ease.

166 JUNE.

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 refreshing: the
glow-worm has lit her lamp : the bat is circling
about: the fragrant breath of flowers steals into
our houses : the bees hum sonorous music amid the
pendent flowers of the tall sycamore tree : the cock-
chaffer is hovering around it : the stag-beetle in the
south soars cheerily in the clear air : and the moth
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 woodland, — 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 pearl ;
the wreathed and luscious honeysuckle, and the ver-
durous, 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 honeyed 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 flower-
ing-rush, and the queen of the waters, the pure and
splendid white lily, invest every stream and lonely

JUNE. 167

mere with grace. The mavis and the merle, those
worthy favourites of the olden bards, and the wood-
lark, fill the solitude with, their eloquent evening
songs.

Over its own sweet voice the stock-dove broods ;

the turtle in southern woodlands coos plaintively ;
arid the cuckoo pours its mellowest note from some
region of twilight shadow. The sunsets of this
month are transcendently glorious : the mighty lu-
minary goes down pavilioned amidst clouds of every
hue — the splendour of burnished gold, the deepest
mazarine blue fading away into the highest heavens,
to the palest azure ; and an ocean of purple is flung
over the twilight-woods, or the far-stretching and
lonely horizon. The heart of the spectator is
touched : it is melted and rapt 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 perpetual
summer; there are sunshine, beauty, and abundance,
without a symptom of decay. But this will not last-
We soon perceive the floridity 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.

168 JUNE.

Iii April the cuckoo shows his bill ;
In May he sings both night and day ;
In June he altereth his tune ;
In July away hell fly ;
In August go he must.

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 glo-
rious 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 Quecne, b. iii.

Let us not, however, anticipate too sensitively the
progress of Time ; let us rather enjoy the summer
festivities which surround us. The green fruits of
the orchard are becoming conspicuous, and the
young nuts in hedges and copses peep from their
fringed husks; the garden presents ripe cherries,

JUNE. 169

melting strawberries; and gooseberries and currants
assuming tints of ripeness, are extremely grateful.
Grasses are now in flower; and when the larger
species are 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 grateful ornaments.

Hay-harvest has commenced, and, in some south-
ern counties, if the weather be favourable, is com-
pleted ; but next month may be considered as the
general season of hay-making.

SUMMER FLOODS. Floods in the summer months
are not unfrequent ; and when they spread into the
mowing-grass, do immense damage, 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 quanti-
ties— here people intercepting it with boats, or pull-
ing 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 sub-
siding of the waters, hedges and copses may be seen
loaded with it, a melancholy monument of incalcu-
lable 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 way magnificently amid views in the pride of
15

170 JUNE.

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 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 hastening 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 generally
completed this. It is one of the most picturesque
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 har-
vests of the field, of the forest, and of the flock.
The very spirits of the churlish, the hard and un-
kindly 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

JUNE. 171

of the primitive nations, gives a most lively picture
of their practice in this particular. Nabal, " a
man in Maon, whose possessions were in Carmel,
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 pro-
visions. The men, when delivering their leader's
message, used it as an argument, "for we are come
in a good day." Some idea may also be formed of
the preparations on such occasions, from the supply
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 clus-
ters 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." — SAMUEL, 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, waited on the
shearers to receive and roll up the fleeces. A feast
was made, and the king and queen elected ; or, ac-
cording to Drayton's Polyolbion, the king was pre-
elected by a fortunate circumstance.

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.

172 JUNE.

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 renowned 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, in-
deed, 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 upon such scenes. We hear
afar off the bleating 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 sub-
mersion, they guide them to the opposite bank. The
clear running waters, the quiet fields, the whispering
fresh boughs that thicken around, and the poor drip-
ping creatures themselves, that, after giving them-
selves 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 ele-

JUNE. 173

gant plants. Running up in the space of a month,
over a great extent of hedge or thicket, and cover-
ing it with its long twining stems, spiral tendrils,
green vine-like leaves, and graceful flowers, in a
beautiful style of luxuriance, it is deserving more
notice than it has yet received, and seems well-cal-
culated for clothing bowers and trellis-work. Many
of our wild flowers derive much interest from the
simple and poetical names given them by our rural
ancestors : as the wind-flower ; the snap-dragon ;
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 ; honesty ; heart's-ease ;
true-love ; way-bread, and wayfaring 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
medico, or materia sancta, each flower being dedi-
cated 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 ;
15*

174 JUNE.

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 ;
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 books, 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 eventide,
Before those ancient crosses gray.
Now mouldering silently away,

JUNE, 175

Aged and young devoutly bent
In simple prayer, how eloquent !
For eacli 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, —
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 beginning 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 un-
derstand of going through watery places ; such as
meadows are wont to be." Another author says
that weyd is probably derived from weyden (Ger-
man,) to graze or to pasture. He further adds, they
call it Woed-monath, weed month, and also Mede-mo-
nath, Midsomer-monath, and Br&cJi-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

176 JUNE.

the first month of the sun's descent. Lida, it is
added, has been affirmed to mean smooth air.

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 : mackerel is taken in abundance :
the elder-tree is in flower, and the grasshopper is
heard.

RURAL OCCUPATIONS.

Somer is yeomen in,

Loud sing cuckoo ;

Groweth seed

And bloweth mead,

And springeth the weed new.

So says the oldest English song ; and so the hus-
bandman 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 tur-
nips. 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, almost
hourly, watching to defend them from the fly, or to

JUNE. 177

preserve them from its effects. On wide heaths,
where the sheep are often small, and consequently
of less individual value, 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
devoured by them and their larvae. In my summer
rambles I see continual instances of this melancholy
nature ; no doubt often resulting from the indolence
of the shepherds. Heavy, long-wooled 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
washing 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. A great
and most important quantity of employment they
find also in cutting peat and turf on the moors and
heaths of various parts of the kingdom. What is a
more characteristic feature of moorlands, than those
black pyramids of peat that are piled up in every
direction to dry through the summer, and in autumn
are conveyed away into the neighbourhood of the
farmhouse and cottage, and carefully stacked, or
sent into the neighbouring towns 1 The inhabitants
of coal districts little know the value of our moor-
lands for furnishing fuel and employment to the
poor. In many £>arts of the United Kingdom, in
a great portion of the Highlands of Scotland and
wastes of Ireland, such a thing as coal is never
seen ; their moors and bogs supply their fires. In

178 JUNE.

many parts of England, where coal is scarce, what
would the poor do without peat or turf? No one
knows the value of a sod, or a gorse-bush, who has
not traversed the wastes of Cornwall, where timber
and coal seem equally unknown, and the little stack
of turf and one of gorse by the side of every hut,
carefully thatched and secured with a perfect net-
work of rush-cords, often with bricks and stones
slung across them by similar bands to prevent the
blustering sea-winds blowing them away, tell you
of the high value of that which in other counties is
rooted out as a nuisance. I have crossed high heaths
where the inhabitants have picked the bones of
mother earth to bareness ; paring the scanty turf
off, year after year, for fuel, till nothing remains but
the naked stone. There you find the fireplace shut
up with little iron doors, to prevent the too great
consumption of fuel. The poor seldom indulge in
a fire except to cook their meals, or keep it in from
one meal-time to another by the merest handful of
turf ; and at a country inn they cook your steak, or
boil the kettle for your tea, by lighting a piece of
dried gorse, and blow it all the time with the bel-
lows into an active blaze. In such places the cut-
ting, gathering, and stacking of peat or turf is a
great assistance to the poor ; and I have seen women
employed by the roadside, stacking up what ap-
peared to me merely dirt, earning at this solitary
work about eight pence a day. In the garden, the
chief occupations consist of weeding, watering, and
destroying insects.

JUNE. 179

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 of the angle, with paste,
wasp-grub, dock-grub, or grasshopper. Most fish
will now bite eagerly, and fly-fishing is become
animated, especially 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 neighbourhood 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.

FLIES. From the 1 st 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 grass-
hopper.

CALENDAR OF THE FLOWER-GARDEN.

Class II. Order 1. Jasminum officinale, White Common Jasmine. 10.

Jastninum v. argent, var. Silver-striped Common Jasmine.

Jasminum v. aurea, var. Gold-striped Common Jasmine.

Calceolaria pinnata, Wing-leaved Slipperworf. 8.

III. 1. Gladiolus communis, Red Corn-flag. 7.

Gladiolus Byzantinus, Larger Corn-flag. 7.

Iris Virginica, cum mult, aliis. Virginian Iris, with many others.

III. 2. Briza maxima, Quaking-grass.

IV. 1. Budlea globosa, Globe-flowered Budlea. 7.
Scabiosa Alpina, Alpine Scabious. 7.

180 JUNE.

Asperula crassifolia, Thick-leaved Woodroof. 7.

Alchemilla pentaphylla, Five-leaved Ladies' Mantle. 8.

Alchemilla argentata, Silvery Ladies' Mantle. 8.

V. 1. Itea Virginea, Virginian Itea. 8.

Ampelopsis quinquefolia, Virginian Creeper. 7.

Lonicera grata, cum mult, aliis. Evergreen Honeysuckle, with many

others. 10.

Euonymus latifolius, Broad-leaved Spindle-tree. 7.
Vitis vinifera, Common Grape. 7. .

Phlox suaveolens, White-flowered Lychnidea. 7.
Petunia nyctaginiflora, Marvel of Peru-flowered Petunia. 9.
Campanula lilifolia, Lily Campanula. 8.
Campanula rapunculoides, cum aliis. Nettle-leaved Campanula, with

others. 7.

V. 1. Cynoglossum linifolium, Navelwort. 7.
Convolvulus lineatus, Dwarf Blindweed. 8.
Asclepias amocna, Oval-leaved Swallow-wort. 8.
V. 2. Gentiana lutea, Yellow Gentian. 7.
Gentiana purpurea, Purple Gentian. 7.
Gentiana cruciata, Crosswort Gentian. 7.
Eringium Bourgati, 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 Chalcedonicum, 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 Tarton-raira, Silver-leaved Daphne. 7.

Daphne Gnidiurn, Flax-leaved Daphne. 7.

CEnothera Misouriensis, CEnothera Misour. 8.

(Enotbera Fraseri, Eraser's CEnothera. 7.

JUNE. 181

(Euolhera biennis, Evening CEnothera. 9.

(Enothera purpurea, Purple CEnothera. 9.

Epilobium Dodonsei, Dodonaeus's Willow-herb. 7.

Epilobium cordifolium, Heart-leaved Willow-herb.

Tropaeolum majus, Great Nasturtium. 10.

Tropseolum 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.

Andromeda Mariana, cum aliis. Maryland Andromeda, with others. 7.

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. 8.
X. 4. Sedum Aizoon, Yellow Stonecrop. 7.
Sedum virens, Green Sedum. 7.

X. 4. Sedum deficiens, Round-leaved Sedum.
Agrostemma coronaria, Rose Campion. 9.
Lychnis Chalcedonica, Scarlet Lychnis. 7.
Cerastium tomentosum, Woolly Chickweed. 7.
Oxalis stricta, Upright Oxalis. 8.

XI. 2. Agrimonia odorata, Sweet Agrimony. 7.

XI. 3, Euphorbia coralJoides, cum aliis. Coral-stalked Spurge, with
others. 9.

Reseda odorata, Mignonette. 10.

XII. 1. Prunus Lusitanica, Portugal Laurel.
Philadelphus inodorus, Scentless Syringa. 7.
XII. 2. Cratsegus pyrifolia, Pear-leaved Thorn.
XII. 4. Spiraa salicifolia, Willow-leaved Spirsea. 7.

Spiraea filipendula, cum mult, aliis. Dropwort, with many others. 8.

XII. 5. Rubus odoratus, Flowering Bramble. 7.

Rosa lutea, Yellow Rose.

Rosa mucosa, cum mult, aliis. Moss Rose, with many others.

Potentilla Pennsylvanica, Pennsylvanian Cinquefoil.

Potentilla recta, Upright Cinquefoil. 7.

Potentilla grandiflora, Great-flowered Cinquefoil. 7.

Geum potentilloides, Cinquefoil Avens.

Geum reptans, Creeping Avens. 8.

16

182 JUNE.

XIII. 1. Papaver somniferus, Carnation Poppy. 7.

Papaver Rhoeas, cum aliis. Dwarf Poppy, with others. 7.

Cistus laurifolius, Laurel-leaved Cistus.

Cistus ladaniferus, cum aliis. Gum cistus, with others. 7.

XIII. 3. Delphinium elatum, cum mult, aliis. Common Larkspur,

with many others. 8.

Aconitum Napellus, cum aliis. Blue Wolfsbane, with others. 7.
XIII. 5. Nigella Romana, cum aliis. 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 Thalictruna,

with many others.

Trollius Asiaticus, Asiatic Globe-flower.
Trollius Americanus, American Globe-flower.
Liriodendron Tulipifera, Common Tulip-tree.
Magnolia grandiflora, Laurel-leaved Magnolia. 8.
Ranunculus plantanifolius, cum aliis. Plantain-leaved Ranunculus,

with others. 7.

XIV. 2. Bignonia capreolata, Two-leaved Trumpet-flower.
Linaria purpurea, cum mult, aliis. Purple Toad-flax, with many

others. 9.

Digitalis lutea, Yellow Fox-glove. 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 Crane's-bill. 7.
Geranium palustre, Marsh Crane's-bill. 7.

XVI. 5. Geranium sanguincum, Bloody Crane's-bill. 8.

XVI. 7. Althcea rosea, Hollyhock. 9.

Malva crispa, cum mult, aliis. Curled Mallow, with many others. 9.

XVI. 8. Hibiscus Africanus, African Hibiscus. 10.
Hibiscus major, Major Hibiscus. 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. 8,

Cytisus Alpinus, cum aliis. Alpine Cytisus, with others.

Colutea arborescens, Bladder Senna. 8.

Colutea cruenta, Eastern Bladder. 7.

JUNE. 183

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 Onobrychis, Purple-spiked Milk- Vetch. 7.
Trifolium lupinaster, Bastard Lupine. 7.
Trifolium incarnatum, Crimson Trefoil.
Scorpiurus vermiculata, Caterpillar. 7.
Scorpiurus muricata, Prickly Caterpillar. 7.
Scorpiurus subvillosa, Villous 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, Cytissus-leaved Lotus. 8.

XVIII. 4. Hypericum calycinum, cum mult, aliis. Large-flowered
St. John's-wort, with many others. 9.

XIX. 1. Crepis rubra, Red Hawkweed. 7.
Tolpis barbata, Yellow Hawkweed. 7.
Catananche lutea, Yellow Catananche. 7.

XIX. 1. Gnaphalium stachys, Red Everlasting. 10.

Gnaphalium Alpinum, Alpine Everlasting. 7.

Chrysanthemum millifol. cum mult. var. Tansy-leaved Chrysanthe-
mum, with many varieties.

Achillaea santolina, cum aliis. Cotton-leaved Milfoil Lavender, with
others. 8.

Senecio elegans, Jacobaja. 10.

Zinnia pauciflora, Yellow Zinnia. 7.

Zinnia multiflora, Red Zinnia. 7.

XIX. 2. 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 Centaury,
with many others. 8.

184 JUNE.

Helianthus annuus, var. Dwarf Annual Sunflower. 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 II. Order 1. Circsea Lutetiana, Common Enchanter's Night-
shade. Locality, Moist shady places. Duration, 7.

Veronica Beccabunga, Brook-lime. Ditches. 8.

Schizanthus pinnatus, Pinnate Schizanthus. 10.

Schizanthus porrigens, cum aliis. Spreading-stalked Schizanthus, with
others. 10.

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.

III. 1. Fedia dentata, Oval-fruited Corn-salad. Coin-fields. 7.

Valeriana officinalis, Great Wild Valerian. Banks of rivers. 7.

Scirpus sylvaticus, Wood Club-Rush. Moist woods. 8.

III. 2. Millium effusum, Spreading Millet-grass. Woods and shady
places. 7.

Aria caryophyllea, Silver Hair-grass. Sandy heaths.
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.

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.

JUNE. 185

Sanguisorba officinalis, Great Burnet. Meadows and pastures. 7.
Cornus sanguinea, Wild Dogwood. Hedges. 7.

Parietaria officinalis, Common Wall-Pellitory. Old walls and ruins. 9.
IV. 1. Alchemilla vulgaris, Common Ladies'-Mantle. Meadows and
pastures. 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 arvenis, 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 Buglos. Corn-fields. 7.
Echium vulgare, Common Viper's Buglos. Fields and waste

ground. 7.
Primula farinosa, Bird's-eyes Primrose. Mountainous bogs in

north. 7.
Menyanthes Jrifoliata, 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 Soldanella, Sea Bindweed. Sandy sea-shore. 7.
Polemonium cceruleum, 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 Wightshade. Amongst ruins. 7.
Solanum dulcamara, Woody Nightshade. Moist hedges. 8.
Solanum nigrum, 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-JN'eedle. 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 Carui, Common Carraway. Meadows and pastures. 7.

16*

186 JUNE.

V. 3. Sambucus nigra, Common Elder. Woods and hedges. 7.
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. Pastures,
rare. 7.

Nartheciom 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.

VI. 3. Tofieldia palustris, Scottish Asphodel. Bogs on the Scottish

mountains. 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 Idsea, Cowberry. Mountainous bogs, Scotland. 7.

Vaccinium Oxycoccus, 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 Convolvulus, 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 ccesius, Mountain Pink. Limestone rocks. 7.

X. 3. Silene Anglica, English Catchfly. In sandy fields. 7.

Silene nutans, Nottingham Catchfly. Limestone and sandstone
rocks. 8.

JUNE. 187

Silene acaulis, Mossy catchfly. Highlands of Scotland. 7.

Stellaria glauca, Glaucous Marsh Stitchwort. Moist meadows and

bogs. 7.

Arenaria peploides, Sea-side Sand wort. 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 villosum, Hairy Wall-pepper. Mountainous bogs. 7,

Agrostemma Githago, Corn Cockle. Corn-fields. 8.

Lychnis Flos Cuculi, Ragged Robin. Moist meadows. 7.

iCerastium Alpinum, Alpine Mouse-cared 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. Spirasa-Ulmaria, Meadow-sweet. Meadows and pas-
tures. 7.

XII. 3. Rosa involuta, cum mult, aliis. Prickly unexpanded Rose,
with many others. Scotland. 7.

XII. 3. Rubus cffisius, Blue Bramble, or Dewberry. Moist bushy
places. 7.

Rubus saxatilis, Stone Bramble. Mountainous woods. 7.

Rubus Chamaemorus, Cloudberry. 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 Cinquefoil. 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 Rhreas, Common Red Poppy. Corn-fields. 7.

188 JUNE.

Papaver Cambricum, Yellow Poppy. Mountainous places. 7.

Tilla grandifolia, Broad-leaved Downy Lime-tree. Woods and

hedges. 7.

Cistus guttatus, Spotted Annual Cistus. Sandy pastures, rare. 7.
Cistus Helianthemum, Common Dwaif Cistus. Chalky and sandy

pastures. 8.

XIII. 2. Delphinium 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 flayum, Common Meadow-Rue. Wet meadows. 7.
Ranunculus tiammula, cum aliis. Lesser Spearwort Crowfoot, with
others. Watery places. 8.

XIV. 1. Mentha arvensis, Corn Mint. Corn-fields. 9.

XIV. 2. Rhinanthus Crista-galli, Common Yellow Rattle. Meadows
and pastures. 9.

Melampyrum sylvaticum. Wood Cow-Wheat. Alpine woods. 7.
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.
XV. 2. Nasturtium offictnale, Common Watercress. Springs and

rivulets. 7.

Nasturtium amphibium, Amphibious Watercress. Banks of streams. 8.
Sisymbrium officinale Common Hedge Mustard. Waste ground. 7.

XV. 2. 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 pas-
tures. 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.

JUNE. 189

XVII. 2. Polygala vulgaris, Common Milkwort. Pastures and
heaths. 8.

XVII. 3. Ononis arvensis, Common Rest-Harrow. Pastures and mea-
dows. 8.

Anthyllis vulneraria, Common Kidney-Vetch. Limestone soil. 8.

Hedysarum Onobrychis, Common Saint foin. 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. Bor-
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. Meadows and
pastures. 7.

Picris echioides, Bristly Ox-tongue. Borders of fields. 7.

Hieracium aurantiacum, Orange Hawkweed. Mountainous woods. 7.

Hiaracium murorum, Wall Hawkweed. Walls and rocks. 7.

Hieracium sylvaticum, Wood Hawkweed. Walls and dry banks. 7.

Crepis tectorum, Smooth Hawk's-beard. Dry chalky ground. 7.

Crepis biennis, Rough Hawk's-beard. Chalky pastures. 7.

Hypochaeris 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,

Cineraria 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.

XIX. 2. Achillea Millefolium, Common Yarrow, or Milfoil. Mea-
dows and pastures. 8.

XIX. 3. Centaurea nigra, Black Knapweed, Hardiron. Pastures,
etc. 8.

XX. 1. Orchis bifolia, Butterfly Orchis. Woods. 7.

190 JUNE.

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 rnaculata, Spotted Palmate Orchis. Meadows and pastures. 7.
Orchis conopsea, Aromatic Orchis. Meadows and pastures. 7.
Aceras anthropophora, Green Man-Orchis. 1
Herminium monorchis, Green Musk-Orchis. > Chalky pastures. 7.
Ophrys muscifera, Fly Orchis. )

Listera ovata, Common Tway-blade. Pastures and woods.

Epipactis purpurata. Purple-leaved Helleborine. ) _,,

> Shady woods,
kpipactis grandinora, Large White Helleborine. ^

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 augustifolia, Lesser Reed-mace. Ponds and ditches. 7.
Carex pulicaris, cum mult, aliis. Flea Carex, or Sedge, with many

others. Heaths, etc.

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 foemina, Female Shield-Fern. Marshy places. 7.
Cystea fragilis, Brittle Bladder-Fen. Wet rocks. 7.
Asplenium Ruta murraria, 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.
Botrichium Lunaria, Moonwort. Pastures. 7.
Lycopodium Selago, Fir Club-Moss. Mountainous heaths. 8.

SELECT CALENDAR OP BRITISH INSECTS.

Cicindela sylvatica. ) r ,. ,, ,r ., „, -

J, > Locality, Heaths, Suffolk. Month, To 7.

Cicindela sylvicola. {

JUNE. 191

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 melanarius.

Steropus madidus.

Patrobus rufipes. >

Platysmaniger. J Under stones in damp places. To 8.

Harpalus seneus. Pathways. To 10.
Elaphrus cuprues. River banks. To 8.
Colymbetes maculatus. Running streams. To 9.
Hydaticus stagnalis. Ponds in the south. To 7.

V Under stones. To. 10.

t ~ , . , , „ . ^ To 9.
> Dead animals and fungi. 1 _ ,
\ = } To 10.

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 foxglove. To 7.

Amphimalla solstitialis, Lesser Cockchaffer. White thorn hedges.

To 7.
Melolontha Fullo, Great Variegated Cockchaffer. South of England.

To 7.

Anomola 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,
Trichiua nobilis. Flowers of the Dog-Rose. To 7.
Elater sanguineus. South of England. To 7.
Cleniocerus pectinicornis. Meadows and woods. To 7.
Cleniocerus seneus. Under stones, sandy places. To 8.
Atopa cervina. On nettles. To 7.
Lampyris noctiluca, Glow-worm. On dry banks. To 8.
Malthinus flavus. J

Malachius aeneus. > Woods and hedges. To 7.

Malachius bipustulatus. j
Tillus ambulans. 1

Tillus unifascialus. > Woods, etc. To 7.

Thanasimus formicarius. J To 8.

CionusHortulanus.''Gardens- To 7'

192 JUNE.

Necrobia ruficollis. Amongst bones. To 8.
Ptilinus pectinicornis. > C To 9.

Ptinus imperial. \ Deca*ed trees" ) To 7.

Hylurgus piniperda. Pine branches. To 7.
Clonus Scrophulariae. On the Water-betony. To 7.
Clonus Verbasci. )

Cryptorhynchus Lapathi. Osier-holts. To 7.

Balaninus Nucum. Hazel bushes. To 7.

Hypera Rumicis. On various species of Dock. To 7.

Alophus Vau. Sandy places. To 7.

Cleonus sulcirostris. Under stones.

Rhynchites oequatus. On the White-thorn. To 7.

Apoderus Avellanae. 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. Trunks of trees. To 7.

Callidium violaceum. Pine timber. To 7.

Callidium Alni. Woods, on faggots. To 8.

Clytus mysticus. Woods. To 7.

Clytus Arietis. Borders of woods. To 7.

Rhagium inquisitor. Woods. To 7.

Rhagium bifasciatum. Decayed Pine-trees. To 7.

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. On Syngenesious flowers. To 7.

Cassida equestris. On the Stachys sylvatica. To 7.

Cassida ferruginea. Weedy banks. To 7.

Coccinella ocellata. Beech-trees. To 7.

Coccinella 11-punctata. Woods and hedges. To 7.

JUNE. 193

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.

Oxyporous rufus. On fungi. To 7.

Labia minor. JNear 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 meadows.

And 9.

Pontia Sabellicoe. South of England.

Pieris Crataegi, Black-veined White Butterfly. Gardens and thickets.
Melittea Pyronia, Dark Under-wing Fritillary. Fields and marshes

near London.

Melitaea 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 urticae, 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 Pamphilus, Small Heath Butterfly. Heaths, etc. And 9.
Polyommatus Dorylas. Darenth wood.
Polyommatus Icarius. Kent. And 9.
Polyommatus Agestis, Brown Argus. Woods and fields. To 8

and 9.

Polyommatus Artaxerxes, Scotch Argus. Scotland, etc. And 8.
Ino Statices, Green Forester. Woods and meadows. 8.
Anthrocera Loti, Five-spot Burnett. Moist woods.
Anthrocera Filipendulae, 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 Euphorbias, Spotted Elephant Hawk-Moth. Devonshire,

etc. 7.

Deilephila Elpenor, Ladies' Bed-straw. Marshes, etc. 7.
17

194 JUNE.

Deilephila Porcellus, Small Elephant Hawk-Moth. Woods in the

south. 7.

Trochilium Apiformis, Hornet-Moth. Woods. 7.
^Egeria Tipuliformis, Currant Hawk-Moth. Gardens. And 7.
./Egeria Formiciformis, Flame-tipped Redbelt. Meadows. 7.
Hepialus Hectus, Gold Swift. Open places in woods. And 7.
Pygera bucephela, Buff-tip Moth. Gardens and fields. And 7.
Lasiocampa Roboris, Great Egger Moth. On heaths. And 7.
Leucoma Salicis, White Satin Moth. Near Willows. And 7.
Hypercompa Dominula, Scarlet Tiger Moth. Woods. And 7.
Euthemonia Russula, Clouded Buff Moth. Woods and heaths. And 7.
Arctia Villica, Cream-spot Tiger. Plantations. 7.
Nemeophila Plantaginis, Wood Tiger. Woods. And 7.
Spilosoma papyratia, Water Ermine. Moist woods. 7.
Plusia chrysitis, 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.
Pteorophorus pentadactylus, White Plume. Hedges. And 8.
Cercopis sanguinolenta. Woods and hedges. And 7.

\

Calosoma inquisitor. Indepently of the beautiful
colouring of the genus to which this species belongs,
the insects it comprises differ from most of the Geo-
dephaga by peculiarity of habit ; leaving their con-
geners 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 Cicindeliadae. The grubs or larvae
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 dis-
appeared ; it once, however, occurred in this county
in 1828.

JUNE. 195

Calathurs unfangulus. The best method of obtain-
ing 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 Derbyshire mountains.

Colymbetes maculatus. This beautiful but varia-
ble aquatic beetle, which is so accurately figured by
Mr. Samouelle, in p. 3. f. 15, of his " Useful Com-
pendium,"has generally been considered a local and
even a rare species : it is, however, abundant in
several of the midland counties, in running ditches
and small rivulets.

Lucanus Cervus. The Stag-Beetle may be con-
sidered 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 larvae inhabit and destroy. I have not
heard of its being taken farther north than Wor-
cester.

Geotrupes stercorarius. Common Dor-Beetle, or
Shard-borne Beetle. This well known insect, which
has buzzed in the face of every evening rambler,
could not escape the notice of so accurate an ob-
server as Shakspeare ; like the bat that " flits by on
leathern wing," he 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,

196 JUNE.

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 entomologists
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 in-
formed, by a cultivator of osiers, that the perfect
insect appears abundantly 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 with its rostrum
perforates the nut whilst young, depositing one egg
in each ; the wound heals, and the larva which pro-
ceeds from the egg, is completely enclosed by the
shell ; it feeds upon the kernel until 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

JUNE. 197

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
(odoratus), or to have substituted that of roseatus,
than to perpetuate error by a scrupulous adherence
to the Linnasan name 1

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 gene-
rally be known that this insect breeds in 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 ge-
nerally frequent meadows and churchyards during
the evening. They have an undulating flight, fre-
quently 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 Cicadas, is most beau-
tifully variegated with red and black, and leaping
17*

198 JUNE.

from one plant to another in bushy places frequently
attracts the attention of persons otherwise in no way
addicted to entomological 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 ex-
tremely loud. Captain Hancock heard them in
Brazil to the distance of a mile. " This," as Mr.
Kirby accurately observes, " is, as if a man of ordi-
nary stature, supposing his powers of voice increased
in the ratio of his size, could be heard all over the
world."

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.

PSALMS Ixxvii. 17, 18.

Look upon the rainbow and praise him that made it ; very beautiful
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.

ECCLESIASTICUS 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 visiters, and every drop of rain is
worth its weight in gold ! Such is July commonly ;
yet it is sometimes, 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, and maturity: the eye
roves over brown pastures, corn-fields already white

200 JULY.

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 distant 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 sufficiently noticed by either poet or
painter. Willows are now beautiful objects in the
landscape : they are like rich masses of arborescent
silver, especially 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 they may toil in the freshness
of the morning, and stretch themselves at noon in luxu-
rious ease by trickling waters, and beneath the shade
of trees. Till then, with regular strokes, and as weep-
ing 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 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 wagons
rolling along lanes and fields the whole country
over, — ay, even at midnight, — till at length, the

JULY. 201

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 my-
self, 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, health-
ful, 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 :" in the country at large, evil times too have
diffused an evil influence ; the extremes of wealth
and poverty have grown wider between the different
classes of society, and the working population have
felt themselves cast off, as it were, from the sym-
pathies of their employers — neglected and oppressed.
The commons on which their cottages stood, their
children played, their cow grazed, their few sheep
and numerous geese ran, have been enclosed and
have gone to swell high rent-rolls ; while they them-
selves have lost the last faint sense of the enjoyment
of property — have become dispirited, and, in too
many instances, vengeful and terrible. Yet, take
them as a whole, and there never was a more simple-
minded, healthful-hearted race of people than our
British peasantry. They have cast off, it is true,
many of their ancestor's games and merry-makings ;
but they have, in no degree lost their capacity for
mirth and happiness, did circumstances place mirth

202 JULY.

and happiness within their reach. Many of the sports
and pastimes of our forefathers, are, in the retro-
spect, picturesque and pleasant — but attempt to prac-
tise 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 amuse-
ments of a generation — children in intellectual cul-
ture, though of brawny growth in body ; they were
the pastimes of beings, whom, in the race of real
knowledge, our very clowns have left behind. Nay
I question whether our peasantry could witness,
without an internal feeling of contempt, what were
at one day the highest entertainments of the highest
classes — at which " lords and dukes and noble cap-
tains" toiled day after day, and the proudest and
brightest dames sate witnesses, 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 as-
sociations; they are highly to be valued as relics
and remembrances 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 ob-
scurest nook, not, indeed, in the degree which it
ought, for the benefit and happiness of all parties,
and in which I trust it yet will, but it has penetrated

JULY. 203

thither; and though many a goodly superstition,
many a jocund folly have fled before it, I trust, and
I think I know, that much 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 more intelligence,
industry stimulated by higher views, and, whenever
there is cause to display it, mirth and good-fellow-
ship 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 yellowham-
mer, the silence of birds is now complete ; 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 twilight,
with match, gunpowder, etc. and green boughs for
self-defence, busy in storming the paper-built castles
of wasps, the larvae of which furnish anglers with
plenty of excellent baits. The hornet is very un-
common now in the midland counties. It is a diffi-
cult matter to find a person who has seen a single
insect, much less a nest ; a fact certainly not to be
regretted, when 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 —

204

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.

But in the southern counties plenty of them are still
to be found, especially where old woods, hollow
trees, and thatched buildings abound. In Surrey,
within the last two or three years, I have seen
abundance of them. The warm sandy soil, the old
pollard trees, the commons overgrown with woods,
and the general prevalence of wood, seem to en-
courage these formidable insects. In the hot summer
of 1837 I observed numerous nests in the woods
about Esher, Bookham-common, Cobham, and that
neighbourhood. Swarms of them visited our garden,
attracted in the first instance by a large dahlia, of a
dark-coloured flower, called the negro-boy,
crreen bark of this peculiar variety of dahlia had
some irresistible charm for them. They peeled it
off as the rabbit peels the bark of a young tree; and
wherever they laid bare the root of the stem, they
were succeeded by swarms of flies and wasps to suck
the juice. Though we destroyed numbers of them,
nothing would deter them from their attacks on the
dahliartill ripening fruits drew off their attention.
By the side of these noble-looking insects, of a rich
orange hue, the wasps appeared pale pigmies ; and
I observed that the hornets did not hesitate oc-
casionally to seize on the wasps, and carry them off.
It is curious to watch these insects at their nest,
which is generally in a hole in a tree. At the

JULY. 205

one always stands sentinel, and if you put up the
point of a whip or stick to him, he will boldly stand
his ground, and attempt to seize on the whip or stick
with his mandibles. If he finds himself much pressed,
he will then pop into the hole ; and if you desire to
escape the consequences of rousing a hornet's nest,
it will be necessary to make as speedy an exit as
possible.

Spring-flowers have given place to a very different
class. Climbing plants mantle and festoon every
hedge. The wild hop — the bryony — the clematis,
or traveller's joy — the large white convolvulus,
whose bold yet delicate flowers will display them-
selves 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 Cam-
panula rotundifolia, 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 con-
volvulus also throws its flowers under your feet;
corn-fields glow with whole armies of scarlet pop-
pies, cockle, and the rich azure plumes of the viper's
bugloss; even thistles, the curse of Adam, diffuse a
glow 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
18

206 JULY.

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 possible,
into heaths and woods: it is there, in her uncul-
tured 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 imagine, 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 honeyed 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 sun-
dew, with its drops of inexhaustible liquor spark-
ling in the fiercest sun like diamonds. There wave
the cotton-rush, the tall foxglove, 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 be-
neath the verdant screen of the beautiful fern, or in

JULY. 207

the shade of a venerable oak, in such a scene, and
listen to the summer sound of ubees, grasshoppers,
and ten thousand other insects, mingled 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 ploughboy 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 en-
hancement of our own 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 dis-
tricts there are also now to be found those curious
plants the bee and fly orchis. The soul 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 birdboy, a classical being since the days of
Giles Bloomfield, are heard amongst the fields of

* 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.

208 JULY.

ripening corn, and towards the end of it corn har-
vest 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

Tliraugh the dark and shadowy tree.

Spring woke her tribes to bloom,
And on the greensward dance ;

Thou hast smitten them to the tomb
With thy consuming glance.

And now Autumn cometh on,
Singing 'midst shocks of corn,

Thou hastenest to be 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 ?

JULY. 209

Thou, who didst deem divine

The shrill cicada's tune,
When the odours of the pine

Gush'd through the woods at noon ?

I have run my fervid race,

I have wrought my task once more ;

I have filPd 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.

Then shall these scenes elysian

Bright in thy spirit burn,
And each summer thought and vision

Be thine till I return.

W. H.

FIELD PATHS are at this season particularly at-
tractive. I love our real old English foot-paths. 1
love those rustic and picturesque stiles opening their
pleasant escapes from frequented places and dusty
highways into the solitudes of Nature. It is delight-
ful 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-
18*

210 JULY.

yard — to the forest grange — or to the embowered
cottage. It is to me an object of certain inspiration.
It seems to invite one from noise and publicity into
the heart of solitude and of rural delight. It beckons
the imagination on through green and whispering
corn-fields, through the short but verdant pasture,
the flowering mowing-grass, the odorous 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 re-
joicing in spring, or meadows where the large blue
geranium embellishes the summer wayside; to
heaths with their warm elastic sward and crimson
bells — the chithering of grasshoppers, — the fox-
glove, and the old gnarled 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 memories,
and our sweetest poetry, as stiles and foot-paths?
Goldsmith, Thomson, and Milton have adorned them
with some of their richest wreaths. They have con-
secrated them to poetry and love. It is along the foot-
path in secluded fields, upon the stile in the embow-
ered lane, where the wild rose and the honeysuckle
are lavishing their beauty and their fragrance, that
we delight to picture to ourselves rural lovers, breath-
ing, in the dewy sweetness of summer evening, vows
still sweeter. There it is that the poet, seated, sends

JULY. 211

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
pronounce 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 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 gray
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
Sabbath 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, lazi-
ness, and obesity. How many scenes of frolic and
merry confusion have I seen at a clumsy stile!
What exclamations, and blushes, and fine eventual

212 JULY.

vaulting on the part of the ladies ! and what an op-
portunity does it afford to beaux of exhibiting a
variety of gallant and delicate attentions ! I con-
sider a rude stile as 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 remembrance 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 inclosed, 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 driven out of the promised land. Goldsmith
complained, in his day, that

JULY. 213

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 robb'd 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 con-
tiguous 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
scarlet cloak, the neat village maiden in the sweet-
ness of health and simplicity, or the boy strolling
along full of life and curiosity, — might have had suf-
ficient interest in themselves, for a cultivated taste
not merely to tolerate, but to welcome — passing oc-
casionally at a distance across the park or wood, as
objects agreeably enlivening the stately solitude of
the hall. But they have not; and what is more,
those are commonly 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

214 JULY.

to enjoy, or even the presence to behold them. How
often have I myself been arrested in some long-fre-
quented dale — in some spot endeared by its own
beauties and the fascinations of memory, by a board
exhibiting in giant characters, " 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 vil-
lage champion to be found, bold enough to put in
his protest against these encroachments, — to assert
the public right 1 — 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
" Hampden with dauntless breast" to " withstand
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 verdure 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

JULY. 215

our dells and copses, and the poet complains, in re-
gretful 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 progress
of population. It is true that I see, with a poetical
regret, green fields and fresh beautiful tracts swal-
lowed 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 encroachments upon the rural pri-
vileges 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 oppor-
tunities to keep alive in us the spirit of Nature.

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

216 JULY.

which we might fly to the lofty sanctuary of Nature,
for power to withstand him.

July is named after Julius Caesar, one of whose
best deeds was to reform the Calendar. The Saxons
called it Heu-monalh, 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 appear off the
coast of Cornwall. The fishermen, to whom, and
indeed to the inhabitants generally, the plentiful
arrival of this fish is most important, keep a sharp
look out from the tops of the hills on the coast, and
can discern their approach at a great distance by
the colour of the waves where they swim. — 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 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 Husbandrie," gives
the following pithy exhortation to the farmer in his
hay-making month: —

JULY. 217

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. In the north of England,
especially Durham and Northumberland, where the
Bondage System exists,* you now see bands of the
Bondagers, or young women engaged under that
peculiar system to do farm-work, of about a dozen
each, with a man at their head, busily employed in
hoeing turnips at this season. Wherever you go,
these bands of young female labourers strike your
eye in the fields of turnips, which, under the beautiful
drill system of the north, are like so many gardens
for neatness ; or you see them seated in a group at
their simple dinner of girdle-cake and milk, cheerful
as the air and the sunshine around them. Field-
peas are gathered for market. Hops and all kinds
of trees may be pruned, the heat speedily drying
their wounds and preventing their bleeding. Those
who have finished these operations, take the oppor-

* See " The Rural Life of England," vol. i. p. 165,— The Bondage
System of the North of England.
10

218 JULY.

tunity to get stone, mend their roads, gates, etc. and
thatch their ricks. The corn-crops require constant
watching by the birdboy, to defend them from hosts
of depredators. Roses and elder-flowers find em-
ployment 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 for-
gotten ; the present generation has lost its faith in
five-leaved-grass water ; and as for 1'Esprit des
Millefleurs, it is better from Delcroix a Paris. Pep-
permint is ready, too, for the still ; — the camomile
harvest, in Kent and Derbyshire, employs many
children. Heath-berries of various kinds, as bilber-
ries, cranberries, etc. 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, supporting plants, weeding, mowing grass-
plots, etc.

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 there-
fore requires less patience in the angler than care
not to lose him, through the tenderness of his mouth.

JULY. 219

The fly used cannot be too small for him. This
fish abounds in our northern rivers, especially the
Humber ; and the Severn 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 ;
practices 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 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 torchlight. In Solway Frith it is speared
in the pools 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

220 JULY.

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 ; cockchafers.

MIGRATION OF BIRDS.

None takes place this month.

CALENDAR OF THE FLOWER-GARDEN.

Class II. Order 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.

III. 1. Iris orchroleuca, Pale Yellow Iris.
Iris halophylla, Long-leaved Iris.

IV. 1. Scabiosa Ukranica, cum aliis. Ukraine Scabious, with
others. 8.

Plantago maxima, cum aliis. Broad-leaved Plantain, with others.
Sanguisorba media, Short-spiked Burnet Saxifrage. 8.
Sanguisorba Canadensis, Canadian Burnet. 8.

V. 1. Lysimachia Ephemerum, Willow-leaved Loose-strife. 9.
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.

JULY. 221

Campanula grandiflora, cum mult, aliis. Large-flowered Campanula,

with many others. 8.
Phyteuma spicatum, Horn-Rampion. 8.
Phyteuma hemisphericum, Small Horn-Rampion.
Physalis Alkakengi, Winter Cherry. 9.
Physalis Pennsylvanica, 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.
Viola cuculata, Hollow-leaved Violet. 8.
Viola mirabilis, Broad-leaved Violet. 8.
Spigelia Marilandica, Indian Pink. 8.
V. 1. Anchusa Italica, Italian Buglos. 10.
Nicotiana rustica, Common Tobacco. 6.
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 Eringo. 9.
Eryngium amethystinum, Amethystine 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, cam aliis. Carolina Sumach, with others.
Vibernum laBvigatum, 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 h'limentosa, Thready Adam's Needle. 8.
Amaryllis belladonna, Belladonna Lily. 8.
VIII. 1. Erica ciliaris, Ciliated Heath. 9.
(Enothera fruticosa, Shrubby CEnothera. 8.
(Enothera grandiflora, Large-flowered CEnothera. 8.

19*

222 JULY.

VIII. 3. Polygonum orientale, cum aliis. Red Persicary, with

others. 10.

X. 1. Sophora Japonica, Japan Sophora.
Sophora alopecuroidea, Fox-tail Sophora. 8.
Andromeda speciosa, cum mult, 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 prolifer. Proliferous Pink. 8.
Dianthus superbus, Superb Male Pink. 9.
X. 3. Silene longiflora, cum mult, aliis. Long-flowered Catch-fly.

with many others. 9.
Arenaria saxatilis, Rock Sandwort.
Sedum majus, cum aliis. Great Orpine, with others.

X. 4. Lychnis laeta, Small Lychnis.
Agrostemma Flos-Jovis, Umbelled Rose-campion.
Agrostemma Cceli-rosa, Smooth leaved Rose-campion.

XI. 2. Agrimony repens, Creeping Agrimony. 9.

XII. 5. Rosa sulphurea, Double Yellow Rose.
Rosa moschata, Single Musk-rose. 9.

Spiraea 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, cum mult, aliis. Montpellier Cistus,
with many others.

XIII. 3. Aconitum Lycoctonum, cum aliis. Yellow Wolfsbane,

with others. 8.

Delphinium urceolatum, Hollow-leaved Larkspur. 8.
XIII. 4. Eschschohzia Californica, Californian Eschschollzia. 10.

XIII. 7. Clematis crispa, Curled Clematis. 8.
Clematis orientalis, Eastern Clematis. 10.
Clematis flammula, 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.

JULY. 223

Lavendula orientalis, White-flowered Lavender.

XIV. 2. Bignonia radicans, Great Trumpet-flower. 8.

Bignonia v. minor, Small Trumpet-flower.

Eccremocarpus scaber, Rough Eccremocarpus. 8.

Eccremocarpus longiflorus, Long-flowered Eccremocarpus. 8.

Vitex Agnus-Castus, Chaste Tree. 9.

Vitex v. latifdia, Broad-leaved Chaste Tree.

Mimulus ringens, Oblong-leaved Monkey Flower. 8.

Acanthus mollis, cum aliis. Smooth Acanthus, with others. 9.

Digitalis leucophora, Broad-lipped Foxglove. 10.

XVI. 7. Lavatera Thuringiaca, cum aliis. Large-flowered Lavatera,
with others. 9.

Hybiscus palustris, Marsh Ilybiscus. 8.
Hybiscus trionium, Bladder Ketmia.
Malva limensis, Blue-flowered Mallow.

XVII. 4. Spartium junceum, Spanish Broom. 9.
Spartium v.Jlore plena, Double Spanish Broom.

Cytisus argenteus, cum aliis. Silvery Cytisus, with others. 7.

Robinia glutinosa, Glutinous Acacia.

Lathyrus tuberosus, cum aliis. Tuberous Lathyrus, with others. 8.

Vicia pisiformis, Pale-flowered Vetch. 8.

Vicia Biennis, Biennial Vetch. 8.

Coronilla varia, Purple CoronilJa. 10.

Galega montana, Mountain Goat's-rue.

Hedysarum Canadiense, Canadian Saintfoin. 9.

Lupinus luteus, Yellow Lupine. 8.

Lupinus hirsutus, cum aliis. Large Blue Lupine, with others.

Lotus tetragonolobus, Red-winged Pea. 8.

Lotus var. Yellow-winged Pea.

Astragalus campestris, Field Milk- Vetch.

XVII. 4. Astragalus Christianus, Great Yellow Milk- Vetch.
Anthyllis tetraphylla, Four-leaved Kidney-Vetch.

XVIII. 4. Hypericum hircinum, cum aliis. Foetid, 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 coarulea, Blue Catananche.
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.

224 JULY.

Dahlia superflua, cum mult. var. Purple Dahlia, with many

varieties. 11.

Aster aestivus, Labrador Aster. 8.
Aster Chinensis, cum aliis, et mult. var. China Aster, with others,

and many varieties.
Sol id ago Mexicana, cum mult, aliis. Mexican Golden Rod, with

many others. 8.

Tagetes patula, French Marygold. 10.
Tagetes crecta, African Marygold. 10.
Xeranthemum annuum, White Xeranthemum. 8.
Xeranthemum var. Double-purple Xeranthemum.
Chrysanthemum coronaria, White quilled Chrysanthemum. 9.
Chrysanthemum tricolor, Yellow Chrysanthemum.
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 scabrium, cum aliis. Rough Silphium, with

others. 10.

Echinops Retio, Small Globe-Thistle. 9.
Echinops sphxrocephalus, Great Globe-Thistle. 8.
XIX. 5. Amaranthus caudatus, Love-lies-bleeding. 8.
Amaranthus hypochondriacus, Prince's feather. 8.
Amaranthus flavus, 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 II. Order 1. Circaea Alpina, Mountain Enchanter's Night-
shade. Locality, Stony mountain places. Duration, 8.

Veronica Anagallis, cum mult, aliis. Water Speedwell, with many
others. Watery places.

II. 1. Utricularia, intermedia, Intermediate Bladderwort. In ditches,
Ireland and Scotland.

Utricularia minor, Lesser Bladderwort. In ditches and bogs.

Lycopus Europaeus, Common Gipsy wort. Banks of rivers. 8.

JULY. 225

Salvia pratensis, Meadow Clary. Dry Meadows.

III. 1. Iris Pseudacorus, Yellow Water Iris. Pools and rivers.
Scirpus caespitosus, Scaly-stalked Club- Rush. Barren heaths.
Scirpus lacustris, Bull-Rush. Rivers and ponds. 8.

Scirpus maritimus, Saltmarsh Club-Rush. Salt marshes. 8.

Nardus stricta, Common Mat-Grass. Heaths.

Ill 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. 8.
Galium Mollago, Great Hedge Bed-Straw. Hedges and woods. 8.
Galium Boreale, Cross-leaved Bed-Straw. North of England and

Scotland. 8.
Alchemilla Alpina, Alpine Ladies' Mantle. Alpine rocks.

IV. 3. Potamogeton natans, cum aliis. Broad-leaved Pond-weed,
with others. Ditches and pools. 8.

V. 1. Menyanthes nymphseoides, Fringed Buck-Bean. Ponds and

rivers, rare. 8.

Lysimachia vulgaris, Great Yellow Loose-strife. Moist, shady places.

Lysimachia thyrsiflora, Tufted Loose-strife. Watery places, Scot-
land. 8.

Angallis coerulea, Blue Pimpernel. Corn-fields, rare.

Angallis 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. 8.

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.

Erythraa Centauriurn, Common Centaury. Gravelly pastures. 8.

Erythraea latifolia, Broad-leaved Tufted Centaury. Sea-shore, near

Liverpool.
Lonicera Xylosteum, Upright Fly Honeysuckle. Rocky places.

226 JULY.

V. 2. Herniara glabra, Smooth Rupturewort. ) „

Herniaria hirsuta, Hairy Rupturewort. \ San<* PlaC6S' Dev' 8'

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.

V. 2. Eryngium campestre, Field Eringo. Waste ground, near the

sea. 8.

Torillis Anthriscus, Upright Hedge-Parsley. Hedges and fields.
Sjum latifolium, Broad-leaved Water-Parsnip. Ditches and fens. 8.
Slum angustifolium, Narrow-leaved Water-Parsnip. Ditches and

pools. 8.

Sium nodiflorum, Procumbent Water-Parsnip. Ditches and streams. 8.
(Enanthe tistulosa, Common Water-Dropwort. Ditches and ponds. 8.
(Enanthe pimpinelloides, Parsley Water-Dropwort. Salt-marshes.
(Enanthe crocrata, Hemlock Water-Dropwort. > ™. ,

Angelica sylvestris, Wild Angelica. $

Ligusticum Scoticum, Scottish Lovage. Coast of Scotland. 8.
Bupleurum 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.
Heracleum Sphondylium, 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.
Stalice 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.

VI. 1. Ailium oleraceum, Streaked Field Garlic. Borders of fields.
Allium vineale, Crow Garlic. Meadows and pastures.
Frankenia laevis, 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. Epilobiura hirsutum, Great Hairy Willow-Herb. Moist,

shady places. 8.

Epilobium montanum, Smooth-leaved Willow-Herb. Stony places. 9.
Epilobium tetragonura, Square-stalked Willow-Herb. Ditches. 9.

j ' V Pastures and fields. 10.

JULY. 227

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.
X. 2. Dianthus deltoides, Maiden Pink.
X. 3. Silene inflata, Bladder Campion.
Silene noctiflora, Night-flowering Catchfly. Sandy fields, rare.
Silene A'rlheria, Lobel's 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.

Sedum 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. Mountainous rocks. 9.
Spergula subulata, Fringed awl-shaped Spurry. Sandy and stony

places. 8.

XI. 1. Lythrum Salicaria, Spiked Purple' Loose-strife. Banks of
streams. 8.

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. Spiraea 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. Hedes, Shropshire. 8.
Rubus suberectus, Red-fruited Bramble. Scotland, Wales, and York-
shire. 8.

Rubus corylifolius, Hazel-leaved Bramble. Hedges, etc.
Potentilla Alpestris, Orange Alpine Cinquefoil. Mountainous places.

XIII. 1. Glaucium luteum, Yellow Horned Poppy. Sandy sea-
coast.

228 JULY.

Papaver hybridum, Round Rough-headed Poppy. In sandy, or chalky

fields.

Nymphnea alba, White Water-Lily. Pools and lakes.
Nuphar lutea, Common Yellow Water-Lily. Rivers and pools.
Nuphar pumila, Least Water-Lily. Scotch lakes.
Tilia Europsea, 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 Traveller's Joy. Hedges in
the south. 8.

Ranunculus Lingua, Greater Spearwort Crowfoot. Ditches and pools,
rare. 8.

XIV. 1. Verbena officinalis, Common Vervain. Road-sides. 8.

Galeopsis villosa, Downy Hemp-nettle ) _,

V Sandy fields. 8.
Galeopsis versicolor, Large-flowered Hemp-nettle. $

Betonica officinalis, Wood Betony. j)

> Woods and hedges. 8.
Stachys sylvatica, Hedge Woundwort. $

Ballota nigra, Black Horehound. Hedges and banks. 8.

Marrubium vulgare, Common Horehound. Dry waste grounds.

XIV. 1. 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-heal. 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.
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. Rock places. 9.
XVI. 3. AlthaBa officinalis, Common Marsh Mallow. Salt-
marshes. 9.

Malva moschata, Musk Mallow. Borders of fields. 8.
Lavatera arborea, Sea Tree-Mallow. Maratime rocks, rare. 10.

JULY. 229

XVII. 3. Genista tinctoria, Dyer's Green Weed. Meadows and pas-
lures. 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 Androsaemum, 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. Prenanthes 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.

XIX. 1. Arctium Lappa, Common Burdock. Waste ground, etc. 8.

Serratula tinctoria, Common Saw-wort. Wood and banks. 8.

Sarratula 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.

Eupatorium cannabinum, Common Hemp Agrimony. Sides of rivu-
lets. 8.

XIX. 2. Tanacetum vulgare, Common Tansy. Meadows and pas-
tures. 8.

20

230 JULY.

Gnaphalium Germanicum. Common Cudweed. Pastures and

heaths. 8.

Conyza squarrosa, Plowman's Spikenard. Calcareous soils. 8.
Erigeron acre, Blue Flea-bane. Dry, uncultivated land. 8.
Senecio Jacobsea, 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.
Achillaea Ptarmica, Sneezewort. Wet places. 8.

XIX. 3. Centaurea Cyanus, Corn Blue-Bottle. Corn-fields. 8.
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 Helleborine. Woods and banks. 8.

Epipactis palustris, Marsh Helleborine. Bogs. 8.

Malaxis paludosa, Bog-Orchis. ) „ R

Malaxis Loeselii, Two-leaved Orchis. \ l

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. 1

Sparganium ramosum, Branched Bur-Reed. > Pools and ditches. 8.

Sparganium simplex, Unbranched Bur-Reed- 5

XXI. 2. Carex incurva, cum aliis. Curved Carex, or Sedge, with

others. Alpine rivulets. 8.
XXI. 5. Myriophyllum spicatum, Spiked Water Milfoil. Ditches and

pools. 8.
Myriophyllum verticillatum. Whorled Water Milfoil. Ditches and

pools.

* Sir James Smith suspected that the Nottinghamshire habitats for
this rare plant were incorrect. At the present time, it cannot be
found ; but there is the Orchis bifolia, which Dr. Deering must have
mistaken for it.

V The coast. 8.

JULY. 231

Sagittaria sagittifolia, Common Arrow-head. Ditches and pools. 8.
XXII, 4. Humulus Lupulus, Common Hop. Moist hedges.

XXII. 7. Mercurialis annua, Annual Mercury. Cultivated ground. 9.
Hydrocharis Morsus ranae, Common Frog-bit. Ditches and pools. 9.

XXIII. 1. Atriplex portulacoides, Sea Orache.
Atriplex laciniata, Frosted Sea Orache.

XXIV. 1. Polypodium Dryopteris, Three-branched Polypody. Moun-
tainous woods. 8.

Aspidium Oreopteris, Heath Shield-fern. Mountainous 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. ~ ' "4
Blechnum boreale, .Northern Hard-fern. Moist heaths. 8.
Pteris aquilina, Common Brakes, or Braken. Woods, heaths, and

fields.

Woodsia ilvensis, Oblong Woodsia. ) . .

.., , . . , TIT , . > Alpine rocks. 9.

Woodsia hyperborea Kound-leaved Woodsia. ^

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. ) T ^ To 10.

LV , V In running streams. •<

Colymbetes ater. $ f To 9,

Dyticus dimidiatus. In the fenny counties.

Berosus globosus. Stagnant pools. To 10.

Platycerus caraboides. Decayed trees.

Telephorus cyaneus. "^

Tillus elongatus. V Woods in the north.

Clerus apiarius. 3

Corynetes violaceus. Old houses, etc. To 9.

Balaninus nucum. On hazel bushes. To 8.

Liparus Germanicus. ) T ,

> In the south.
Liparus Anglicanus. ^

Hylobius abietis. On the Scotch Fir. To 8.

Prionus coriarius. Old oak woods.

Clytus Arietis, The Wasp-Beetle. Gardens and hedges. To 9

232 JULY.

Crypticus glaber. x
Acridia grisea. /

Acridia varia. j Sandy places. To 8.

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.

Argynnis Aglaia, Darkgreen Fritillary. Woods and heaths To 8.

Argynnis Paphia, Silver-washed Fritillary. Woods and heaths.
To 8.

Vanessa Polychloros, Large Tortoise-shell Butterfly. Lanes, near
Elm-trees.

Vanessa lo, Peacock Butterfly. Lanes, etc.

Apatura Iris, Purple Emperor Butterfly. Oak wooda in the
south.

Limenitis Camilla, White Admiral. Woods in the south.

Hipparchia Semele, Grayling Butterfly. Heaths, etc. To 8.

Hipparchia Tithonus, Large Heath Butterfly. Woods and heaths.
To 8.

Hipparchia Leigea. Isle of Arran. To 8.

Hipparchia Cassiope, Small Ringlet Butterfly. Westmoreland and
Cumberland.

Hipparchia Iphis, Scarce Heath Butterfly. Yorkshire and Cumber-
land.

Hipparchia Davus. Near Manchester.

Hipparchia Hero, Silver-bordered Ringlet. ? . , , „

S- Ashdown Forest.
Hipparchia 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.

Lycnsna dispar, Large Copper. The Fens of Cambridgeshire and

Huntingdonshire.

Lycoena 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 the

south.

Polyommatus Eros, Pale Blue Butterfly. Kent and Surrey.
Polyommatus Argus, Silver-studded Blue Butterfly. Heaths.
Pamphila Linea, Small Skipper. Heathy woods. To 8.

JULY. 233

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.
Odonestis Potaloria, Drinker-Moth. Woods and hedges.
Orgyia antiqua, Common Vapourer. Gardens.
Porthesia chrysorrhaea, Yellow-tailed Moth. Hedges.
Arctia Caja, Great Tiger Moth. Gardens.
Lithosia complana, Common Footman. Fields and lanes.
Plusia, Iota, Golden Y Moth. Gardens, etc.

Prionus coriarius. " It is a fact generally observed,
that insects multiply extremely in peculiar habitats.
Providence having assigned to each animal its pecu-
liar offices and instincts, seems to have ordained that
in situations where the agency of numbers is re-
quired, the increase of the tribe should keep pace
with the increasing 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 Cerambicidse, 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 vegeta-
tion is luxuriant, and where tornado and storm con-
cur with other causes to desolate large tracts of
country, and fell the trees of the forest, — there, to
prevent the evils which the progress of vegetation
would sustain from the fallen trees, the benignity of
Providence has caused the Cerambicidae to abound:
myriads of large and various species unite to remove
the evil. The enormous trees of the tropics vanish^
20*

234 JULY.

as it were, before these little agents of supreme
power, and room is consequently left for Nature to
manifest herself once more in varied but generous
profusion.

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 ^Esculi (the Leopard-Moth). A very
beautiful and interesting species, nearly allied to the
Goat-Moth, but of far less frequent occurrence. In
the larva state it inhabits the elm and pear trees,
and the perfect insect makes its appearance about
the beginning 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 occurred near
Nottingham.

AUGUST.

Lift up your eyes and look on the fields ; for they are white already
to harvest.

JOHN iv. 35.

THE grand feature of this month is CORN HAR-
VEST. It is a time for universal gladness of heart.
Nature has completed her most important opera-
tions. She has ripened her best fruits, and a thou-
sand 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, shed-
ding over all its lustre. There is a solemn splen-
dour, 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, and to parti-
cipate in the happiness of the simple and the lowly,

236 AUGUST.

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
followed 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 picturesqueness of
harvest are concentrated. Wheat is more parti-
cularly the food of man. Barley affords him a
wholesome but much abused potation ; — the oat is
welcome to the homely board of the hardy moun-
taineers, 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 cottage, and, -with sleeve-defended arms,
scorns to do less thari 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 un walk able

AUGUST. 237

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
laboured description, often by a single stroke, pre-
sents 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 soli-
tudes of Paran, or fields reposing at the feet of
Carmel ; or " as it fell on a day, that the 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

239

AUGUST.

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 harvest
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 har-
vest-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 cir-
cumstance of their being drawn from their several
dwellings at this bright season, open their hearts
and give a life to their memories: and many an
anecdote and history from " the simple annals of
the poor" are there related, which need only to pass
through the mind of a Wordsworth or a Crabbe,
to become immortal in their mirth or wo.

Whilst speaking of harvest I must not omit to
notice the splendid appearance of the HARVEST
MOON. The circumstance of this moon rising
several nights successively almost at the same time,

AUGUST. 239

immediately after sunset, has given it an import-
ance 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 pecu-
liarly its own, that the more a person is accustomed
to expect and to observe it, the more it strikes him
with astonishment. 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 dry-
ness 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, combine 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 foliage of trees, and sails up into the still and
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 per-
ceive 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 considera-
ble altitude — its apparent bulk has diminished — its
majestic grandeur has waned, and it sails on its
way calmly beautiful, but in nothing differing from
its usual character.

During this month nature seems to experience a
second spring. Several trees, particularly the oak

240 AUGUST.

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 by caterpillars, as is sometimes the case,
they are now completely reclothed in the most deli-
cate foliage. The ground already experiences the
effect of the shortening days. The drought occa-
sioned by the intense heat and long days of July
has abated ; cool nights, dews, and occasional
showers restore the mown fields and sunburnt pas-
tures to a degree of verdure, and reanimate the
remaining flowers. The small blue campanula,
wild scabious, blue chicory, the large white con-
volvulus, hawkweeds, and the Calluna vuJgaris, or
common heath, still adorn wastes, fields, and way-
sides. 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 vege-
tate, they are in a state of preservation which may
and does often continue for centuries — perhaps, for
aught we know to the contrary, to the end of the

AUGUST. 241

world, if undisturbed; 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
carelessness may tend to extirpate certain species,
their seeds lie in myriads in the treasury of the
earth, and some event such as we sometimes wit-
ness, the lowering of a hill, the cutting of a single
turf, exposes them to the action of the 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 various 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 neighbourhood for ^r .
years. Many instances of this kind have no doubt ,^, «"
attracted the attention of all curious lovers of Na-
ture.

Brooks and watery dykes now display a luxu-
riance of flowers and verdure- The heat which
withered all else has cherished them, having a con-
stant supply of moisture. Water-flags, bulrushes,
and reeds have attained their full growth; the
arrowhead grows in large masses elegantly inter-
spersed 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
21

242

AUGUST.

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 vene-
rable 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 considered 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
arrowhead. I have seen him repeatedly sally forth
from his retreat, crop a leaf of arrowhead, 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 undestructive 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 in-
crease 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.

AUGUST. 243

While speaking of the habits of animals, I 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 ani-
mals, and especially insects, to feign death. A
gentleman had one brought to him by his dog. It
was dead to all appearance. 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 dis-
tance; 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 Staffordshire,
contemplating the remains of that fabric which
once imprisoned the Queen of Scots. On the slope
of the castle-hill facing me I observed a rabbit
sitting by its burrow. Suddenly from a bush at
some distance issued a 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 rabbit's young ones. The rabbit, with an

244 AUGUST.

air of the utmost sang-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 apparently ex-
hausted, 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, re-
leased from the tadpole state of existence in ditches
and pools, are hopping across your path. In the
south of England, the marsh frogs begin their
chorus about April, and continue it till this time.
Just as the tadpole assumes a frog-shape, they
become suddenly silent; as if their music was
intended as a charm to facilitate the young passing
through the transition states, from the spawn to the
tadpole, and from the tadpole to the frog. This
chorus is very different from the croaking of the
common frog, which is seldom heard except in
March. It is a regular chorus of many hundreds
in concert, which commences at evening and con-
tinues all night during those months, having, at a
distance, the sound of a wheel eternally going round.
Some naturalists, from the difficulty of getting near
the creatures while singing, have attributed the
sound to a species of grillus ; but any one who will
take a few turns on Ditton Marsh, or almost any
marshy common of Surrey, on a summer's evening,

AUGUST. 245

may speedily convince himself that the chorus pro-
ceeds from a species of bull-frog. Their eternal
nocturnal chorus has a curious, and, at length,
wearying effect on the ears of persons from more
northern counties. In the evening numbers of the
large black beetle (Geotrupus stercorarius) fly hum-
ming 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-RINGS, are never more con-
spicuous than in the autumn months. Even when
all other grass is brown, they exhibit a well-defined
and bright-green circle. The production of these
remarkable circles, and the property which they
possess of every year becoming 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 consequence
of the fungi, rather than a cause of the circle ; for
where there are fungi there will be insects to devour
them. Fungi are 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
21*

246 AUGUST.

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 becomes 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 appears, and again perishes. There then
is the nucleus of a fairy-ring. The next year the
tuft is found to have left a green spot, of perhaps a
foot and a half in 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 mushroorn-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 expose 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 ;

AUGUST. 247

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 holiday, till their companies shall be thinned by
gunpowder and winter weather.

This glowing 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 horizon. 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 land-
scape possessed a striking lustre and clearness, and
was brought, as it were, immediately to the eye by
that effect of transparent vapour which often pre-
cedes thunder-storms. The vault of heaven was
strewn with what are called horse-tail clouds, some
white, drawn out like webbs of some light and
transparent texture suddenly seized and tossed
about by a giant hand, and curling up at their ex-
tremities like tempestuous and foamy billows. In
the west the setting sun cast up his lines of radiating

348 AUGUST.

beams to the zenith, which appeared to be answered
in the east by corresponding radiations of black
lines, which crossed the clouds directly into the
higher heavens. These vanished with the sun.
The heat of the atmosphere during this time was
intolerable, and the evening terminated by a night
of tremendous thunder and lightning.

Towards the end of the month symptoms of the
year's decline press upon our attention. The morn-
ing 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 swft has taken its departure.
That beautiful phenomenon, the white fog, is again
beheld 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 healthful
recreation : the season for grouse-shooting upon the
moors commencing on the 12th of August, whereas
partridge-shooting does not begin till the 1st of
September, when the corn-lands may be expected to
be cleared.

August is so termed after Augustus, as July from
Julius Caesar. The Romans were accustomed to
call July and August originally Quintilis and Sex-
tilis, or fifth and sixth, dating from the old yearly

AUGUST. 249

commencement of March : September, October,
November, and December, meaning 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 ;
am meaning harvest. Some say it was called, as
well as June, Woed-monath.

In the middle of this month, the young goldfinch
broods appear; lapwings congregate, thistle-down
floats, and birds resume their spring songs. A little
afterwards flies abound in windows, linnets con-
gregate, and bulls make their shrill autumnal bellow-
ing ; and towards the end, the beech turns yellow,
the first symptoms of approaching autumn. The
nuthatch chatters, and the robin's pensive note is
again heard.

Hops are gathered this month. We cannot boast
of our vineyards ; but we question whether Italy
itself can show a more beautiful or picturesque
scene than an English hop-garden in picking time.
The hops, which have luxuriantly climbed to the
very tops of their poles, hang on all sides their
heavy heads of scaly flowers in festoons and gar-
lands ; 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 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.

250 AUGUST.

Considerable quantities, however, are cultivated in
Nottinghamshire, 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
Husbandrie," 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,
Is well to the hop, as a welcomed guest ;
But wind in the north, or else northerlie east,
To the hop is as ill as a fraie in a feast.

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 favoureth malt ;
And, being well brewed, long kept it will last,
And drawing abide, if ye drawe not too fast.

AUGUST. 251

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 poultry 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 removing, 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. 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 provisions of autumn,
and some their winter-quarters. The siskin, the
mountain finch, and the crossbeak, are not very

252 AUGUST.

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 fre-
quently the whole year. The lapwing remains
through the winter in the southern counties.

Calidris arenaria, Sanderling, comes August, goes February. Haunts,

Beach.

Fringilla Montifringilla, Alountain Finch, goes Feb. Mountains.
Fringilla Spinus, Siskin, goes Feb. Near London.
Larus nsevius, Gray 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 August 4, goes April 10.

Orchards, rare.

Limosa aegocephala, Godwit, goes Feb.
Limosa rufa, Bar-tailed Godwit, goes Feb.
Squatarola cinerea, Gray Plover, comes Aug. 26, goes Dec. 1.
Strepsilas interpres, Common Turnstone, goes March.
Totanus Glottis, Green-shanked Godwit, goes Feb. Beach.

Totanus fuscus, Cambridge Godwit, goes May.
Totanus striata. Purple Sandpiper, goes May.
Tringa Canutus, Knot, comes Aug. 28, goes Feb. 3.
Tringa Alpina, Purre, goes Feb.

DEPARTURES.

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, Surrey,

etc.

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 Milliaria, Bunting, comes March. Grassy fields.

AUGUST. 253

Fratercula arctica, Puffin, goes 15, comes April. North coasts.
Larus ridibundus, Red-legged Smew, goes 12, comes ^

March 4. C Sea-shore.

Uria Troile, Foolish Guillimot, comes Oct. 3

Vanellus cristatus, Lapwing, comes April. Heaths and fields.
Yunx Torquilla, Wryneck, comes April. Orchards and woods.

CALENDAR OF THE FLOWER-GARDEN.

Class II. Order 1. Veronica incisa, Cut-leaved Speedwell. 9.
Veronica Allioni, Creeping Speedwell. 9.
Veronica pinnata, Wing-leaved Speedwell. 9.
Calceolaria rugosa, Wrinkled Slipperwort. 9.
Calceolaria integrifolia, Entire-leaved Slipperwort. 9.

III. 1. Iris dichotoma, Dichotomous Iris.
Commelina erecta, Upright Commeline.

IV. 1. Scabiosa leucantha, Snowy Scabious. 9.
Cornus Canadensis, Canadian Dogwood.

IV. 3. Ilex cassina, Dahoon Holly.

V. 1. Phlox paniculata, Panicled Lychnidea. 9.
Lobelia urens, Acrid Lobelia. 9.

Lobelia siphilitica, Blue Cardinal-flower. 10.

V. 2. Asclepias purpureus, Purple Swallow-wort. 9.

V. 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. ]. 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 triflorum, Three-flowered Lythrum.
Lythrum verticillatum, Whorled Lythrum.

XII. 4. Spiraea tomentosa, Woolly-leaved Spiraea.

XII. 5. Rosa bracleata, Lord Macartney's White Rose. 9.

XIV. 1. Dracocephalon denticulatum, Tooth-leaved Dragon's Head.

Prunella Pennsylvanica, N. American Self-heal. 10.

XIV. 2. Chelone glabra, White-flowered Chelone. 10.

Chelone obliqua, Red-flowered Chelone. 10.

22

254 AUGUST.

Pentstemon pubescens, American Pentstemon. 9.
Pentstemon laevigatum, Smooth-leaved Pentstemon. 9.

XVI. 7. Hibiscus Syriacus, cum var. Althjea Frutex, with ra-
rieties. 9.

XVII. 4. Glycine apios, Tuberous rooted Glycine.
XIX. 1. Cnicus tuberosus, Tuberous Thistle.
Chrysocoma biflora, Two-flowered Goldilocks. 9.
Chrysocoma villosa, Hoary-leaved Goldilocks. 9.
XIX. 2. Baccharis halimifolia, 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.
Imula crithmifolia, Golden Samphire. 9.
XIX. 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, Sowthistle-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 1. Order I. 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.

III. 2. Melica coerulea, 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.

AUGUST. 255

Plantago maritima, Sea Plantain. Sea-shore. 9.

IV. 3. Ruppia maritima, Sea Ruppia. Salt-water ditches. 9.

V. 1. Campanula hybrida, Corn Bell-flower. Corn-fields.

V. 1. Phyteuma orbiculare, Round-headed Rampion. Chalky pas-
tures, rare, 9.

Lobelia urens, Acrid Lobelia. Heaths, Devon. 9.

Verbascum virgatum, Large-flowered Mullein. Fields and waysides,
rare.

Erythraea pulchella, Dwarf branched Centaury. Sandy ground near
the sea.

V. 2. Chenopodium urbicum, cum aliis. Upright Goosefoot, with

others. Gardens and fields. 9.

Beta maritima, Sea Beet. Sea-coast.

Cuscuta Europsea, 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 pulcher, Fiddle Dock. Pastures.

Rumex maritimus, Golden Dock. Ditches, etc. 9.

Alisma ranunculoides, Lesser Water-Plantain. Ditches and bogs. 9.

X. 2. Saxifraga Hirculus, Golden Marsh-Saxifrage. Turfy bogs,

very rare.

Saponaria ollicinalis, Common Soapwort. Meadows and banks. 9.
Silene roaritima, Sea Campion. Rocks by the sea. 10.
Sedum Telephiurn, Orpine, or Live Long. Fields and banks. 9.

XI. 1. Lythrum hyssopifolium, Hyssop-leaved Loosestrife. Ditches,
etc. rare.

XIII. 1. Tilia parvifolia, Small-leaved Lime-tree. Woods.

«»0 AUGUST.

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.
Chenopodium vulgare, Common Wild Basil. Bushy places.

XIV. 2. Orobanche ramosa, Branched Broom rape. Hemp-fields.

XV. 1. Alyssum maritimum, Sweet Alyssum. Cliffs near the sea. 9.
XV. 2. Cardamine bellidifolia, Daisy-leaved Lady's Smock. Alpine

pastures.

XV. 2. Sinapis muralis, Sand Mustard. Barren sea-coast. 9.
XVII. 1. Fumaria parviflora, Small-flowered Fumitory. Fields, south

of England. 9.

XVII. 3. Ulexnanus, Dwarf Furze. Dry heaths. 9.
Vicia lutea, Rough podded Yellow Vetch. Near the coast.
XIX. 1. Sonchus arvensis, Corn Sowthistle. Corn-fields.
Lactuca virosa, Strong-scented Lettuce. Borders of fields, etc. 9.
Apargia Taraxaci, Dandelion Hawk-bit. Sotch and Welsh moun-

Apargia autumnalis, Autumnal Hawk-bit. Meadows and pastures.

Hieracium villosum, 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 mea-
dows. 9.

AUGUST. 257

XX. 1. Neottia spiralis, Sweet Ladies' Traces. Meadows and pas-
tures.

XXI. 1. Euphorbia Portlandica, Portland Spurge. 3
Euphorbia paralia Sea Spurge. \ Sea-coast. 9.
XXI. 3. Urtica dioica, Great Common Nettle. Hedges, etc. 10.
XXI. 4. Xanthium 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, Grass-leaved Sea Orache. > _
Atriplex pedunculata, Peduncled Orache. $

XXIV. 1. Aspidium cristatum, Crested Shield-fern. Boggy heaths.
Lycopodium Selaginoides, Prickly Club-moss. Wet mountains and

heaths. 9.

Lycopodium Alpinum, Mountain Club-moss. Stony mountains and
heaths.

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 Europome, The Clouded Sulphur Butterfly. Meadows in the

south. To 9.
Vanessa Antiope, The Camberwell Beauty. Willow 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 Betulae, Brown Hair-streak Butterfly. Birch woods.
Lycaena Chryseis, The Purple-edged Copper Butterfly. Epping and

Ashdown Forests. To 9.

Lycsena Virgaureae , The Middle Copper Butterfly. Isle of Ely.
Pamphila Comma, The Pearl Skipper. Heaths and downs. To 9.
Porthesia auriflua, Brown-tail Moth. Hedges.

22*

258 AUGUST.

Ripiphorus paradoxus. This curious insect is,
I believe, invariably found in the nest of the common
wasp, or its immediate vicinity. The female de-
posits her eggs in the cells of the wasp's comb, and
leaves them to be fed, protected, 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's-
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 devastating mi-
gratory 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 en-
liven by their chirpings almost every heath and dry
bank in the kingdom. Grasshoppers were held in
higher estimation by the Egyptians and Greeks for
their musical powers. Kirby and Spence contend
that these were Cicadas ; but if we are to believe
certain ancient gems in the Florentine Gallery,
they were clearly of the genus Locusta, to which
our grasshoppers belong ; 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

AUGUST. 259

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 — Tettix, seem to have
been the favourites of every Grecian bard, from
Homer and Hesiod to Anacreon and Theocritus —
supposed to be perfectly harmless, and to live only upon
dew ; they were addressed by the most endearing epi-
thets, and 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 Ana-
creon, addressing this insect, * the Muses love thee ;
Phoabus 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 almost like a god.' So attached were the
Athenians to these insects, that they were accustomed
to fasten golden images of them in their hair, imply-
ing, at the same time, a boast that they themselves,
as well as the Cicadas, were Terras 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.'

AUGUST.

" If the Grecian Tettix, or Cicada, had been dis-
tinguished 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 connexion which was sup-
posed to exist between it and music. Thus the sound
of this insect and 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 musi-
cians, 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 it is at present known respecting the
vocal powers of the Cicada3 and the Locustce, it ap-
pears that the whole of the foregoing quotation 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 in-
cluding both families 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.

LAYS OF THE SEASONS.

BY MARY HOWITT.
III.

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 Hesperides.

262 AUTUMN.

And boys are busy in the woods,

Gathering the ripe nuts, bright and brown
In shady lanes the children stray
Looking for blackberries through the day,
Those berries of such old renown !

— Gray 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 burnish'd air !
The little flocks like drifts of snow,
The shepherd's sheilings gray 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 !

AUTUMN. 263

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 unchasten'd spirit brook
No warning voice, no stern rebuke,

For thy life's ceaseless vanities !

Now lift thine eyes, weak child of pride,

And lo ! behold yon branching pine,
Broad, red, and like a burning sun,
Comes up the glorious autumn moon,

God's creature, like a thing divine !

It is not, as our childhood deem'd

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.

264 AUTUMN.

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 I
'Tis well when the soul is not seared,
And" the low 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 service
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.

THE last month commenced with corn-harvest,
this commences with the harvest of death. On the
1st of September partridge-shooting commences.
Sportsmen have been busy seeing their dogs, guns,
and ammunition put in preparation. As the day
has approached, the spirit of anticipation has be-
come vivid and anxious. Many a time have they
reconnoitred, till they know to a rood where every
covey in the neighbourhood lies, and of what num-
ber 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 re-
peatedly, to look for the first streak of dawn, and
have actually taken the field ere it is half light.
The dogs are as impatient as their masters ; whin-
ing and fawning, and endeavouring to the best of
23

266 SEPTEMBER.

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 influ-
ence of chase and achievement, 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 ordinary pleasures,
and, among the numerous sources of a sportsman's
enjoyment, the influence of natural beauty is one
of the most efficient. It may not be very apparent ;

SEPTEMBER. 267

in nine cases out of ten it may even be unknown
to the man himself, yet it is hot 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 unploughed 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 seldom analyses
his own feelings ; he cares not to inquire into the
causes of his taste and his gratification ; but those
causes exist in the secret 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 testi-
mony 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, 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 alternately 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,

268 SEPTEMBER.

which merely pictures the same thing to his eye,
is a sufficient 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 picto-
rial loveliness. He flies from the pelting 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" 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 sympathise with him. Yet, to
my thinking, shooting is, of all field-sports, the least
cruel ; the brutal mind will exhibit its ferocity in
every thing, and in nothing has that brutality been
more evinced than in that wholesale butchery which
many gentlemen have, of late years, thought fit to
boast of in the newspapers, deeming it an honour
to slaughter some hundred brace of birds in a day;
but the humane and practised sportsman, led on,
not by a blood-thirstiness worthy of a Cossack,
nor by vanity worthy of an idiot, nor by the plea-
sure of seeing an unfortunate animal run gasping
before the jaws of his 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

SEPTEMBER. 269

in a moment. The shooter in truth enjoys to the
utmost what is here said of

THE HUNTER.

High life for a hunter ! he meets on the hill

The new-waken'd 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 one ocean of light ;

While the sun, like a glorious banner unfurl'd,

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.

When the clear depth of noontide with glittering motion

O'erflows the lone glens, an aerial 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 dreamy 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.

WILSON.

But let us leave the 'sportsman for the general
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
23*

270 SEPTEMBER.

wild produce, crabs, black glossy clusters of privet,
buckthorn, and elderberries 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 sat them down and cried.

The hedgerows are also brightened with a pro-
fusion of scarlet berries of hips, haws, honeysuckles,
viburnum, and bryony. The fruit of the mountain-
ash, woody-nightshade, and wild-service is truly
beautiful ; nor are the violet-hued sloes and bullaces,
or the crimson, mossy excrescences of the wild rose-
tree, insignificant objects amid the autumnal splen-
dours of the waning year.

Notwithstanding the decrease of the day, the
weather of this month is, for the most part, splen-
didly 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 innumerable 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

SEPTEMBER. 271

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 sup-
posed, of less specific gravity than the air, and by
that means ascend. The phenomenon has been
supposed 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 sur-
prising and delightful. We remark with astonish-
ment how perfectly and distinctly the whole of the
most extensive landscape lies in varied, solemn
beaqty before us ; while, such is the reposing still-
ness of nature, that not a sound disturbs the sunny
solitude, save perhaps the clapping of pigeon's wings
as they rise from the stubbles. The clearness of
vision may partly arise from the paucity of vapour
ascending 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.

27*2 SEPTEMBER.

Now it is delightful among mountains. Moun-
tains ! how one's heart leaps at the very word !
There is a charm connected with mountains 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 enchanted regions. How the
mind is filled with their vast solitude ! how the
inward eye is fixed on their silent, their sublime,
their everlasting peaks ! How our heart bounds to
the music of their solitary cries, to the tinkle of their
gushing rills, to the sound of their cataracts ! 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-flowers, 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

SEPTEMBER. 273

heard the bleat of the flock across their solitary ex-
panses, and the wild cry of the mountain-plover, the
raven, or the eagle ; and seen the rich and russet
hues of distant slopes and eminences, the livid
gashes of ravines and precipices, 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 possesses.

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 con-
tinental 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 inaccessible pinnacles, the

Palaces where nature thrones
Sublimity in icy halls !

the dark Alpine forests, the savage rocks and pre-
cipices, the fearful and unfathomable chasms filled
with the sound of ever-precipitating waters; the
cloud, the silence, the avalanche, the cavernous
gloom, the terrible visitations of Heaven's con-

274 SEPTEMBER.

centrated lightning, darkness and thunder ; or the
sweeter features of living, rushing streams, spicy
odours of flower and shrub, fresh spirit-elating
breezes sounding through the dark pine grove ; the
ever-varying lights and shadows, and aerial hues ;
the wide prospects, and, above all, the simple
inhabitants !

We delight to think of the people of mountainous
regions ; we please our imaginations with their pic-
turesque and quiet abodes ; with their peaceful
secluded lives, striking and unvarying 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 perils of savage nature; his social
affections must therefore be proportionably concen-
trated, his home-ties lively and strong ; but, more
than all, he lives within the barriers, the strong-
holds, the very last refuge which Nature herself has
reared 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 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

SEPTEMBER. 275

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 blasting 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
History 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 per-
secuted creatures have they sheltered in their stony
bosoms from the weapons and tortures of their
fellow-men !

*

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold 1

was the burning exclamation of Milton's agonized
and indignant spirit, as he beheld those sacred bul-
warks of freedom for once violated by the disturb-
ing demons of the earth ; and the 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 variety
which they impart to the glorious bosom of our

276

SEPTEMBER.

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 splendid gift ; the sub-
limity 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 imagina-
tive 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
probably 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 countries 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 ramparts from the irruptions
and interruptions of 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 Haemus and
Rhodope ! behold how the Alps describe their
magnificent crescent, inclining their opposite extre-
mities to the Adriatic and Tyrrhene Seas, locking

SEPTEMBER. 277

up Italy from the Gallic and Teutonic 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 lan-
guage, 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 regions, 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 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.

And woods too ! Pleasant is it at 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 tenv
24

278 SEPTEMBER.

pered 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 breaks ; those open-
ings, 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 pleasant 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 rejoice 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 summer skies. The rich
crimson flush of forest ground,

Where myriad heath-flowers congregated bloom,

is fast fading away : the fern is assuming its russet
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 con-
ducted his jolly troop of boys once in the season —

SEPTEMBER. 279

those rustling boughs amongst which we rushed
and 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
possess — those brown-shellers which came pattering
down upon our heads — our dinner a la gipsy, and
our triumphant march home with our loaded
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 formi-
dable Filleggiatura, an invasion of the silent woods
with gigs and post-chaises ; startling the creatures
of solitude with the flash of scarfs, ribbons and
parasols, 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 social natures will abundantly afford them.
With such I have, in past years, enjoyed to perfec-
tion the luxury of a Nutting expedition, and I recur
to the memory of it with double interest now that

280 SEPTEMBER.

some of the partners of my pleasure are sleeping in
the dust.

Few indeed are the pleasures of rural life that
can surpass the enjoyment of Nutting; and nuts
are now ripe in the woods. Hops are gathered in
this month, as well as in the last. Swallows now
betray symptoms of their approaching departure,
flying in large flocks, settling on the ground in the
fields in vast numbers, whither the increasing chilli-
ness of the air has driven the flies, or clustering on
the tops of houses, or the dead boughs of trees,
making a low universal sort of warble. The robin
renews his note, the stone-curlew clamours at the
beginning of this month, wood-owls hoot, hares
congregate, and young blackbirds and thrushes
may be heard in copses, essaying their first powers
of song. The wood-lark now having abandoned
its summer music, may yet be heard uttering its fine
wild autumnal note of lu-lu, lu-lu, £u-lu, on the dis-
tant uplands of our southern and western counties,
particularly Devon and Cornwall, and amongst the
hills of South Wales.

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 endowed with some portion of that
beauty so lavishly diffused through creation; and

SEPTEMBER.

281

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 Sherwood
Forest in the autumn of 1827, I was particularly
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 delicate surfaces were
studded with dark embossments, some fashioned
like a Chinese parasol, others gibbous and gro-
tesque ; the massy puff-ball, which, before it be-
comes dry has been known to weigh several
pounds; the pestilent, scented, and ginger mush-
room, for all the world the exact resemblance of a
Simnel-cake. The fungi of the fine dry summer
and autumn of 1834 were remarkable both for size
and numbers. Mushrooms were brought to market
in amazing quantities. In Clifton Grove, near Not-
tingham, I saw puff-balls so large that they re-
sembled the stone balls on the gateways of old
halls. I had the curiosity to measure one, and
found it two feet four inches in circumference. On
Salisbury plains I saw an old woman gathering
what she called horse-mushrooms, to sell for cat-
sup. They grew in fairy-rings — or ver-rings, as
they are there called, — and had all the characters
of true mushrooms, the thick stool, the rosy gills,
and the catsup odour, but were of the size of a
man's head. Similar ones in size and species I saw
24*

282 SEPTEMBER.

growing plentifully about the Land's-End in Corn-
wall.

" Our Saxon ancestors," says Verstegan, " called
this month Gerst-monath, for that barley which that
month commonly yielded was called gerst, the
name of barley being given unto it by reason of the
drinke therewith made, called beere, and from beer-
legh it came to be berligh, and thence to barley.
So in like manner beereheym, to wit, the overarch-
ing or covering of beer, came to be called berham
and afterwards barme, having gotten I wot not
how many names besides."

Saffron, used in medicine and in dyeing, con-
sisting of the pointals of the crocus, is this month
gathered and prepared in large quantities, particu-
larly 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 the time at which many visit the sea-
coast, the following extract from " Drurnmond's
First Steps to Botany," a most excellent and inte-
resting 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

SEPTEMBER. 283

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 arising from the ebb and
flow of the tide, and the undulations of the water's
surface, sometimes rolling like mountains, and
again scarcely murmuring 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 undisturbed, that, at great
depths, the minutest objects 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

284 SEPTEMBER.

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.
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 ; lay-

SEPTEMBER. 285

ing 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 employ-
ments of this month. We have spoken of the pic-
turesque beauty of hop-gathering in the last month ;
but this month, in the hop counties, presents the
most general scene of hop-gathering. Throughout
Kent and Sussex, long groups are every where to
be seen pulling down the hop-poles covered with
the bine in full flower, picking them into the bins,
and conveying them away to the drying kilns. In
the hollows, and on the slopes af the Kentish hills,
the hop-grounds with their luxuriance of dark green
hop-vines hanging from the poles in masses of pale-
green flowers, their picturesque knots of gatherers,
men, women, and children, — all having turned out,
—their homely cottages peeping here and there,
and the drying-kilns sending up, at intervals, their
wreaths of thin white smoke, altogether form a
most cheering and true English sight. The whole
country is odorous with the aroma of hop, as it is
breathed forth from the drying-kilns, and from
wagons piled with towering loads of hops already
on their way to the metropolis. To those who
meet for the first time the almost innumerable
wagon-loads of hops at this season, thronging the
roads from Sussex and Kent to London, and piled
up in their huge pockets to an enormous height, it
is a scene which excites astonishment ; and does

286 SEPTEMBER.

k

not fail to impress them with a vivid idea of the
immense growth of this vegetable, and of its vast
use in the cordial old English beverage — ale, and
its more modern congener — porter. At this season,
too, not only is the atmosphere perfumed with hop,
but the very atmosphere of the dining and drawing
room too. Hops are the grand flavour of conversa-
tion, as well as of beer. Gentlemen, ladies, clergy-
men, noblemen, all are growers of hops, and deeply
interested in the state of the crop, and the state of
the market.

Much work may be found in the garden in re-
moving decayed plants, digging, gathering seeds,
sowing and planting for next year. The gathering
of nuts, acorns, blackberries, and elder-berries, 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.

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 offish; 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 fly.

SEPTEMBER. 287

MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS.

ARRIVALS.

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

corn-fields.
Numenius 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 Nov. goes March.

Rocky isles.
Totanus ochropus, Green Sandpiper, goes April. Sea-shore, pools,

and streams.

Totanus fuscus, Cambridge Godwit, goes April, Sea-shore.
Totanus striata, Purple Sandpiper, goes April. Sea-shore.
Turdus pilaris, Fieldfare, comes Nov. goes March. Fields generally.
Turdus Iliacus, Redwing Thrush, comes Nov. goes March. Fields

generally.

DEPARTURES.

Caprimulgus Europoeus, Fern Owl, comes May. Haunts, Oak woods.

Charadrius Hiaticula, Ring Dottrel, comes April. Sea-shore.

Charadrius pluvialis. Green Plover, comes April. Heaths in summer,
coasts in winter.

Curruca sylvia, Whitethroat, comes April. Hedges generally.

Curruca sylviella, Lesser Whitethroat, comes April. Hedges gene-
rally.

Curruca atricapilla, Blackcap, comes April 13. Gardens.

Curruca salicaria, Sedge Warbler, comes May. Hedges in low
places.

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.

Curruca hortensis, Pettychaps, comes April. Shrubberies, southern
counties.

288 SEPTEMBER.

Curruca locustella, Grasshopper Lark, comes April. Bushes and

brakes.
Emberiza Schoeniclus, Reed Sparrow, comes March. Reedy fens and

streams.

Hirundo rustica, Swallow, comes April. Chimneys.
Lanius Collurio, Red-backed Shrike, comes May. Fields, southern

counties.
Muscicapa 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.
Rugulus Hippolais, Chiff-chaff, comes March. Copses, thickets.
Saxicola (Enanthe, Wheatear, comes March. Ploughed fields,

heaths.

Sterna Hirundo, Common Tern, comes April. Sea-shore.
Sterna rainuta, 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. Mountainous 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 Helix 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.

XIX. 1. Eupatorium altissimum, cum aliis. Tall Eupatorium, with

others. 10.

Chrysocoma Lynosyris, German Goldilocks. 10.
Liatris elegans, Hairy-cupped Liatris. 10.
Liatris pilosa, Pilose Liatris. 10.

SEPTEMBER. 289

XIX. 2. Scnccio luridus, Dingy Groundsel.

Aster dumosus, cum mult, aliis. Purple-flowered Aster, with many

others. 10.
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-leaved 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.
III. 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. Meadows
and 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. Lakes 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
25

290 SEPTEMBER.

Coccinella 12-punctata, Twelve-spotted Lady-bird. )
Coccinella 16-guttata, Sixteen-spotted Lady-bird. )
Proscarabaeus autumnalis. Margate.

Acridia viridissima. ) ., ,

... . > Marshes.

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. ) Gardeng

Sphinx Convolvuli, Convolvulus Hawk-moth. $

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
frequent occurrence near Dronfield, Derbyshire.

On the Continent, where the Death's-head Hawky
moth abounds, it has been regarded by the super-
stitious with dread, not only on account of the figure
of a death's head which is marked on its thorax, but
also from the plaintive 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 (Convolvulus"
Hawk-moth) has recently been captured in the
vicinity of Nottingham.

OCTOBER.

i

The harvest is past, the summer is ended.

JEREMIAH viii. 20.

OCTOBER bears pretty much the same character
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 distin-
guished by the lingering of summer-warmth and
summer-flowers, 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 autumnale) and
the autumnal crocus (Crocus autumnalis) 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 as in spring. Fine clear days occa-
sionally come out, affording in the perfect repose of
the landscape, the blueness of the waters, and the
strong shadows cast by the trees upon the sunny

292 OCTOBER.

ground, the highest pictorial beauty ; but they are
speedily past, and rains and mists wrap the face
of the earth in gloom. Yet the glooms and ob-
scurity 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 soothes and excites the imagination ;
and even when not pleasant themselves, they minis-
ter to our pleasures by turning the heart to our
bright firesides, to the warmth and perpetual sum-
mer of home.

Orchards are now finally cleared of fruit, at least
the trees, for in the cider counties they still lie in
large heaps in the orchards in all their glory of gold
and crimson, and many will lie there till frosty
nights set in ; the frost being supposed to improve
their quality by increasing the quantity of saccha-
rine matter in them, though they are apt to become
decayed by too long lying, and to injure the flavour
of the cider. Gardens have lost the chief of their
attractions ; farmers are busy ploughing, and getting
in their wheat. Swallows generally disappear this
month.

WOODS. — The 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 sublimity which strike
and charm the eye. Their silence and obscurity
affect the imagination with a meditative awe. They

OCTOBER. 293

soothe the spirit by their grateful seclusion, and
delight it by glimpses of their wild inhabitants, by
their novel cries, and by odours and beautiful phe-
nomena peculiar to themselves. This may be more
particularly applied to our own woods, woods com-
paratively reclaimed ; but in less populous and cul-
tivated countries they possess a far more wild and
gloomy character. The abodes of banditti, 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 super-
stition and peopled them with satyrs, fauns, dryads,
hamadryads, and innumerable spirits of dubious
natures. The same cause consecrated them to
religious rites ; it was from the mighty and ancient
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 ido-
latrous customs. In the heart of woods the Druid
cut down the bough of mistletoe, and performed the
horrible ceremonies of his religion. The philoso-
phers of Greece resorted to groves, as schools the
most august and befitting the delivery of their su-
blime precepts. In the depths of woods did ancho-
rites seek to forget the world, and to prepare their
hearts for 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,
25*

294 OCTOBER.

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 magical castles
and hippogriflfs of the Orlando ; the enchanted
forest, the Armida and Erminia of the Gerusa-
lemma Liherata; "Fair Una with her milk-white
lamb," and all the satyrs, Archimages, 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
immortal 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 sentiments. 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
JEolian 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,

OCTOBER. 295

they are to us. We have the varied whole of their
sentiments, feelings, and fancies, bequeathed as an
immortal legacy, and combined and concentrated
for our gratification and advantage ; 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
flourish 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 wride-spreading branches ! and all
the delicate and glorious machinery of buds, leaves,
flowers, and fruit, 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 ; pouring 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 W7orld. What is
the richest country without trees ? What barren
and monotonous spot can they not convert into a

296 OCTOBER.

paradise 1 Xerxes, in the midst of his most ambi-
tious enterprise, stopped his vast army to contem-
plate the beauty of a tree. Cicero, from the throng,
and exertion, and anxiety of the Forum, was accus-
tomed, Pliny tells us, to steal forth to a grove of
palm-trees, to refresh and invigorate his spirit. In
the Scalpan Groves, the same author adds, Thucy-
dides was supposed to have composed his noble
histories.

" The Greek and Roman classics, indeed, abound
with expressions of admiration of trees and woods,
and with customs which have originated in that
admiration ; but above all, as the Bible surpasses,
in the splendour and majesty of its poetry, all
books in the world, so is its silver and arborescent
imagery the most bold and beautiful. Beneath some
spreading tree are the ancient patriarchs revealed
to us sitting in contemplation, or receiving the visits
of angels ; and what a calm and dignified picture
of primeval life is presented to our imagination, at
the mention of Deborah, the wife of Lapidoth,
judging the twelve tribes of Israel, between Ramah
and Bethel, 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 Proverbs, the prophets in the su-
blime outpourings of their awful inspiration, and

OCTOBER. 297

Christ in his parables — those most beautiful and
perfect of all allegories — 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 dispensed 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 mul-
berry of Shakspeare, and that of Milton, have asso-
ciated those great names with the love of trees and
of planting. Many noble works of our illustrious
countrymen it would be easy to mention, that have
been written, and more than one of our most dis-
tinguished living authors, who delights to compose,
amid the inspiring grace and freshness and purity of
trees. John Evelyn spent a considerable portion of
a valuable life in endeavouring to communicate his
admiration of trees and forests ; and besides imme-
diately 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
apostle 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

298 OCTOBER.

shades of trees poets have composed verses which
have animated men to heroic and glorious actions.
Here orators 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 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 ex-
pressed his sense of their beauty, by employing them
as figures of whatever is rich, flourishing, and
pleasant 1 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 underwork
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 kindling or tinting of the
leaf, presents a magnificent spectacle. Every species
of tree, so beautifully varied in its general character

OCTOBER. 299

— the silver-stemmed and pensile-branched birch, the
tall smooth beech, the wide spreading oak and chest-
nut, each developes its own florid hue of orange, red,
brown, or yellow, which, mingling with the green
of unchanged trees, or the darkness of the pine, pre-
sents 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 great
variety of trees, and the greater effect of climate,
conspiring 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.

HEMANS.

And solemn too are our own. The dark and glossy
acorns lie scattered in profusion on the ground, the
richly coloured and veined horse-chestnuts 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 plentiful 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 greenwood ! the greenwood ! what bosom but allows
The gladness of the charm that dwells in thy pleasant whisper-
ing boughs !

300 OCTOBER.

How often in this weary world, I pine and long to flee,
And lay me down, as I 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 thrill,
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 subtile 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 orer

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's hope is

crown'd.

The greenwood ! the greenwood I oh, be it mine to lie
In the depth of thy mossy solitude, when summer fills the sky I
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.

W. H.

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 dissemination.
Plants, having gone through the successive stages of

OCTOBER. 301

springing, flowering, and seeding, have, at length,
brought to maturity the rudiments of a future pro-
geny, which are now to be committed to the foster-
ing 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 feathers,
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 pass-
ing 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 following
succession: — walnut, mulberry, horse-chestnut, syca-
more, lime, ash; then, after an interval, elm; then
beech and oak ; then apple 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, carrots,
beet-root, and Sweedish turnips, find much employ-
ment. There is also considerable ploughing done,
26

302 OCTOBER.

and sowing of wheat, beans, and winter-dills.
Timber-trees are planted, timber felled, and fences,
gates, drains, and ditches, put into repair by neat
and industrious agriculturists. When fuel for winter
is not already laid in, it is now done. Gardens re-
quire 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.

MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS.

Anas Crecca, Teal, comes Oct. 20, goes March 6. Haunts, Streams

and lakes.
Anser palustris, Gray Lagg — Wild goose, comes Oct. 6, goes Feb. 10,

Heathy Lakes and streams.
Corvus Comix, Royston, or Hooded Crow, comes Oct. 3, goes March

22. Downs.

Curruca provincialis, Dartford Warbler, goes Feb. About London.
Falco ^Esalon, Merlin, goes Feb. Woods.
Fodiceps 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. Sandy Cliifs neai water.

OCTOBER. 303

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

Ortygometra crex, Land Hail, comes May. Meadows.

Rallus aquaticus, Water Rail, comes April 9. Sedgy waters.

Sylvia Phoenicurus, Redstart, comes April. About old walls.

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

Totanus Hypoleucos, Common Sandpiper, comes April. Pebbly mar-
gins of streams.

CALENDAR OF THE FLOWER-GARDEN.

Class V. Order 1. Sideroxylon lycoides. Willow-leaved Iron-
wood. 11.

Plumbago Europosus, European Leadwort.
XIX. 2. Artemisia Japonica, Japan Southernwood. 11.
Aster salicifolius, cum aliis. Willow-leaved Aster, with others.
Solidago laevigata, 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.

NOVEMBER.

With clouds he covereth the light ; and commandeth it not to shine
by the cloud that cometh betwixt.

JOB xxxvi. 32.

" AUTUMN is dark on the mountains ; gray 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 surrounded 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 wintry
months, I habitually cast my eyes upon a small

NOVEMBER. 305

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 boyhood are at once brought
back again. I connect 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 gene-
rosity. We are often asked wherein consists the
peculiar charm of Ossian. It is in the graceful
delicacy and refined affection of his female charac-
ters ; the reckless bravery, lofty sentiment, 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 society, with all the beautiful set-off
of the simplicity of ancient manners. And then,
what a pathos is in their sorrows ! The harp of
Ossian is truly a " harp of sorrow." It breathes
perpetually of melancholy tenderness. It is the
voice of age lamenting over departed glory — over
beauty and strength cut down in their 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 gray stones, the
roaring of mountain-streams, the blasted tree, the
withered leaves, and the thistle's beard, that flies on
26*

'306 NOVEMBER.

the wind of autumn. Am I told that it is merely a
pleasant, 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 shall choose
to think of Ossian as the ancient and veritable bard,
and Macpherson as the fortunate fellow who found
his scattered lays, and who perhaps added links and
amendments (to use the word in a parliamentary
sense) of his own. Whatever be the opinion of
fickle fashion, it is a book pre-eminently fitted for
the November fire-side : unrivalled in grapic touches
which bring the character of the season before you,
and serve to touch the heart with an unworldly ten-
derness,— a boon of no little consequence 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

NOVEMBER. 307

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 wood-
land thickets withered, bleached 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 autumnal winds. The brooks are brim-
ful ; the rivers, turbid and covered with masses of
foam, hurry on in angry strength, or pour their
waters over the champaign. Our very gardens are
sad, damp, and desolate. Their floral splendours are
dead ; naked stems and decaying leaves have taken
the place of verdure. The walks are unkempt and
uninviting : and as these summer 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 arid
dissipation. To them there is something fright-
ful in its solitude; yet, to the reflective 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 his grief; to it the
projector of some great work in art or literature

308 NOVEMBER.

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 imaginative stimulus and precious sug-
gestions 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 recommended
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 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 morning 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

NOVEMBER.

With verdure not unprofitable, grazed
By flocks, fast feeding1, 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
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 snow that comes 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 remembrance 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, favoura-

NOVEMBER.

ble to fireside enjoyments and occupations. Driven
from the fields and woods, where we have found so
much delight, so many objects of interest or employ-
ment, we may now sit within and hear the storm
rage around, conscious that 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 sweetness for the time of darkness and
dearth. In large farmhouses, many useful avoca-
tions 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 become a
laudable custom in many superior farms to en-
courage reading, and other means of mental im-
provement, 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 having 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 interval of rest,
Sundays and winter nights, have been lost in drow-
siness. The cottager 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-catchers,
they who do not capture birds when they have con-

NOVEMBER. 311

gregated in winter, when they have 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 sunshine 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 deranging or destroying
limed twigs when they fall in my way.

There are none of our customs which more mark
our selfishness than that of keeping singing birds in
perpetual confinement, making the pleasure of our
ears their misfortune, and that sweet gift, which
God has given them wherewith 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 blessing 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 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

312 NOVEMBER.

migration 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 practised.
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 pleasantness of spring with the most
delicious music ; or a lark, which he has made to
soar, in the rapture of its heart, up to Heaven's
gates, — "cribbed, cabined, and confined" in a nar-
row 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
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.

DAILY WAYFARERS. — Of all the vast class of
human creatures who are doomed to diurnal weari-

NOVE31BER. 313

ness — to know the bitterness of " the labour that is
done under the sun," — there are none that I can
more feelingly sympathise with than the daily way-
farers ; especially at this season of shortening days,
frequent storms and growing cold. I do not mean
the wealthy, the lazy, and luxurious viatores that, in
carriage, or on steed, traverse the king's highways,
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 :

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 table, 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 winter, 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 stooping 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 journey ings, we ought to
spare them a little sympathy. I must confess, that
when I have been shut up in a great town for some
27

314 NOVEMBER.

months, and again issuing into the country, behold the
same figures, the same groups, come streaming along
our principal roads, that we have encountered there
through all the days of our lives, and that Bewick
has depicted in his living sketches, I have a most in-
ternal 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 excellence, — those clever,
able, and eloquent fellows, that can lose a limb or
even an eye at will ; sailors who never saw the sea ;
decayed tradesmen 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
TZO pity.

Then there are those little, nomadic merchants,
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, weather-
beaten face, and a great cage-like basket of open
wicker-work on her back, large enough to hold her-
self:— and beside these, sundry bearers of shallow

NOVEMBER. 315

baskets of tapes, braces, laces, pins, cotton-balls, and
so forth. These, and occasionally 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-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 col-
lected, 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 ne-
cessary calmness of aspect; they have bid good-
b'ye to their friends, with whom they are ambitious
of leaving the reputation of having gone oft' stoutly;
some of their sweethearts, with red eyes, are hover-
ing 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,

316 NOVEMBER.

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.

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 disguises, and in many a strange lurking-
place, concealment 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 battles
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, gray-headed, mutilated
remnant of a man, with one arm, one leg, a body
seamed with scars, a crown never the better for the

NOVEMBER. 317

blows it has borne, and a pension of a few shillings
a-week to get drunk upon. He goes home to dis-
cover that death has been as busy there as in the
battle-field, in the Walcheren 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 tolerably 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 fellow !
Do you not see the cause of his journey at once ?
He is a labourer ; his eldest daughter, a girl of
seventeen, is gone to live in the family of some re-
lation of the squire's, forty miles off. He has just
heard news that has alarmed him. His wife and he
have sat 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
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 journey. Look at his
27*

318 NOVEMBER.

long drab coat of a most antiquated cut ! See how
neatly it has been brushed! 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 Sunday clothes;
and he walks on his way a creature of such simpli-
city 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 earning plenty of money,
and plenty of children have grown around them.
The good creature, in the abundance of her house-
hold affairs, has been so happy that she has almost
forgotten that there is a world out of her o\vn house.
But there has come a change. Her husband's em-
ployment 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 distant place. At length his remittances fail, —
his letters cease ; — she is alarmed ; — she musters all
her skill at penmanship and writes, but gets no re-
ply. 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

NOVEMBER. 319

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 melan-
choly 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 involuntarily 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 fruitless one.
She may find her faithless husband, and may weep,
and expostulate, and upbraid ; 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 gray 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 hus-
band 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

320 NOVEMBER.

Providence. Grief certainly has made but little
impression 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 notice.
This is a widow, old and poor. For years 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 church-
yard, 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 com-
fort 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, soli-
tary house is shut up — door and window-shutter
carefully closed ; and, with her key in her pocket,

NOVEMBER. 321

and with her red cloak and black bonnet on, she
is setting out. The neighbours come out in won-
dering kindness to bid her good-b'ye ; but there is
more offence to her in their remarks on her son
than comfort in the expressions of their pity, and
she moves quietly away. And that poor old crea-
ture is bound on a journey of seventy miles across
the country, and without the expectation of an
hour's carriage. She takes no stick in her hand,
for she 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 accommoda-
ting 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 con-
fined,— give them air, and they will dilute them-
selves 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

322 NOVEMBER. '

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, making their
way through some strange land ; the solitary tra-
vellers 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 wo 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 Anglo-Saxons termed this month, says Ver-
stegan, Wind-monath ; to wit, wind-month ; whereby
we may see that our ancestors were made acquainted
with blustering Boreas : and it was the ancient cus-
tom 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 like-
wise, 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

NOVEMBER. 323

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 winter
retreats. The frog sinks to the bottom of ponds
and ditches, and buries itself in the mud. The
lizard, the badger, the hedgehog, creep into holes
in the earth, and remain torpid till spring. Bats
get into old barns, caves, and deserted 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. Squir-
rels, 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.

Threshing and wintering of cattle are resumed.
Many operations of manuring, draining, levelling

324 NOVEMBER.

ant-hills and other inequalities, irrigating, ploughing,
and fencing, go on by intervals as the weather per-
mits. 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,
etc. fill up 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 Derby-
shire, 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 Hampshire, 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, arid
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.

NOVEMBER. 325

MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS.

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 (Enas, Stock Dove, comes Nov. 29, goes Feb. Woods, caves

on sea-shore.
Nyroca ferina, Red-headed Pocher, comes Nov. 19, goes March 3.

Fens.

DEPARTURES NONE.

CALENDAR OP THE FLOWER-GARDEN.
Class IV. Order 2. Hamamelis Virginica, Wych Hazel.

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.

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.

WINTER. 327

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 pass'd, 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.

Say not 'tis an unlovely time !

Turn to the wide, white 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 nothern land of snow,

Beyond the icy Orcades.

328 WINTER.

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, —

Saidst thou that they were stripp'd 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,
Is not God manifest by night ?

Thou that createdst all ! Thou fountain
Of our sun's light — who dwellest far
From man, beyond the farthest star,
Yet ever present ; who doth 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 ;

For that which comprehendeth thee,

A spark of thy divinity,

Which is the being of our being !

WINTER. 329

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 garner'd heap,

Against the time of storm and need.

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 !
28*

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 scalcth up the hand of every man; that all men may know his
works.

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 given; and the breadth of the waters
is straitened.

JOB xxxvii. 6—10.

GAWAIN DOUGLAS, the celebrated Bishop of Dun-
keld, has given the following most excellent sketch
of Winter ; which Warton has rendered from anti-
quated 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 dike.
From the crags, and the foreheads of the yellow
rocks, hung great icicles, in length like a spear.
The soil was dusky and gray, bereft of flowers,
herbs, and grass. In every hold and forest, the
woods 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
I

DECEMBER. 331

thick briars, shunning the tempestuous blast, and
changing their loud notes to chirping ; the cataracts
roared, and every linden-tree whistled and brayed
to the sounding of the wind. The poor labourer?,
wet and weary, draggled in the fen. The sheep
and shepherds lurked under the hanging banks, or
wild broom. Warm from the chimney-side, and
refreshed with generous cheer, I stole to my bed
and lay down to sleep, when I saw the moon shed
through the window her twinkling glances, and
wintry light;! heard the horned bird, the night-
owl , shrieking horribly with crooked bill from her
cavern; I heard the wild geese with screaming
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 tempests, 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 dawn-
ing day. I rose, and half opening my window, per-
ceived the morning, livid, wan, and hoary ; the air
overwhelmed with vapour and cloud; the ground
stiff, gray, and rough; the branches rattling; the
sides of the hill looking black and hard with driving
blasts ; the dew-drops congealed on the stubble and
rind of trees ; the sharp hailstones, deadly cold, hop-
ping on the thatch and the neighbouring cause-
way."

&32 DECEMBER.

We are now placed in the midst of such wintry
scenes as this. Nature is stripped of all her sum-
mer drapery. Her verdure, her foliage, her flowers
have all vanished. The sky is filled with clouds and
gloom, or sparkles only with 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 all over the world, now hiss
like serpents, 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 com-
fort. The farmer has driven his flocks and cattle
into sheltered home inclosures, where they may
receive from his provident care that food which the
earth now denies them ; or into the farmyard itself,
where some honest Giles piles their cratches plenti-
fully with fodder. The labourer has fled from the
field to the barn, and the measured strokes of
his flail 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, and reptiles,
whither are they all gone ? The birds that filled
the air with their music, the rich blackbird, the
loud and cheerful thrush, the linnet, lark, and gold-
finch, whither have they crept ? The squirrel that
played his antics on the forest-tree, and all the
showy and varied tribes of butterflies, moths, dra-

DECEMBER. 333

gon-flies, beetles, wasps, and warrior-hornets, bees,
and cockchafers, whither 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 wintry 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 are collected round
the social hearth, where Christmas brings his annual
store of frolic and festivities ; and the author, like the
bee, withdrawn 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 motion,
in sundry places in this little island ! In splendid
libraries, furnished with every bodily comfort, and
every literary and scientific resource, 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-author" scrawls, with num-
bed fingers and a shivering frame, what will be
coldly received, and as quickly forgotten as himself;

334 DECEMBER.

in pleasent boudoirs, at rose-wood desks, where
lady-fingers pen lady-lays ; in ten thousand nooks
and recesses, the pile of books is growing, under
which shelves, booksellers and readers, shall groan,
ere many months elapse. Another season shall
come round, 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 la-
ment them, or think that all this " labour under the
sun" has been vain. Literary tradesmen have
been indulged in speculation ; critics have been em-
ployed ; and authors have enjoyed the excitement of
hope, the enthusiasm 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 prominent
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 concave, and 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 constella-
tions with a more queenly grace ; sometimes with-
out 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 spectacle
of which the contemplative eye is never weary ;

DECEMBER. 335

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 insig-
nificance of self. A breathing atom, a speck, even,
upon the surface of a world which is itself a speck in
the universal world, we send our imaginations forth
amongst the innumerable orbs, all stupendous in mag-
nitude, all swarming with existence, vainly striving to
reach the boundaries of space, till, astonished and
confounded, it recoils from the hopeless task, aching,
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 ma-
terial cell, in adoration and humility. Such are
the feelings and speculations which have attended
the human spirit in all ages, in contemplating this
magnificent spectacle. David has beautifully ex-
pressed their effect upon him ; and there is a paper
in the Spectator, Vol. viii. No. 565, which forms an
admirable commentary upon his eloquent exclama-
tion. The awful vastness of the power of the
Deity, evinced in the scenes which night reveals,
is sure to abase the pride of our intellect, 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

DECEMBER.

animate us with the proud prospect of an eternity
of still perfecting and ennobling existence.

But the year draws to a close. I see symptoms
of its speedy exit. I see holly and misletoe in the
market, in every house that I visit, in every window
that I pass, except in those of 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
philosophically right, but poetically wrong. I see
the apprentice boys going along the streets, from
house to house, distributing those little annual re-
membrances called Christmas-bills ; and my imagi-
nation 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, important, and well-to-
do citizens ; or, as it may chance to them, shrunk
into the thin, shrivelled, and grasshopper-like beings
that care and disappointment convert men into.
And this awakens 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 con-
summated ! — what a tide of passions and affections
has flowed — what lives and deaths has alternately
arrived — what destinies have been fixed for ever,

DECEMBER. 337

wbiJe we have loitered on a violet-path, and watched
the passing splendours of the Seasons. Once more
our planet has 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 nature. 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 hap-
piness. There is no time in which I feel these sen-
timents more strongly than when I behold the moon
rising over a solitary summer landscape. The re-
pose of all creatures on the earth makes more sen-
sibly felt the incessant care of Him who thus sends
up " his great light to rule the night," and to shine
29

338 DECEMBER.

softly and silently above millions of sleeping crea-
tures, 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, building up this " Book
of the Seasons ;" and in the spirit of thankful hap-
piness and " goodwill to all," I thus bring it to an
end.

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 denuded. 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 appella-
tion given him by our ancestors, in the name of
Winter -monath ; to wit, winter-month : but after the
Saxons received Christianity, they then, out of devo-
tion to the birth-time of Christ, termed it Heligh-
monath ; that is to say, holy-month. Sayers adds,

DECEMBER. 339

they also called it Midwinter-monath, Guil-erra,
which means the former or first guil. Guil, now
corrupted, yule, was the feast of Thor, celebrated
at the winter solstice, and so called from id or ol,
which signifies " all."

RURAL OCCUPATIONS.

Except in clear, frosty weather, when manure
can be carted out, all operations have concentrated
themselves round home : tending and feeding sheep
in their sheltered pastures, young cattle and colts in
their sheds, and all the collected 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, threshing, winnowing, sacking,
and carrying the corn to market.

The business of the garden this month consists,
principally, in matting and defending trees and
plants against the cold, and preparing the earth for
spring.

ANGLING.

They who can angle at this season deserve the
name of sportsmen. The excellence of the gray-
ling at this time is, however, a temptation.

340 DECEMBER.

CALENDAR OP THE FLOWER-GARDEN.

Chut V. Order 3. Viburnum Tinus, Laurustinus. 2.
Viburnum \.fol. variegat. Striped-leaved Laurustinus.
Viburnum v. lucidum, Shining-leaved Laurustinus.
Viburnum v. sfriclum, Upright Laurustinus.

MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS.
ARRIVALS.

Anas acuta, Pintailed Duck, comes Dec. goes Feb. Haunt*. Lakes

and shores.
Anser Brenta, Brent Wildgoosc, comes Dec. 18, goes P'eb. 3. Lakes

and marshes.
Anscr Ery thropus, 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.
Kmberiza nivalis, Snow-flake, goes Jan. Mountains.
Mergus Merganser, Gray-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.

Mergus albellus, White-Nun, goes Feb. Sea-shore.
Nyroca Fuligula, Tufted Pocher, comes Dec. 15, goes Jan. 19. Shores

and fresh meres.

Nyroca Marila, Scaup Duck, goes Feb. Coast in hard winters.
Oidemia nigra, Black Duck, or Diver, goes Feb. Coast in hard winters.
Oidemia fusca, Velvet Duck, goes Feb. Sea-shore.
Somateria mollissima, Eider Duck, goes Feb. Tarn Island, North-
umberland.

DEPARTURE.

Squatarola cinerea. Gray Plover, goes Dec. 1. comes Aug. 26. Haunt,
Beach.

DECEMBER. 341

ALL SEASONS WELCOME.

Who docs 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 dropping 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 flics.

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,
Or rains that dash, or snows that spread the ground
With purity and stillness ; — at their call
Bright flings the fire its fuiry summer round,
And the lamp lights the volumc-trophicd wall ;
Thought is once more enthroned — the Spirit in her hall.

Welcome ! right welcome, feelings warm and rich !
Welcome ! right welcome, yo rejoicing crowd
Of fancies, each unto its winter niche
That homeward flees 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.

519*

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OCT 3 1942

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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY

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