12 I WILD FLOWEKS OF 



season, when a high wind lashes the young smooth 

 shoots of the past year against each other high in air, 

 with a shrill, straining, yet not unmusical sound ; 

 combined with the roaring of the wind among the 

 branches, while all is calm and still below. So the 

 thoughtful and contemplative naturalist, treads his 

 lonely quiet path, below the noise and convulsions of 

 the perturbed world around him, happy in his wood- 

 land shade. 



The lover of nature, now looking out every morn- 

 ing for fresh objects of attraction, cannot fail to be 

 delighted while he is searching among groves and 

 streams, or toiling up dark stony ravines among the 

 hills, with the successive arrival of the various migra- 

 tory birds, which always takes place at this cool leaf- 

 ing time. A south-west wind is very favourable to 

 their appearance, and they will thus often be seen in 

 numbers among the trees on the banks of a stream 

 where one was not visible the day before. Thus in 

 certain favourite haunted localities, among violets and 

 primroses, where a coppice is divided by a gurgling 

 stream that in some places buries itself among black 

 lichenized pebbles, with its sides faced and tiled with 

 the glaucous-green Marchantia, on a bright April 

 morning the notes of the Nightingale, Titlark, Black- 

 cap, and "Willow-Wren, may all be heard in delightful 

 unison, while the pauses of the concert are filled up 

 by the loud cheer of the song Thrush, or the echoing 

 nourish of the "Woodpecker. Such a copse tempting 

 the early foot of contemplation it has been often my 

 delight to visit when the purple orchis with spotted 

 leaf was springing from the dewy pasture, and the 

 humble Robin-run-i'-the-hedge was opening its blue 



