214 CORRESPONDENCE. 



Miserably cold, gloomy, and ungenial. A little after noon I placed a thermo- 

 meter outside the window, towards the south-west, and it only indicated 

 38 degrees." 



Now I know a copse by the side of the river Severn, where, in fonner years, I 

 could constantly hear numbers of Nightingales invariably on the 8th or 9th of 

 April ; but this year the first I heard was on the 5th of May, though with an 

 ear not altogether careless to Nature's dulcet sounds. I saw the Spring Oatear 

 (Budytes verna) for the first time this year on the 25th of April, and on the 

 same day a troop of Swallows. The Cuckoo was not heard here till the 28th of 

 the same month, and the country even now does not resound as wont to do with 

 that " curious voice " so pleasing to the recollection. I did not even hear the 

 Wryneck before the same day. Yet the Swift, unwilling to shorten his usual 

 three months sojourn, and having African engagements on the 2nd of August, 

 was punctual to the 1st of May this year, as I have often noticed him before. 

 But what can be said of vegetation ? The Blackthorn was not in flower till the 

 1st of May, and if a premium of £100 were now offered for a branch of Flow- 

 ering May, or Hawthorn, I know not where to procure one. Indeed the hedges 

 are only now beginning to appear green ; but as for Elm or Oak, they positively 

 look as denuded as they did in February.* The Cherry only put forth its blos- 

 soms on the 7th of May, and as yet there is no appearance of opening flowers on 

 the orchard Pear-trees — indeed I greatly fear the bloom is totally destroyed. 

 Last Friday, in the course of a ramble, perceiving a large Pear partially arrayed 

 in- leaf, I was induced to examine a tree that thus seemed to have stood the 

 stormy blast better than its neighbours ; but alas ! on close inspection, the blos- 

 soms only partly, and in most instances not at all expanded, were withered, com- 

 pletely nipped, and even, so to speak, scorched up by the frosts, and the leaves 

 had thus precociously risen around the destroyed blossoms to hide, with their 

 sympathetic shade, the frightful picture of desolation that would otherwise have 

 presented itself to view. 



To change the subject — I really hail The Naturalist now in his sober quaker- 

 like dress — he seems like a man who has doffed his pumps and silk-stockings, and 

 need no longer be afraid of wetting his feet or pricking his fingers. Depend upon 

 it he will be all the better received for it everywhere, appearing like a straight- 

 forward, active, honest, worthy, enquiring fellow, who will, I hope, gain golden 

 opinions from all. To drop allegory, The Naturalist looks like a scientific work, ; 

 and there are real marks of research, intellect, and originality in its papers. The 

 fresh air agrees with it. Do not, however, think for a moment I allude to any- 



* Even now (June 13) the Oaks are not in full leaf in Yorkshire and in the south, we under- 

 •tand they are yet more backward. — Ed. 



