APBIL. 131 



some stream, whining like a child among the pebbles 

 of its native hills ; and there leaping from bank to bank 

 amidst a maze of long-stalked blue-bells and broad- 

 leaved Samsons, with rampant thickets bursting into 

 verdure about our steps, have wandered with the 

 wandering stream, excited into happiness and forgetful 

 of all but the peaceful influences of the moment. 



CLAEE has associated the Arum or " Cuckoo-pint 5: 

 {Arum maculatum), with this month. 



" Hooded Arum early sprouting up;" 



and its leaves, often spotted with black, are among 

 the earliest to catch the eye, while its curious inflor- 

 escence surmounted by a purple spadix, and enclosed 

 within a large green hood, like a friar's cowl, has been 

 always the object of popular notice. This purple club 

 with its floral appendages bear various familiar names, 

 as "cows and calves," "lords and ladies," &c., as thus 

 noticed by the Northamptonshire poet the fully ma- 

 tured dark purpled spadices being bulls or lords, the 

 paler ones cows or ladies, and immature ones calves. 



" How sweet it us'd to be, when April first 

 Unclosed the Arum leaves, and into view 

 Its ear-like spindling flowers their cases bxirst, 

 Betinged with yellowish white or lushy hue ; 

 Ah, how delighted, humming on the time 

 Some nameless song or tale, I sought the flowers; 

 Some rushy dyke to jump, or bank to climb 

 Ere I obtain'd them ; while from hasty showers 

 Oft under trees we nestled in a ring, 

 Culling our ' lords and ladies.' O ye hours.'' 



The Arum appears to have been mentioned by 

 SHAKSPEAEE, as "long-purples," though it is generally 

 contended that the immortal bard had the purple 

 Orchis (0. masculd), in his view. But the name of 



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